Posted on 07/25/2007 1:47:30 AM PDT by Aeronaut
Tour de France ping!
Please FReepmail 'Aeronaut' if you want on or off the Tour de France 2007 list.
“Versus” TV Coverage:
Stage 16: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - Orthez to Gourette - Col d’Aubisque
6:30am to 11:30am: LIVE Daily Coverage
12:00pm to 2:00pm: Race Action Replay
2:30pm to 4:30pm: Race Action Replay
5:00pm to 7:00pm: Race Action Replay
8:00pm to 11:00pm: Expanded Primetime Coverage
12:00am to 3:00am: Race Action Replay
We’ll see what Phil and Pual have to say this morning. ITs not just Vino, its Rasmussen being kicked off the Danish Olympic team. The Tour would be best off if Contador can knock him off the top ring.
Supposedly Rassmussen can't time trial. He did a pretty good one earlier, however.
By Phil Liggett
July 24, 2007
Alexandre Vinokourov’s positive blood test announced Tuesday has stunned everyone from riders to organizers. Since his crash, he has been portrayed as a limping hero of what, so far, has been a marvellous Tour. Now, he seems to have been caught introducing homologous blood into his system just before the time trial he won in demonstrative fashion.
His Astana team has withdrawn at the invitation of the organizers and Vinokourov was suspended by Astana pending the confirmation of his positive test in his B analysis. It is very unusual for the second test not to confirm the first. In short, Vinokourov, one of the most respected riders in the peloton, will now leave the sport in disgrace.
11:31:44 - Four Lead By 4'20"
Verdugo (EUS), Auge (COF), Garcia-Acosta (GCE) and Rinero (SDV) are now 4'20" ahead of the peloton which is in Susmiou.
Does the Tour begin on Versus this morn’ at 6:30 or 8:30? Thanks.
Based ot the schedule on the Versus website it is 6:30 AM EDT.
The flag dropped at 10:58 local.
The teams were upset about something that the newsflash didn’t go into. Wonder what is was?
Four in the break.
I dont see America with a horse in this race.....and until Lance, I found the sport boring....
....I return now to my original feelings about both the tour and the Cheese eaters who sponsor it......
Many riders staged a silent protest at the beginning of the race today by holding back their start. Rasmussen was loudly booed at the start; he didn’t participate in the protest.
Thanks for sharing. We were waiting for your valued input in this matter before determining whether to proceed.
Attention Ladies & Gentlemen:
Because the esteemed Mr. Vaquero has so very generously taken time from his busy schedule to advise us that he is bored, this thread will be closing.
Pete, I cut & pasted the news snippet about the protest this AM over on the other thread a little while ago.
you know when i watched vino win that stage i wondered. then when he totaly tanked the next day is really wondered.
now we know for sure. its really too bad. cycling just cant seem to get beyond doping.
does that mean its too extreme physically? look at what a huge difference doping made to vino. it really really works. thats the problem/.
Interesting commentary by Tratuwig, Phil and Paul this morning. It is true that the cycling authorities look good by comparison to ML Baseball, the NFL and the NBA. Didn’t realize that there are now allegations of illegal steroid use in pro golf.
Of the four riders in the break Verdugo is the best placed ay 1h 41’ 56”.
Garrett Lai has a piece over at MSNBC.com wherein he considers Disco's suddenly very rosy (yellow?) future, and speculates Johan might ask Contador to leapfrog Levi & go for broke. He very well could win the whole thing today.
That's what the cyclists like to whine about. But Patric Clerc, the Chairman of ASO talks about that in l'Equipe this morning (sorry, it's in French but I haven't seen these comments translated into English anywhere yet). He points out that the tour is less demanding than it used to be decades ago (3 rest days rather than 2, fewer mountain stages etc.) when doping wasn't an option. And he points out that the sport which everyone concedes is beset with by far the most intractable problem with doping, is track and the event competing in that sport which has the athletes who are the most recalcitrant about cleaning up their act & giving up the juice are in the 100 meter!. I think he has a point. It's not about the difficulty, it's about the fame & money. Or infamy & money, is probably more like it.
