Fallout 24

News
Sydney Morning Herald says Ricco was caught in part because of a marker molecule Roche put into CERA specifically for this purpose.

Yet, there is still no word on any of Piepoli's tests. Curious, that, eh?

IHT reports that Roche did NOT plant a marker in Micera, contrary to the claim above, where Fahey seems to have left the wrong impression, as it were.

Roche Holding, which makes a version of a stamina-building drug illegally used by some athletes, said it didn't plant a molecule in the substance to help identify it in doping tests, spokeswoman Martina Rupp said, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.

[...]

John Fahey, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that Roche planted a molecule in its red-cell boosting product CERA, or Continuous Erythropoietin Receptor Activator, during its manufacture to help anti-doping authorities detect its illegal use. Roche sells the drug as Mircera.

"The information that a special molecule has been added to Mircera is wrong," Rupp said in an e-mail.

WADA issued a statement Wednesday saying that Fahey's remarks had been misinterpreted. The agency said the drug can be detected because Roche and accredited sport-doping laboratories worked with the agency early.

"WADA received the molecule well in advance and was able to develop ways to detect it, including through the current EPO detection method," the agency said in the statement.

The last is interestring, because it says there are multiple independant methods of detecting Micera.

But still no report on Piepoli's tests.

Bicycling has a long report on Slipstream, and the proof that Vande Velde is clean, doggonit, by getting data on him and Millar from the ACE and UCI passport programs. It was reviewed by Ashendon. He doesn't look much at hematocrit, but reticulates and OFF score, and marches through data saying everything looks basically OK. It also highlights some variability issues with equipment and transport that make looking at raw numbers problematic:

Lab quality control counts for a lot as well. On one extreme example, Millar was tested late in the Giro d'Italia on the same day by both ACE and the UCI. The UCI results showed a reticulocyte count of 1.15; the ACE test showed only .8; OFF-Scores were 86 and 96, respectively. The test is an object lesson in the perils of relying on hematocrit, as Millar pegged a 49 percent rating on the ACE test, but only 44.4 on the UCI test. According to ACE, his average readings are .86 (retic) 91.82 (OFF-Score) and 44.16 (Hct).

While a hematocrit rising to 49 at the end of a three-week stage race would be a clear cause for concern, Vaughters explained that the ACE test that day had been processed by a partner lab in Italy that had clearly had sample transport issues (causing the red cells to swell and throw off the hematocrit reading). He pointed out that David's reticulocyte count, hemoglobin and OFF-Score that day were within normal ranges and the UCI scores were similarly unremarkable. Finally, he said that he'd be concerned if David had been showing fantastic form at the same time, but noted Millar lost 10 minutes that day and 31 the next. The culprit, then? The lab. "We will not be using that lab again," he said.

Landis got whacked on this issue when some of his raw numbers from 2006 came out.

NBCOlympics reports a A + B positive for stimulants on US Olympic Swim Team member Jessica Hardy. Landis-slammer Abrahamson takes the neutral position on this case, not calling her a dirty, guilty doper cheat. Why do you suppose that would be?

Blogs
Steroid Report discusses biosimilar EPO agents and the BBC report, and has a list of over 40 that are available. Then he lays into WADA's public posturing:

I think the science director of WADA could be considered delusional in his claim that WADA is catching all users of recombinant EPO.

Dr Olivier Rabin is WADAs science director. Is he happy that the test is catching all the drug cheats?

I am reasonably confident, yes, he told the BBC. Now, it would be very presumptuous on my part to say that we are absolutely 100% sure we are going to get everyone. But I can assure you that if you were to take recombinant EPO and that would be in your urine - then, yes, we would detect it.

Maybe the public will buy it, but the athletes already know better.

Mesomorphosis notes a so-far-unsuccessful attempt to void domain name registrations for sites that sell steroids as violations of the registrar's terms-of-service.

Flahute has a theory why Amgen doesn't have markers in its EPO:

In the United States, it would be nearly impossible to insert a marker into a drug after the fact, as it would have to go through the entire testing and approval process from the FDA all over again, which is why Epogen and Aranesp (Amgens EPO drugs) have taken so long to become detectable; they werent designed with the markers already built in, so the drug-testers had to devise another way.

But Micera (the brand-name for CERA) was developed with the marker already built in; a fact that surely would have been disclosed to the approvers, and obviously to WADA, but not widely spread, especially to the athletes. And what better way to catch the cheaters than to not tell them HOW youre going to catch them.

This is the right way to catch drug cheats; not witch hunts.

Adding:

Yeah, Floyd Landis likely doped. He still got screwed by a system which admits no wrong and the system still has a lot of other problems. Now that Dick Pound is no longer pounding his dick at WADA, their organizational issues should get better. Its too bad hes now a part of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but one step at a time and well clean up both the sport and the governing bodies.

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The Myth of Neutral Support

Augustyn is crawling back up the hill, sans bike. Motos are stopped, something has obviously happened. Yet the friendly neutral support vehicle rolls right on by, and Augustyn has to wait for his team car to show up with a new bike.

Why didn't Mavic stop? Did they not have any bikes on the top of the car?

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Fallout 23

News
ESPN/Reuters says that according to the AFLD Ricardo Ricco tried to avoid being tested at the Tour by running away from the controllers.

The JournalGazette thinks that doping at the Tour de France is nothing new, it just matters more now that sponsors are pulling out and thanks to Lance we all know what it actually is.

TAS-CAS issued a press release noting acceptance of three disciplinary cases. Rasmussen is appealing his suspension by the Monaco Cycling Federation; and there are two appeals of EPO cases that address WADA criteria. One is by an biathlon skiier/shooter Kaisa Varis, who appears to be claiming the B sample was not done properly; the other is by the IAAF, which is unhappy the Slovenian Athletic Federation ruled the B sample of distance runner Helena Javornik was not positive.

Psychiatry MMC, a peer-reviewed journal, looks at where the line should be drawn on use of drugs by athletes. Abstract:

The integrity of sport is predicated on the assumption that all athletes compete on a level playing field. Unfortunately, the use and abuse of performance-enhancing drugs has become ubiquitous, creating complex challenges for the governing bodies of individual sports. This article examines the complexity of these issues within the world of professional golf, major league baseball, and Olympic competition. Integral concepts like, What is a therapeutic exemption? and When does restorative function end and performance enhancement begin? are discussed in detail.

It being Psychiatry MMC, not Journal of Andrology, it concludes with this policy puzzler:

Another developing concern is the use of antidepressants for treating what is commonly termed over-training syndrome. Overtraining refers to a negative response to training stress and is often due to chronically high training levels without periods of lower training loads.[12] Overtraining also can lead to fatigue and depression.[13] It has been hypothesized that overtraining syndrome may involve disregulation of brain serotonin and neuroendocrine function.[15,16] Treatment logically dictates that SSRIs and SNRIs should be effective, and these have anecdotally been reported to help athletes with this common problem.[17] Moreover, the use of SNRIs for various pain conditions makes one consider if this class of drug can benefit endurance athletes who inherently cope with tremendous pain during training and competition. The question should be asked if the use of an antidepressant in these situations is fair.

Pez has an interesting article on a recent study on hydration, suggesting less is adequate. No Landis content.

Blogs
Rant notes that we seem to be living in "interesting times", just look at Saunier Duval if you doubt it.

Racejunkie suggests that there might be a whole lot of "cheatin'" goin' on at the Tour de France this year. At least some riders seem to be trying, while others are denying.

Fellowship of the Chainring looks at Ricco's bust with approval, and

I cant imagine what might have happened had Floyd Landis won his appeal.

We the SportsPeople, says, "Floyd Landis we hardly knew ye"

re: Cycling says at the end of the day, you're on your own climbing, and witnesses the Stage 16 bonk.

Reference Desk
A reader asked about the ProTour "double your ban" rule that we think now obsolete. We've found a copy of the agreement, which we believe isn't a UCI regulation, but a voluntary statement by the teams amongst themselves. It isn't really a "double your ban" rule, but a four-year "no-hire" policy for cases of intentional doping.

Bummer for Vande Velde today.

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Fallout 22

News
ESPN/AP says CONI has sprung a surprise doping test on CSC/Saxo which of course includes Frank Schleck the TdF yellow jersey wearer. Results have not yet been announced.

Bloomberg reports pay cuts of as much as thirty per-cent in the peloton. Some are getting about $ €1.38 a mile for the Tour, which is a tough way to make a living.

A BBC investigation reveals grave concerns over inadequate EPO testing and the "obvious cheating" that may be occurring in various sporting events, as well as the trouble that may ensue from this at the Beijing Olympics:

(But) the BBC's sources are highly critical of the performance of the WADA-accredited laboratories that carry out EPO tests

Danish researchers recently set out to test how well the labs can detect EPO by medicating eight student volunteers with the drug over a period of weeks. The athletic performance of these students improved in some cases by 50%. But when over 100 urine samples from the students were sent anonymously to two WADA-approved laboratories, they produced very different results. One of the labs declared none of the samples positive

Damsgaard writes an Op-Ed for the BBC, where he decries WADAs conservatism on declaring EPO positives.

[W]hy do neither the WADA accredited laboratories nor WADA themselves declare the samples "positive"? Despite numerous enquiries, WADA refuses to make any changes.

The simplified "legal answer" from WADA and the laboratory is that they are not in possession of the specific kind of artificial EPO that the athletes have used.

As long as the kind of EPO is unknown, there will be no positive test results. WADA has promised that as soon as they track the right EPO, the samples will be declared positive.

And he makes some constructive suggestions:

There are ways to catch or convert the cheaters. First of all, blood profiles must be implemented in all relevant sports federations. Large, unnatural deviations from the individuals' own previous tests results should lead to a "no start" sanction for a given period.

Not before the blood profile has returned to normal is the athlete allowed to compete again. In addition, blood tests should be used to target urine samples.

Then WADA's criteria of a positive EPO urine test should be re-evaluated. Instead of defining a specific signature for each and every different kind of EPO, the definition of a "normal test result" should be developed.

Every test result deviating from this "negative reference" should be considered positive. An alternative approach is to arrange a meeting, where the suspected athlete, a representative from the sports federation and an external anti-doping expert should attend.

Factors like illnesses, genetic factors, strenuous exercise and so on, which could explain the suspicious results, should be disclosed.

In truth, this meeting should be arranged with the sole objective to show the athlete that the federation knows what is going on, and make it clear that from now on the athlete will be tested excessively.

We like "no starts" for profile violations, but don't much like easing the positivity criteria because of the presumptions in the WADA Code that an AAF is a definitive result. The "chat with the boys" is also a good idea.

The CyclingNews writes about the claims stated in the above BBC piece by Dr.Rasmus Damsgaard that WADA is sitting on "a mountain of EPO":

According to Dr Rasmus Damsgaard, an anti-doping expert who oversees the internal testing programs for both CSC-Saxo Bank and Astana, WADA laboratories are sitting on "a mountain of positive EPO" from athletes that have not failed a test. Dr Damsgaard inspected the electronic profiles, or gels as they are known, of five samples declared negative by a WADA laboratory, and said they showed clear signs of EPO being present.

"It was very obvious that the gels were very un-natural or very different from natural distributions," Damsgaard told the BBC. "But I also saw that they were declared negative because they didn't fulfil the WADA criteria of a positive test; although they looked suspicious and had no natural bands at all, they were still declared negative.

The Columbia Tribune (tip from a reader) has an op-ed that wonders about the difficulty of moving to "clean" sport.

What did cycling officials get for being willing to turn over all the rocks? They got a reputation for presiding over the dopiest sport in the world. So when we wonder why our favorite professional sports leagues wont clean up their acts, we should realize the answer is that we cant handle the truth.

A reader points us to a forthcoming book, A Guide to the World Anti-Doping Code. At $160 for 256 pages, the economies of the copier come to mind, but it would be wrong. It is blurbed:

Doping is the biggest problem facing sport. The World Anti-Doping Code has been adopted by sporting organisations worldwide at both national and international level to provide a consistent and harmonised approach to anti-doping measures. The adoption of the Code, and its interpretation and application by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, has brought about great changes in sports law. This book provides a guide to the Code, illustrated through summaries of decisions by the Court of Arbitration for Sport and national level tribunals which show the Code in operation. It will assist all those involved in sport, whether as administrators, coaches or players, together with those who advise in the area and those interested in the operation of the current anti-doping regime. The book also explains the Amendments to the Code agreed in 2007 which are scheduled to come into force by January 2009.

Case summaries illustrate the key principles of the Code and earlier anti-doping regimes Reviews the amendments due to come into force in January 2009 Written by a barrister who regularly represents athletes and sporting bodies in tribunals and before the Court of Arbitration for Sport

Contents Introduction; 1. The development of principles relating to anti-doping regimes: the role of the Court of Arbitration for Sport; 2. Overview of the Code and the World Anti-Doping Program; 3. The international standards in more detail; 4. The nature of the Code and its interpretation and application; 5. Articles 1 and 2 of the Code: anti-doping rule violations under the Code; 6. Article 3 of the Code: the proof of anti-doping rule violations under the Code; 7. Responsibility for testing and investigations, results management and hearings; 8. Sanctions for anti-doping rule violations: Articles 9 and 10 of the Code; 9. Article 13: appeals under the Code; 10. Challenges to the Code in the Courts; 11. The way ahead: the 2007 amendments to the Code.

It doesn't say if there are any Forewords, but we'd guess Richards Pound or Young would be likely candidates. There is nothing in the contents about fairness or equity, which are equally absent from the Code itself.

Blogs
Steroid Report cites Larry's excellent discussion posted last night on the legitimacy of the new "secret" CERA test and how its use might be further illuminated by the Hamilton case.

The Philly Turkey imagines a scenario that has not occurred since the award. It's one of the better attempts at satire we've seen, and 'splains why Landis has been silent in reality.

Forums
On Rec.bicycles.racing, Mike Jacoubowsky makes an interesting point. Valid or not, if Landis' A sample report had shown up a few days earlier, it's likely he would have been tossed out of the Tour as we've seen with others recently.

This is part of a long thread which includes some good discussion, to which we'll highlight this by 2bowl...