"Throttle Jockey" Pee Wee Herman wins Tour De Cheese in big Dream Sequence from "Pee Wee's big Adventure"....Mr Vaquero shares his favorite Frogger Race memories with Leilani (love the name) and all bicyclops aficionados....(bicyclops: the dreaded 2 eyed cyclops of myth and legend)
Wow! I missed that. Seems like the payoff doing steroids would be so marginal in that sport,(how heavy is an iron club?), who in their right mind would justify the risk? But you can absolutely make the case, as you just have, that the reason Cycling is so scandal-ridden is that, unlike the NBA & NFL, it's aggressively weeding the cheaters out with the most extensive & intensive testing program anywhere.
ROTFL!
The Western Regional Rock Paper Scissors tournament held in Seattle this past week saw players disqualified for the first time due to use of illicit steroids.
“For years we have watched as the scourge of steroids has bogged one professional sport after another down with scandals,” said Wojek Smallsoa, Chairman of the World Rock Paper Scissors (RPS) Society’s Steering Committee. “It is shameful that the temptation to take performance-enhancing drugs has finally reached even the rarefied ranks of our competitors.”
The World RPS Society is the worldwide governing body of the sport of Rock Paper Scissors. It provides overall direction, guidance and policy control with a goal of promoting the sport to a wider audience. It is supported by a standard operational branch, local, regional, national and international office structure with offices in most countries around the globe. Its World Headquarters is located in Toronto.
“This is a tempest in a teapot,” grumbled Stacy Quinnell, one of the competitors disqualified in the surprise sweep during the tournament. “Physical performance is entirely secondary to strategy in this sport, so I fail to appreciate why the World RPS society is making a big deal about it.”
Fifteen out of twenty-four semifinalists were disqualified after drug tests found steroids in many of the top-ranked competitors. Because so many top players were removed from contention, the tournament went instead to an unknown 16 year old player from the small town of Colfax, Washington. Bookmakers in Las Vegas were not amused.
“It is really indicative of the tremendous pressures affecting all professional sports,” said ESPN commentator Brent Foster. “The stakes are so high that people are willing to incur the substantial health risks from taking steroids in order for a better shot at the crown.”
“However, it is kind of puzzling why the World RPS society decided to focus on this issue at the present time,” added Foster. “It is entirely possible that the whole drug sweep was intended primarily to give Rock Paper Scissors credibility as a “real” sport. Which, of course, it isn’t.”
Others vigorously dispute this interpretation.
“Rock Paper Scissors is an ancient and noble sport,” asserted Samsoa. “It predates virtually every so-called professional sport currently played in the United States. It requires a unique blend of physical and cognitive abilities found nowhere else in sporting competition.”
In fact, because Rock Paper Scissors relies so heavily on mental ability, Samsoa announced that future sweeps would also check for substances designed to enhance intelligence.
“People have been known to prepare for tournaments by eating lots of fish,” he noted. “Such devious attempts to alter the purity of the competition will be sorely surprised in future events when we conduct more random drug sweeps.”
ESPN is not planning to broadcast the next Rock Paper Scissors tournament.
(the Watley Review 2004)
good points , thanks
Gary Player made this accusation recently. He didn’t name names.
I do love Vino's quote though:
The Kazakh tested positive following his victorious ride in last Saturday's time trial, prompting his Astana team to pull out of the race.But the 33-year-old, who bounced back from losing nearly 30 minutes in Sunday's mountain stage by winning in the Pyrenees on Monday, has denied the allegation.
He told L'Equipe: "It's a mistake. I never doped, that's not the way I see my profession.
"I think it's a mistake in part due to my crash. I have spoken to the team doctors who had a hypothesis that there was an enormous amount of blood in my thighs, which could have led to my positive test.
"I heard that I made a transfusion with my father's blood. That's absurd, I can tell you that with his blood, I would have tested positive for vodka.
"The setting up of our team made a lot of people jealous and now we're paying the price. It's a shame to leave the Tour this way, but I don't want to waste time in proving my innocence."
ROTFL again here!
Hey,ya know, for an extremist-anti-cycling hatemonger who’s bored, you seem to be in an awfully good mood. Does this mean we can keep the thread open now? ;-)
Huh?