(2) I have discussed some of the doping detection issues with a few individuals from WADA and related labs. It is not unreasonable to suggest that some (but not all) of these individuals have lost perspective. Those individuals are convinced that everyone cheats and all should be punished. A scientific issue thus becomes a religious quest. This is a huge problem as objectivity is eliminated.

[...]
[A]lthough we would both like to see the same outcome (elimination of doping) I simply don't agree that encouraging poor testing and political agendas is the right way to do this

To which Mike replied

There's very little you've said that I disagree with, and I think you've misunderstood my position. I feel there should be draconian penalties for the labs and the ASO or WADA or whomever when they get it wrong, and the threat of those draconian penalties should
provide for more-accurate results and fewer screw-ups.

As we know, there seem to be zero consequences in the WADA Code or in practice for Labs, Agencies, Federations or Organizers who Get it Wrong.

Noble the idea may be, 2bowl... uses math to trump sentiment:

Here's the problem - it isn't necessarily a screw-up on the part of the labs. It is a statistical probability that the tests will result in an occasional false positive and equally an occasional false negative through different tests have different rates of both failures.

Unfortunately, numbers and statistics about false positives are not something WADA World and CAS like to talk about, or have brought to their attention.

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Larry: New CERA test, looking at Hamilton's HBT

Hamilton v. USADA & UCI,

And What It Tells Us About The CERA Anti-Doping Cases

We've seen a lot of discussion over the last few days on the anti-doping testing being performed at this year's Tour de France (TdF) to detect a new drug, a third-generation form of EPO called CERA. Up until a few days ago, most of us had no idea that there WAS a third generation form of EPO, let alone that it might be used by cyclists as a performance-enhancing drug (PED). Many experts, who were well aware of CERA and its potential as a PED, were unaware that any anti-doping lab claimed to have the ability to detect this drug. After all, there had been no published discussion of any such test. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had published no rules on how such a test should be conducted, or interpreted. To my knowledge, there has not even been a discussion in the scientific literature on the detection of CERA.

[MORE]


Then all of a sudden, we had last week's explosion of news: the adverse analytical findings (AAFs) announced by the French anti-doping lab (AFLD) against cyclists allegedly using CERA, together with the revelation that the AFLD had in its arsenal a previously undisclosed test for the detection of CERA.

The TdF news concerning the detection of CERA has raised a lot of questions, including legal questions. How is it that AFLD can use a "secret" test, one that is not referenced in any of the WADA rules? How can we know that the lab's test is valid? If there are no WADA rules for the test, how can the lab determine that the results of the test are sufficient to prove an AAF?

I'm not going to try to answer all of these questions.

But I do think it would be valuable at this point to look at the CAS decision in the Tyler Hamilton case. The Hamilton decision provides guidance on how the ADAs may try to prove an AAF in these CERA cases.

(For those of you who'd like to read the Hamilton decision, you can find it here.)

The Hamilton case arose during the 2004 Vuelta de Espana (Tour of Spain). Hamilton won a stage in that race, and underwent a specific kind of blood test (called a HBT test) performed by the WADA-accredited lab in Switzerland. According to the Swiss lab, the HBT test revealed that Hamilton had undergone a homologous blood transfusion in violation of the WADA rules. A homologous blood transfusion is a transfusion of someone else's blood into the athlete’s system (as opposed to an autologous transfusion, which is a transfusion of the athlete's own blood). Such a transfusion, when used to improve an athlete's performance, is commonly called "blood doping".

The main issue in the Hamilton case was this: the HBT test was a new test at the time it was used in the Hamilton case. When the Swiss lab performed this test, it did not have specific accreditation to do so -- not from its ISO 17025 inspector, and not from WADA. Without such accreditation, was the test valid?

Let's detour for a moment and discuss the issue of lab method accreditation. The primary set of WADA rules governing labs is WADA’s International Standard for Laboratories (ISL). Incorporated within the ISL is ISO 17025 (sometimes called ISO/IEC 17025), issued by the International Organization for Standardization. ISO 17025 provides operating rules governing testing labs world-wide; the ISL provides specific rules for the field of doping control. The ISL provides that all WADA laboratories are required to be accredited by a national accreditation body and periodically audited according to ISO 17025 (see ISL Rules 4.1.1 and 6.4.7.2), and that all WADA lab methods and procedures must eventually be included in the scope of these periodic audits. See ISL Rule 4.2.2. In addition, all WADA labs are separately accredited by WADA. See ISL Rule 4.1.

We have considered these rules in our discussion of the Landis case. The lab methods in the Landis case were all accredited under ISO 17025 and the ISL (whether these methods were PROPERLY accredited is an open question in my mind). Since these methods were accredited, the lab in the Landis case (LNDD) received an important benefit under WADA Code 3.2.1: the lab was presumed to have conducted its analysis in accordance with the ISL. This is a powerful presumption that is difficult for an athlete to overcome, and had much to do with the decision made against Landis.

In the Hamilton case, it was clear that blood doping was a violation of the WADA Code. However, the WADA code did not address how a lab was to prove that an athlete had blood doped. Moreover, the HBT test had not been accredited at the time it was performed in the Hamilton case. So, the validity of the HBT test was probably the key issue in the Hamilton case.

The panel noted that under WADA Code Section 3.2, the "facts relating to anti-doping violations may be established by any reliable means." From this, the panel concluded that it is not necessary for WADA to approve a lab method before the method can be used to prove an AAF.

The panel also ruled that a WADA lab CAN use an unaccredited test method to prove an AAF, so long as the lab can prove two things. First, the lab must prove that the unaccredited test method was conducted "in accordance with the scientific community's practices and procedures." Second, the lab must prove that it "satisfied itself as to the validity of the [unaccredited] method before using it." If the lab can satisfy this two-pronged burden of proof, then (according to the Hamilton decision) the lab gets the benefit of the presumption under WADA Code 3.2.1. If the lab cannot satisfy this burden, then the lab method in question cannot be used, and the AAF against the athlete must be dismissed.

The reasoning in the Hamilton case was based on the panel's assumption that sometimes WADA labs must use unaccredited test methods. New forms of doping arise all the time, but the formal lab accreditation process is relatively slow (the method at issue in the Hamilton case was not formally validated until more than a year after the lab's finding of the Hamilton AAF). If labs are going to detect new performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), they may have to do so with new (and thus unaccredited) test methods. But since accreditation is an important step in making sure that test methods are "fit for purpose", the panel reasoned that the validity of unaccredited test methods must be defended by the lab and ultimately ruled upon by the arbitration panel.

There is, of course, an argument against the rule in the Hamilton case, which is that review of a lab method in arbitration is no substitute for ISO and ISL accreditation. It is unlikely that a few arbitrators, meeting in a location distant from the lab, can review a lab method in a manner comparable to experts in ISO and ISL requirements, who are present at the lab itself.

The ultimate question in cases like the Hamilton case is: can we give up the confidence that comes with formal lab method accreditation, in exchange for the ability to use a new lab method to catch doping that would otherwise go undetected? This is not an easy question to answer. In essence, the court tried to balance two competing interests: effective anti-doping testing versus the benefits of formal method accreditation. Whether the Hamilton decision struck the right balance is a matter for debate.

Turning back to the Hamilton decision: the CAS panel in the Hamilton case had no difficulty finding that the lab method in question was sufficiently reliable to support the AAF against Hamilton. The CAS panel based this finding on the following:

1. The HBT test was performed using a machine called a "flow cytometer", which has been used for a long time to analyze blood characteristics. So while the TEST was new, much of the technology involved in the test was established and well-accepted.

2. The panel in Hamilton found that the HBT test was similar to tests in common use to precisely match a donor's blood to a recipient's blood. In most cases, a patient can receive a blood transfusion based only on major blood type (A, B, O and Rh(D)), but in some cases (such as bone marrow transplants) it is necessary to match minor blood markers as well. The panel noted that flow cytometry is commonly used for this purpose.

3. The panel noted that the HBT test was based on research work supported by financial grants from WADA and USADA, and that the results of the research had been reported in peer-reviewed scientific publications. Moreover, the test in question was tentatively approved at a scientific meeting held prior to the 2004 Olympic Games to determine the drug testing that would be performed at these Games.

4. The HBT test was reviewed and "validated" at three different WADA labs prior to its use in the Hamilton case.

5. WADA had adopted "positivity criteria" for the HBT test prior to the 2004 Olympic Games, addressing what the HBT test would have to show in order for a particular test result to prove an AAF for blood doping.

6. The Swiss lab's HBT test method WAS eventually accredited by WADA and the ISO inspector.

Hamilton's legal team argued against the validity of the HBT test, on grounds that are familiar to us from the Landis case. Hamilton argued (among other things) that there had been inadequate control studies to support the HBT method, and that there had been no proper study of false positives or measure of uncertainty determined for this lab method. The CAS panel was not persuaded by these arguments, and (as you probably know) upheld the AAF against Hamilton. At least they did not require Hamilton to pay USADA's costs.

What can the Hamilton case tell us about the validity of the AFLD's method to test for CERA, and about the likelihood that the CAS will uphold AAFs based on this method? Not very much! We know nothing about the AFLD's method for CERA testing or how it might have been validated prior to this year's Tour de France. But the Hamilton case is a good guide to what the AFLD will need to do to prove its cases against Beltran, Duenas, Ricco and any others accused of using CERA in this year's Tour. The AFLD may not have to do everything that the Swiss lab did in the Hamilton case, but the AFLD will at least have to show that its CERA test is scientifically accepted and that it took proper steps to validate the test. This is, of course, a lot more than the LNDD had to do in the Landis case.

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Fallout 21

Questions of the Day

Various sources pass on the El Pais report that Saunier-Duval DS Joxean Matxinas said Ricco confessed EPO use to him. This is unconfirmed. He is also quoted as saying Piepoli told him he'd "done the same thing". Matxinas also said Ricco's control went a tour of its own to Lausanne, LNND, and Barcelona.

Now Ricco is denying having done EPO and says he will defend himself against the charge.

We do not yet have a reported test result for Piepoli, whose controls should be blinded amongst the perhaps 200+ samples that have been taken for the Tour.

1. Is there pressure to find a positive for Piepoli?
2. What would failure to find a Piepoli AAF say?
3. Might there be some bending of sample blinding?

News
It looks like Landis didn't go to Breckenridge for the NUE event yesterday. What's up? Hard to blame him for being unmotivated.

Oscar Peirero crashed badly on a descent in the Tour and is seriously injured. AP story. You can't say he wasn't trying.

Reuters says Ricco is going to dispute his test results:

He has denied any wrongdoing.

"It's necessary to wait for the counter-analysis, then see if the method they used to do the test is valid," the 24-year-old was quoted as saying in Sunday's La Gazzetta dello Sport. "I don't think it's 100 percent certain."

Good luck with that.


Guardian/Fotheringham thinks the "Drug-Busters" are winning, finally.

IHT runs an AP story under the headline, "A lot of dopes racing in the Tour de Farce", filled with equally original insight.

The LA Times runs a Sunday feature on the reliability of DNA tests, which aren't looking as good as some people assume. It also shows courts having difficulty evaluating scientific evidence.

Blogs
Steroid Nation points out reports that Spanish Doctor Jesus Losa is emerging as a potential EPO source. He'd been fingered by Millar way back, with no action taken. SN also thinks Ricco is channeling the Landis defense.


We went for a ride, and caught the race later on the Tivo. It was a barn burner, beating last week's 218 miles, 1007 TSS points and 7924 kj with 237 miles, 1065 TSS and 8617 kj. This left us wiped, and in a stupor to watch the bang-up stage. Too bad about Peirero, and Menchov's fall on a move. We'll all enjoy the rest day tomorrow, and look forward to Tuesday and Wednesday.

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Fallout XX

Floyd Landis was slated to take part in today's Breckenridge 100 NUE MTB race in Colorado. Any news we get on the race, and on Floyd's possible participation in it will be passed along asap.

News
CyclingNews reports on Ricardo Ricco's arrest for using "poisonous substances", his night in jail, and subsequent expulsion from France. Poisonous substances? Wonder if that bad Beaujolais Nouveau from a few years ago would qualify, hmmmmm. In other news some team managers feel that the UCI must be included in pro cycling's new iteration .

CN also says Barloworld is bailing as a sponsor after the Tour. Robbie Hunter has to be wondering what god he offended.

MedPage Today runs over some of the CERA and EPO issues, and conflicting senses about various aspects of testing. We're quoted as if we know something, but it's now two days of no-positive-tests, so there you go -- they got everybody.

In its letters column the CyclingNews offers some interesting reader opinions on the UCI, and boycotting the Tour as well as the Olympics.

The VeloNews' John Wilcockson writes a great piece on the unexpected effects doping has on those who cover cycling, and not only those who ride. He writes in particular about L'Equipe journalist Philippe Brunel who had written extensively on Ricco's ascension, and who now writes of him after his downfall:

Toward the end of his piece, Brunel said: “Another question poses itself: Why? Yes, why did [Riccò] sell his soul to the devil? To these preparers, these vultures without scruples, who circulate and gravitate in the shadow of the riders, knowing that they can’t “charge” themselves with this type of hormone without a scientifically competent environment? For the money? The glory? By reflex? ‘By unconsciousness or denial of reality, I don’t know,’ suggested Pietro Algeri, his directeur sportif. ‘You know, the riders don’t know how to evaluate reality."

The Daily Peloton says Michael Ball is running to be a Trustee of USPRO. That'll be a fun election.

The AP reported the Olympic dreams of Oscar Pistorius, the "Blade Runner". are over because he didn't run fast enough.

Blogs
Scenic City Sports urges us to slow down and realize the problem is racing in all its forms.

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Fallout XIX

As far as we know Floyd Landis is still scheduled to take part in this weekends' Breckenridge 100 NUE mountain bike race.

News
Everyone is reporting Piepoli and Ricco have been fired by Saunier-Duval. There's no known positive test for Piepoli, but he's said to have violated the "ethics pledge." Velonews; Reuters;

The CyclingNews has a number of editions and features stemming from the Ricco bust for EPO yesterday starting off with UCI concerns about the way cycling will be run without its guidance, and the cloudy future of the "bio passport" program.

In an earlier edition the CyclingNews says the ASO wants the cheaters out. Then why don't they test everyone, including riders for whom they may harbor special interests? This edition also contains rider response to Ricco's downfall.