I hope you are not heartbroken.
Love the quote too, but I don’t share your optimism about Vino. Unlike Floyd’s isotope screening, (it’s use & reliability for this purpose is disputed by many experts who don’t have a dog in the TdF hunt), the blood test that supposedly caught Vino is pretty straightforward.Which makes the fact that he did it, knowing he would be tested for it, all the more I N S A N E!
Even his team manager Marc Biver admitted as much. He said he believed “the test is credible, and “We have to wait for the result of the `B’ sample. But for us, if his `A’ sample tested positive then he is guilty until the B sample proves otherwise,” he said.
Goes to show ya, controversy sells - even before breakfast, I guess!
Well, if Gary Player (or Palmer or Nicklaus or Trevino) said steroid use occurs in golf, that’s all I need to know. BTW, if you’ve seen a photo of Gov. Schwartzenegger on the beach, you will note what looks to be the ravages of steroids. Someone told me he admitted to their use while professionally weightlifting; don’t know if its true but it sure looks so.
“Which makes the fact that he did it, knowing he would be tested for it, all the more I N S A N E!”
That’s what I do not comprehend. You would have to be colossally stupid or desperate to do something that you know will be detected. In the case of Barry Bonds and baseball he had a hell of a chance of getting away with it because they don’t test. The rules in cycling are known.
But I've decided some of these guys are plainly junkies,or at least seem to have the tell-tale traits of junkies, even if their 'addiction' is only a psychological one. Reason obviously doesn't even enter into the equation for them. And like real junkies, they're not even gonna think about quitting until they get kicked to rock bottom.
Wouldnt want to cramp your style....only so many Gerbils to go around and though I might roast one over an open fire....I defer to your use of them in your habit trail.
Ha...yes...stir fried gerbil au jous with a fine chianti makes me chipper in the morning....; )~
Well, they don’t call it the other other white meat for nothing. But I thought it was supposed to taste like chicken. You don’t find chianti too robust an accompaniment for such a delicate dish?
Couple this news with Vino, Rasmussen, and the protest this morning and this years Raceis rapidly spinning out of control.
I am beginning to think we should just call it the Tour de Dope.
Oh geez. I wonder if it’s Rasmussen. The tour leaders are just aching to get him off the tour lest he win it under such a huge cloud of suspicion. They’ve said as much.
He was in the yellow jersey and would've been tested after Stage 11, so it's a strong possibility...
A senior French doping official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case with reporters, told The Associated Press that the unnamed rider had tested positive for testosterone.
French sports newspaper L'Equipe, which broke the story on Tuesday that Vinoukourov had tested positive for a banned blood transfusion, said on its Web site Wednesday the latest case resulted from a test conducted on stage 11 of the Tour last Thursday.
L'Equipe did not name the rider. It said the UCI, cycling's governing body, would announce the latest test result shortly.
Robbie Hunter won that stage, & Rasmussen was in yellow for overall.
Do you know how many other riders are tested randomly after each stage?
Just broke on BBC. Two bombs have exploded during the Tour de France.
And I guess this also means it’s going to be another result from the problematic isotope IRMS test from the very problematic lab - Châtenay-Malabry. Sigh.
Nothing on the Web here yet and I am not watching since i am at work -- please keep us posted.
As in Al Qaeda bombs, or bombshell revelations of doping?
Small blasts after ETA threat on Tour de France Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:43 AM EDT MADRID (Reuters) - Two small explosions hit part of the Spanish section of Wednesday's Tour de France cycle race after a telephone bomb threat from a caller claiming to represent Basque separatist rebels ETA, newspaper website El Pais said.
No one was hurt and the race was not called off after the explosions, which came after the caller told a highway authority that ETA had planted several bombs along the route of the Tour de France through the Spanish region of Navarre, El Pais said.
The race had already passed through the area when the blasts occurred, it said.
No police or government officials were immediately available for comment. ETA, which has killed more than 800 people in four decades of armed struggle for traditional Basque lands in northern Spain and southern France, called off a ceasefire in June.
ping to post 48.
ABC radio news is stating Al Qaeda planted the bombs along the Spanish part of the race.
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