Finally David Millar chimes in on the Ricco situation saying he knew Ricco was too good to be true. Maybe the ASO should use David Millar to find the cheats. Also in the piece is news that WADA is ahead of the detection curve on the "new" EPO, CERA.

Private email chides us for the habit we've gotten into of snarking Millar. (Like above.) What do we want him to do or say? Like it or not, he's a focal point whenever these things come up, and he's answering questions rather than running away.

Fair enough. We know it's easy to snark on someone you don't know, on whose situation one projects, from a safe distance. We've reported plenty of examples of that with Landis. Therefore, we'll declare a voluntary Millar-torium unless he's involved in something particularly newsworthy.


The Herald-Sun (News Corp, AU), rants against those who thought the sport had cleaned up, and calls Pantani and Landis "grubs".

Ode Magazine looks at the societal issues surrounding doping in cycling and wonders if since many people take Prozac, and other life "enhancers" that can be dangerous, who are we to take such umbrage at athletes who use PEDs? Instead of condemning them, we should put less pressure on them to succeed thus eliminating the need to dope. Nice thought, but athletes function within stated rules, and last we knew it was not illegal to take Prozac for depression.

Mail and Guardian (SA) talks about Robbie Hunter, an ex-Phonak teammate, and typically for a sprinter, doesn't mince words. On doping:

"It will stop being in the headlines when you guys [in the media] stop asking questions about it. If someone is exceptional it doesn't mean they are using products," he insists.

On Landis:

How does Hunter feel about the ruling? "I don't really give a damn. Floyd is a friend and he will always be a friend, finished."

On the UCI

"The ProTour means nothing. It will fall by the wayside in the next year. The people with the money -- and that means the ASO -- will win out. The UCI aren't the ones who are making the sport into a spectacle. If they fall by the wayside it will make no difference. If the ASO falls by the wayside there will be nothing to watch."

Hunter thought Duenas was in good form, but the interview was before the positive test.


ESPN/Bonnie Ford writes of the day after, noting the disbelief at Ricco's brazen behavior, and what clean riders ought to be taking pride in:

What separates these riders from the rest of us is not only their physical gifts but their incredible capacity to drive, motivate and discipline themselves. If a rider believes he has an edge, he does; so each of these teams has gone to extremes to experiment with innovative training methods, equipment and psychological support.

[...]

No detail is too small for the concept vetters on these teams. It all adds up to a process that should be a lot more satisfying than living in the clandestine world of injections, transfusions and drips.

ESPN also has a piece by Bobby Julich going every which way. He'd hoped it was an "old guard" problem, but Ricco, shows it's not, and he's frustrated.

I believe in the testing 100 percent. I have to believe the best riders of the Tour right now are performing naturally. Of course, when news like this comes out, you start to question yourself and ask, "Am I being naïve?"

Blogs
Rant writes about "le Tour de EPO" and Ricky Ricardo, er um Ricardo Ricco and wonders who will be next to be busted?

The Service Course reflects on the betrayal felt by journalists who feel like they been used as conduits of lies by riders subsequently found to be dopers. He goes back in time to reflect on a race he covered where the winning break consisted of eventual winner

Vaughters, Scott Moninger (then Mercury), Chris Wherry (then Saturn), and Floyd Landis (then Mercury).

Since that time, Wherry, god bless him, has kept his nose clean as best I can remember, and has a notable domestic career to look back on for it. The rest? Vaughters was implicated by his little IM conversation with Frankie Andreau, and though he smartly keeps mum on the details of his past, I think he’s done his penitence for any transgressions in a far more valuable manner than spending a couple years on the bench at the UCI’s behest. Moninger had a steroid positive several years later, which he claims was the result of a tainted supplement. And, well, we all know what happened to Floyd. Sort of.

So that breakaway doesn’t look quite so good in retrospect, but at the time, and based on what I knew for sure – which didn’t include what anyone there was smearing, swallowing, injecting, or sticking onto or into their bodies – it was a good story. So I wrote it like I saw it. And without a crystal ball, that’s all we can really do, isn’t it?

The Steroid Report discusses Ricardo Ricco's positive at the TdF for the "undetectable" Mircera. Thanks for the nice blurb.

Smithers in Minneapolis says Floyd Landis joined a group ride a friend was part of recently, and talked "smack" about the "cat 3" Tour de France. Smithers doesn't understand why Landis still has any sponsors.

Stubby Holder continues to express his dislike of cyclists (long vented against Landis), hoping fellow Ozzie Evans loses, because he he hates all of 'em.

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Three down

What we're seeing with the Tour so far is the start of positives, three so far; but the tested stages only go up to the first week. That we're only seeing one positive a day suggests a number of possibilities

• They can only do one test a day;
• They are not sampling that many, going only after targets;
• Everyone else is clean.

It seems to us given the complexity we saw with the IRMS tests, and the difficulties with Heras' tests, that the AFLD/LNDD may not be able to run very many tests at the same time, and is now severely overloaded with work. If we believe the witchdoctors concluded CERA was undetectable, and lots of riders were on it, then we might reasonably expect to see a running string of these reported results, one a day, until a few weeks after the end of the Tour.

Speculating, we might very well see 10 or 15 positives as a result of this race.

Now, we don't know how valid the tests are -- they may be false positives at a rate we do not know. But if they are backed up by searches and paraphenalia, or confessions, that will reduce the uncertainty. Still, if there are 15 positives, it is entirely possible that some of them will be false, and we should be careful to look at each case individually rather than assume that everything caught in this net is a rotten fish.

We have no reason to doubt that many of these tests are revealing doping, but we'd like something other than WADA code presumptions to prove the point. Police work is a good thing to have to support the conclusions.

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Fake News: UCI Collapse Throws Riders in Disarray

A comment passed on the following story from the Boston Fake News Service...


International stories often have regional affects, and this is true for yesterday's folding of cycling's international governing body,the UCI.

The UCI sanctions USA Cycling, and without the UCI, USA Cycling has no authority. Local races have been disrupted. We visited the weekly Charlie Baker Time Trial, a short race held every week in Concord. Cyclists came to race, only to be turned away. Cyclist Eugene Quadsky from Quincy said "I came here to do a time trial, and it turns out there's no one to take my money. If I can't buy a one-day license, how am I suppose to find out how fast I am?"

[MORE]


Carl Legzenfeit from Lexington agreed. "Without someone to pay, we're basically just a bunch of tourists out for a Sunday ride."

Some suggested that they could collect the money, as a replacement for the UCI was bound to come along soon. Someone volunteered to hold the money in escrow for up to five years. But ultimately most were worried that no replacement would be found by then, and that no one would ever sanction the results. Even if a new governing body formed, it was pointed out there's no guarantee they would sanction the race retroactively. Worse, riders worried that they would be forced to take their entry fees back.

Others were even more pessimistic. Cindy Hamstreen from Harwich said that if the situation wasn't cleared up soon, she'd sell her bike on craigslist and take up curling. "At least curling has an international body that knows how to properly collect fees", she muttered.

A small group of riders tried to proceed with the race anyway, but they met with no success. Talks got bogged down on a few critical issues, like whether to start new riders every thirty seconds, or every minute. After a suggestion to compromise at 45 seconds, talks collapsed.

Most riders scoffed at the effort anyway. Quadsky said "You can't honestly expect to ride without the UCI. It's not even a race if they aren't here to pocket our hard-earned cash.

One lone unidentified cyclist wouldn't give up. He threw his one-day license money on the ground and declared that he was going to ride the course on his own, using his wristwatch for timing.

Other cyclists laughed and shook their heads.

"Crazy bastard", said Legzenfeit. "He just doesn't understand the importance of the UCI".

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Fallout XVIII

News
Late in the day, AFP says Prudhomme is casting a dubious eye at the whole of Saunier-Duval, which had a positive in Mayo last year too:

[I]n general, I certainly don't feel that their manager is a model of virtue.

The Astana/Bruyneel treatment may not be far off.

CyclingNews FLASHES that Italian rider Riccardo Ricco has been taken into police custody after testing positive for CERA-- a new generation EPO-- blowing apart the theory that only older riders were users.This comes from L'Equipe's website, indicating that the newspaper has become the semi-official source of doping announcements for the ASO/AFLD:

Italian rider Riccardo Riccò of Saunier Duval has tested positive for blood booster Erythropoietin (EPO), French sports daily L'Equipe reported on its website on Thursday. According to the paper's Damien Ressiot, one of the climber's urine samples collected by the French Anti-Doping Agency AFLD showed traces of a third generation EPO called CERA (Continuous Erythropoietin Receptor Activator).

The team has pulled out of the Tour. Saunier Duval's directeur sportif, Joxean Fernandez Matxin, was surprised as anybody. "We only found out ten minutes ago. The entire team is ceasing its operation, not only in the Tour de France."

So much for the Basil Fawlty "Dirty Spaniards" story line as well.

CyclingNews also has this:

Daniel Friebe, Procycling features editor spoke to Audran this morning within minutes of L'Equipe's website announcing that Riccardo Riccò has tested positive for an EPO derivative after stage four of the Tour de France, the individual time trial around Cholet.

Daniel Friebe: In the last twenty minutes we've heard that Riccardo Riccò has tested positive for an EPO-like product. The early reports suggest that Riccò used CERA or Micera. a so-called third generation EPO. What's your reaction?

Michel Audran: Wow. I'm stunned. I'm amazed they're saying it's Micera, simply because there's no validated test for that yet. The World Anti-Doping Agency is working on a test, but it certainly doesn't exist yet.

DF: What exactly is CERA, or Micera to give it its commercial name?

MA:It's a delayed-action EPO, which has a different molecular mass from EPO. It's only been commercially available since the start of the year. We can tell when someone's used it but we can't declare them positive. In that respect it's like Dynepo, another EPO-like product. We know that Micera was being used on the Giro, so I'm not surprised that it's also turned up at the Tour. But I would be very surprised if they AFLD had declared Riccò positive for Micera, for the reasons I've just mentioned. Maybe they searched Riccò's room and found the product itself...

(emphasis added)

VeloNews also has the Ricco story as well as The AFP ,CNN, and ESPN/AP.

Reuters says,

Riccardo Ricco has taken his fascination with the late Marco Pantani, his fellow Italian rider, just a little bit too far.

Ya think?

Pez quotes former-Yellow Kim Kirchen as saying, “I’m not surprised that Riccò has been caught.”

In more CyclingNews an unnamed team manager at the TdF expressed "concerns" over the AFLD's handling of doping controls:

The AFLD [French national anti-doping agency] has been appointed by race organiser ASO to carry out the tests in the aftermath of its split from the UCI. According to the team manager, only about fifty riders were tested thus far, with several being tested more than once. The Spanish are being examined most frequently, while testing of French riders was said to 'rarely occur.'

He gave an example of a lack of testing of a French team, saying that of the Crédit Agricole riders, only stage winner Thor Hushovd was tested since the start of the race.

In addition, concern was raised about the actual testing process. The chaperones were described as 'incapable,' with the manager saying that on the eleventh stage, one was unable to correctly fill out the required forms. Also, when large numbers of riders were required for testing, the area was said to be not sufficiently large and that some of the riders were required to wait outside beside journalists and photographers.

The CyclingNews continues to cover the "fallout" from the apparent dissolution of the UCI, and in now what feels like "old news" the UCI strikes back:

A day after seventeen teams at the Tour de France announced that they no longer wanted to be part of the ProTour series, the UCI has said that it will consider seeking compensation from those who it feels have breached a contract.

And Rasmus Damsgaard, founder of CSC/Saxo's anti-doping program expressed early concern over the way the AFLD is overseeing and implementing doping controls at the TdF. Guess it wasn't as "easy" as the UCI made it look at times.

Sydney Morning Herald says that Evans tried to do a Phonak Fumble, and let someone else in a break take yellow, as Landis did with Peirero. It didn't work for Evans, and we think the SMH is wrong to suggest it didn't work for Landis -- it worked fine until the bonk.

Shologoo is starting a series about the Tour, starting with 2006. It gets off to a dubious start by calling one of Landis' skills "sprinting". If there's one thing he hasn't previously been accused of, it's being a sprinter.

Blogs
Quickrelease.tv notes the hasty manner in which the press is "cobbling" together the late breaking Ricco doping bust story. One "scribe" had Floyd Landis busted in 2006 for "adrenaline". Heck if that's true we're ALL dopers!

QRTV also had this now out-dated rave about the high-definition coverage of the Tour:

Pro cyclists are clothes horses, flogging their sponsors to all who watch. And now these sponsor logos are so legible you wouldn’t believe. No longer do you have to squint to jot down the Cofidis telephone number. In HD it just pops out of the screen.

So clear are the pictures you can even spot the phials of EPO in the jersey pockets of the Spanish riders. Incredible.

MasiGuy has confused tense when he refers to the lab that "messed up" Floyd Landis' sample(s) as the AFLD. The lab was the LNDD, and is doing only some of the testing for the Tour this year, though old doping harbinger L'Equipe sure is omnipresent. Trick is, the lab changed names during the course of the case, and all the documents say LNDD, even though it is now the AFLD Lab at Chateney-Malabry. Even we don't try to get it straight most of the time. How about, "the lab that did the work was LNDD, and the one that defended its work was AFLD." Same lab. Got that?

Velochimp says, "WTF!?" about Ricco, and finds a good picture:

Ricco’s bike is put away on the SD Team Truck
PASCAL PAVANI/AFP/Getty Images

Last year Ricco was mentored by Gilberto Simoni on the Saunier Duval team. Simoni has often been critical of dopers such as Pantani and Ivan Basso in the past. Simoni who himself had a positive drug result for cocaine (blame Grandma’s gift from a South American trip) seemed to be the cross bearer for Itralian non–dopers. Simoni’s insinuation that Ivan Basso was an Extra-Terrestrial in the 2006 Giro was seen as sour grapes at first...

CBS Sports Community/Doyel says "Kill the tour", and the whole sport of cycling. It might be more credible if he wasn't wearing a knit cap with an NBA logo. Calling it "Doyel's Dribbles" isn't exactly an endorsement either.

Why Not Tri? collects some reactions to Ricco, and doesn't think it will hurt the sport. He's not reading the CBS Sports Community, above.

Spinning Tales does an about face on the Italians at Saunier-Duval, and admits it.

BikeSnobNYC does some deep investigation and connects the dots:

Firstly, no criminal acts alone, and in this case it seems Ricco may have had help from his bike supplier. As one commenter already pointed out, Ricco rides a Scott Addict Ltd.

following his very observant "This just in: Tour de France Riders find drugs helpful."


Unholy Roleur thinks Kimmage's story about an interview with Allen Lim is nearly libelous, and shows Kimmage to be an ass rather than a righteous crusader. We think he's a bitter crusader.

Racejunkie rants about everything, in "Tour de F!@#$, Will This *Ever* End?". RJ finds that Ricco is now proclaiming innocence, and has sent his sister out into the media for some defense work.

Gravsports is giving up on cycling, and any other sport with big money associated because of the temptation.

[T]he reality is that nobody but Floyd will ever know exactly what happened. I expect that maybe in ten or 20 years the "real" evidence will come out as it often does. This year I followed the Tour a bit, but it's the same old game of doping violations. I've now just lost interest in the Tour; what does it mean to win an event that's so obviously drug-fueled? What it really boils down to for me is that the Tour is simply nothing more than a bad joke no matter what happened with Floyd and others. Either Floyd is lying like mad or the Tour is incompetent at drug testing. Either way my response is the same: I'm not interested anymore.

Duckboy still likes the sport, but is jading with Ricco's AAF:

I'll just say he seems like a little a-hole anyway and this comes as no surprise. Still, the fact that guys are being nailed, then they do a room search on one and find a pharmacy (amoxicillin to share please?) is very telling. I have been a firm believer in Floyd Landis, but with every positive my faith dims a little.

Sorry, I know neither of my loyal readers gives a warm-water enema about cycling, but it's the only sport I really follow. And I'm a guy and guys need sports, even if the players wear gaudy lycra suits.

Bruce Hildebrand writes at Saris about tactics on transitional stages

In 2006, Floyd Landis had the maillot jaune and decided to save his team for the Alps allowing Jens Voigt and more importantly, Oscar Peirero a thirty minute lead at the stage finish. That decision setup the yellow jersey tug-of-war that highlighted the race’s final stages. Without that thirty minute gift the 2006 Tour would have been a totally different animal.

Bikebuzz makes an interesting suggestion, sparked by the conspiracist connections started by the Beltran AAF:

Actually it might be interesting for someone to do the seven degrees of dopers.. it spans farther than this list and way farther than cycling.

Should someone do that, we suspect is turns out to be a pretty dense mesh, with few teams or riders unconnected. This strikes us as a flaw in the conspiracy theories, because the causality and culpability becomes impossible to ascertain without unfounded assumptions that some connections are more relevant than others -- Unless you assume that everyone has been and still is doping, which I don't think most people believe. All the estimates we've ever heard have been between about 20-80% dopers depending on the time period and the source. With either limiting value, there's still quite a bit of uncertainty. Who is clean and who is dirty by association? 20% full, or 20% empty? Do counts of "connections" imply anything but presence in the network? Is the sport so physically limited that it is impossible to win cleanly, meaning any win should be considered tainted? 20% or 80% of the time?

Earlier today, TBV looked out the window at a mountain that needed climbing and took fingers off the keyboard, to have a lovely ride: 2:48 door to door, and a 1:23 climb from hole-in-the-fence, with construction delays.

TBV can't rock climb, or run, and hates golf (parents tried, but it didn't take) -- yet can still mash pedals, weakly. It keeps us interested in people who do it well, and it remains entertaining.

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Fallout XVII

News
The CyclingNews reports a second doping positive from this year's Tour de France, and the rider is not one of the "old guard":

Spanish rider Moisés Dueñas has become the second rider to register a non-negative test for banned blood booster erythropoietin at the Tour de France. The results came from a sample taken from the Barloworld rider after the Grand Tour's first time trial, Stage 4 on July 8 in Cholet, according to head of the French Anti-doping Agency (AFLD) Pierre Bordry.

News of Dueñas' test result has spread quickly after confirmation this morning from the senior French anti-doping agency figure, including on LEquipe.fr - a newspaper owned by the same parent company as the Tour. The rider held 19th position on general classification heading into today's Stage 11, which he is unlikely to contest.

The Daily Telegraph and CNN also carry the late breaking story.

In more CyclingNews reaction to the mass exodus of pro teams from the UCI continues:

Saunier Duval-Scott team manager Mauro Gianetti explained the decision of his team to leave the ProTour. "It's clear that the teams have been stuck in between a war of the UCI and the Grand Tour organisers, and we need a new road and a system that functions. There were proposals form the organisation to the UCI which didn't quite agree with the ProTour. There is now an agreement with the organisers that will allow us to work with seriousness and tranquility.

While Christian Prudhomme is being rather tight lipped on the defections, UCI "boss" Pat McQuaid has this, among other things, to say:

McQuaid feels that chaos could ensue following the team's decision. "There are big possible ramifications of this," he said. "They [the teams] say that they have done a deal with ASO and the other two big organisers. The thing is, if they pull down the ProTour, they then become Pro Continental teams next year. All the events that are currently in the ProTour will go into the Europe Tour, and they have a responsibility to those events. Some of those events will obviously disappear because their profile will go, those events will disappear off the calendar altogether.

"These teams need to think of the responsibilities they have to those organisers, rather than just thinking of themselves," he added. "They have a responsibility to the rest of the sport, and they are not doing that. The ramifications in a year or two is that ASO will be selecting the teams for the Tour de France out of a possible 30 or 40 Pro Continental teams. So where are half of these teams gone then?"

Blogs
Racejunkie finds the UCI to now be just a "queasy memory", and in order to better gauge the chances of this year's potential TdF winners RJ checks out their websites looking for some kind of insight. So if one goes by websites alone, the Tour belongs to Carlos "Fun Fact" Sastre.

Rant looks into the "fallout" from the UCI's demise, and wonders what's next?

KWall ran into Landis at Laguna Cyclery, riding and looking reasonably fit:

Landis with stealthy BMC, full Dura-Ace; Oakley, Smith and Nephew, Giro; Another picture shows what looks like a non-racing 27 tooth cassette. (Photo: KWall)

I asked him if he was thinking about getting back into racing and he just replied unenthusiastically "I don't know, well see what happens" He seemed like a man content just to be out riding on a Sunday day in Laguna Beach.

TBV got 1300 Kj's Sunday. How did Landis do? It doesn't look like he had a PowerTap measuring, so we win! ( We will not talk watts.)

Similar story from the Laguna Cyclery Blog, getting a hint and asking if they should carry BMC. We'd say yes. Our new one is now sorted after 500 miles. It is much lighter, and both more comfortable and responsive than the Trek 5200 it replaces. No more "flat tire" feeling when pressing hard, it's is stable and fast descending. (We don't know why Mr. LC changed the EC90SLX fork on his Cervelo for an Ouzo, the EC90X seems fine to us). It can be tricky getting cables through the internal routing, and the finish is not flashy like a Colnago -- it doesn't have the "weave" that people associate with carbon because it's laid directionally for strength rather than looks. Industrial, almost. Around home, Pinarello's and Willier's are commonplace and a BMC counts as eccentric.

Elsewhere, Luna Cycles offers a couple of interesting scenarios:

Firstly, a rider like Floyd Landis who serves his two-year suspension (ending in Jan. 2009) now finds himself capable of returning to the top end of professional cycling since the Pro Tour Code of Ethics banning riders from riding for Pro Tour teams is no longer applicable if there is no Pro Tour. Could Landis be spared banishment to the doper's purgatory of Rock Racing?

Second, in an effort to appear completely, 100% squeaky clean, above reproach, "this isn't about money, it's about integrity", anti=doping the teams shut out riders like Landis, who legitimately serve their two year suspensions and want to return to the sport. This would be incredibly bad and, one could argue, short-sighted given the extreme anti-doping stance of David Millar, a convicted doper who served his suspension and returned to the forefront of pro cycling.

We might hope for the first, but...

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Fallout XVI

News
The CyclingNews says the ProTour just went "Poof!" All 17 teams at the Tour will not renew their licences next year, and will do something with the Grand Tour organizers (ASO, RCS, Unipublic) instead. McQuaid is reduced to huffing and puffing. The timing looks good -- the UCI can't threaten Olympic participation now that it has not objected to the Tour, so it has exactly zero leverage on the teams as far as we can see. And so much for that "double your ban" clause -- Landis might be employable by any of the teams when his time is up. Rock, below, may have to increase an offer, if one is on the table.

Also at BBC, AFP, and ESPN/Reuters, and Cycling Weekly. The AP notes the license costs €15,000 a year, which doesn't seem like much to us -- but it's control and conditions of the license that are at issue.

CyclingNews reports Rock Racing is going to Europe next year, and hiring riders, including an American whose name "you would guess." Armstrong coming out of retirement?

VeloNews' Mailbag contains a couple of pertinent letters this week. One, in light of the Beltran doping "positive", questions the continuing "leaks" of information. Ken Kabira writes:

Once again, an A sample being positive has been leaked to Le Equipe, a "known" outlet of confidential information of a WADA lab. Can a system in which one is "guilty until proven innocent" truly be called fair? All doping tests have a certain level of false positive (however low they may be). That's why a B sample is reserved for additional testing. Why can’t an athlete be deemed innocent until the B sample result is confirmed? It's a completely one-sided system in which the accusers have absolutely nothing to lose by being sloppy and incompetent, but the falsely accused is destroyed in the process.

Blogs
Rant writes about the "Triki business" of having any sporting event ever without cheating. Funny thing is, the press coverage of Beltran's "A" sample positive has been somewhat surprisingly less than sensational, and Rant refers to Bonnie Ford's excellent piece on the subject.

Tribabe is worried about her business and its profitability, but that's the least of her problems. She also had a disturbing dream about Floyd Landis being in love with her.

Bam finds the "awesome" Floyd Landis' advice for getting up hills to be simply the best.

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Fallout XV

News
CyclingNews mentions that Alexandre Vinokourov, Iban Mayo, and Cristian Moreni may be charged criminally for doping offenses at the 2007 Tour de France. This according to the Sud Ouest newspaper.

The VeloNews' Rick Crawford gives a "101 course" on blood testing and its proper place for the endurance athlete. With all of the emphasis on the "blood passport" and with Riccardo Riccò's values rumored to be in question, it's an interesting read for those unfamiliar with the particulars.

Blogs
Racejunkie "praises" the "deeply stupid" but brave Cedric Vasseur for defending ,sort of, "A" positive rider Triki Beltran. And run Iban run, "les gendarmes" may be after you.

Doyoutri can't really get into le Tour this year, still being upset about what "they" did to Floyd Landis.

Doucheblog returns after a long absence and says that he has to count Floyd Landis in with the bunch who worked for Lance and have been "caught" doping. Despite this, Burt still thinks the evidence against Floyd "sucked". Not if you ask a WADA expert.

Fatty has designed a new jersey that is very cool, and the proceeds from its sale go to help he and wife Susan battle her metastatic breast cancer. Check it out, it's for a great cause.

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Fallout XIV

News
The CyclingNews has Liquigas team reaction to Manuel Beltran's positive for EPO, which consists of shock, and also provides some reactions from other riders and former teammates.

ESPN/Bonnie Ford writes there seems to be no big shock about Beltran:

Beltran's "A" sample result was leaked to the French sports daily L'Equipe (could someone at least make the token gesture of scolding the Chatenay-Malabry lab for its indiscretions?), but even that often imperious publication didn't make a big deal of it.

In this morning's CyclingNews update rider rep Cedric Vasseur is upset with how the Beltran case has been tried in public before the results of a "B" sample have been processed:

"The only thing we know right now is that the A-sample is positive," Vasseur said. "It's not bad that Beltran left the Tour de France, but before we consider him guilty, we should await the analysis of the B-sample. If it is positive as well, then it's a pity for the guy. Then he will have to give an explanation."

Vasseur made an appeal to reinstate the normal procedures in case of a positive A-sample. "If an A-sample is positive, then you ask for a B-sample, and when the B is positive, and only then, you're guilty," Vasseur said. He referred to tennis player Martina Hingis who tested positive for using cocaine. "Even though we had problems with doping in the past, I think we should look at other sports to see how they're dealing. For instance Martina Hingis...we only learned that she was positive after the B-sample and that's normal."

Velonews notes the eye of suspicion turning onto Ricardo Riccò following two "eyebrow-raising" wins including a walkaway on the mountains today.

Birmingham News Columnist looks back at Armstrong through the lens of teammates and is feeling "robbed" -- but doesn't say of what.

The Wall Street Journal tut-tuts doping scandals in Cycling (citing Landis), looking at business and sponsorship effects. It an attempt to be even handed, it notes a good demographic despite the risks of sponsorship, and thinks the "clean" teams are a positive sign.

ST Louis Today has a good piece referencing Beltran, Armstrong and Landis, bemoaning the "guilty, guilty, guilty" drumbeat, the "let's connect the dots", and "let's rehash everything bad that ever happened in cycling" mentality of the media. Of Landis, he writes:

[D]espite the smackdown Landis received in his final appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sports, I’m still not convinced he’s guilty.

(I’m not convinced he’s innocent either, but I am convinced that the evidence was flawed enough as to call his guilt into question, tho CAS obviously and strongly disagreed in that assessment by dismissing all of Landis’ arguments/experts while accepting all of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agencies arguments/experts on every point.)

Blogs
Rant thinks "Bobke" is entertaining, but he's no Pulitzer prize winning journalist. So when Mr. Roll is the only one reporting Triki Beltran's "confession" to EPO usage Rant has questions, like how 'bout we wait for the "B" sample testing? In the meantime we look forward to Dick Pound's pronouncements on Beltran with baited breath.

Energetich20 writes:

I followed the Floyd Landis disaster from stage 17 till now. I feel for the man. His life was put out on public display to be shamed prior to justice being brought in his case. CAS rubber stamped a decision which could not be changed either way. When L'equipe called Landis out, the man was doomed.

Pommi is just plain lazy and he can't even bring himself to watch the TdF due to doping scandals. But, Mt. Diablo still awaits.

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