Posted on 07/26/2007 1:55:51 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 17: Thursday, July 26, 2007 - Pau to Castelsarrasin
8:30am 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
You mean this chemical circus on two wheels has not been canceled yet?
The French have a bicycle race and the world watches. These must truly be the end times.
NO, it hasn’t been canceled; nor has MO Baseball and Barry Bonds’ “record” hunt; NBA and playoffs with refs under suspiciion, pro golf and steroid users, or the NFL and accused dog fighters and other felons.
I wish they were as decisive in pulling the bad apples here as they are at the bike race. It is no longer about sport in America.
I love following the Tour.
And at least they are trying to right the ship and being honest about performance drugs and doping.
I think, especially the NBA — with game fixing — sport sin America are all creeping into WWE territory.
But that is my opinion.
Go Contador!!
I’m amazed at the lack of respect shown for the world’s leading cycling event (104 years old) by the likes of Vinokourov, Ullrich, Basso, rasmussen and Tyler Hamilton. Perhaps by never mentioning their names in race coverage (have you heard the name “Bjarne Riis” once this year from Phil and Paul? His name used to crop up daily), it will deter others planning to cheat.
This example really shows how sport must proceed. The officials have an uphill struggle trying to stay ahead of the cheats, but sponsors can pay their part. Here they’ve just gone and fired someone who was blantantly cheating, even if it wasn’t proven. In other sports sponsorship contracts could be written so that any athlete caught doping has to repay their sponsors all the money they took from them.
Remove the benefits of cheating, and hopefully remove the cheating.
Another thing this does show is how truly great Lance Armstrong was. Do you think these guys just started cheating after Lance left the sport? They just never got caught because all the doping officials were trying to do was catch Lance (which they never did). He is truly one of the greatest athletes in all of sports history.
Like the Patric Clerc said, "This is war, and in war we will have casualties."
At least they are saying what they mean & meaning what they say, unlike a few other sports which only pay lip service.
The REASON cycling is having scandals is because they're NOT looking the other way & sweeping the garbage under the rug like other sports.
The next generation of riders, which isn't yet so psychologically dependent on the juice that they'd rather deliberately expose themselves to the world as cheats (as Vino did) rather than face the terror of racing their bikes for the first time without artificial help, are out there.
We just gotta get rid of the junkies first so that they can have their day.
Yes, it looks bad, even absurd. But war ain't ever pretty, and I really think we can finally say that the good guys have the upper hand now. They've proven they're serious & they're willing to clean it up by any means necessary, even if it means torpedoing their most prestigious race to do it.
“The REASON cycling is having scandals is because they’re NOT looking the other way & sweeping the garbage under the rug like other sports.”
And that cycling obviously doesn’t involve that you need to be smart. How could Vino NOT see this comming ?
What a disgrace the tour has become in 2007! I was enjoying some fine racing recently, but now the leading rider is pulled by his team just as it appears as though he will win the tour.
What’s next?
Loved your post about Lance. He is arguably the greatest athlete this country and especially Texas has ever produced.
And they have been rolling for about 45 minutes on stage 17.
Looks like everybody is keeping a wary eye on each other.
He is certainly a great athlete - but he was certainly on HGH and EPO - and he was lizenced for larger quantities of testosterone because it’s part of his post cancer treatment.
There’s certainly an interesting question in moral behind that - shall the tour punish a guy because he’e taking a medicament that increases his performance that he takes as a presribed treatment ? Or shall the tour punish those who are healthy ?
Anyhow in lances times and before the great athlets were not riding by the book. Neither LAnce nor indu nor pantani nor virenque nor jan nor mario nor erik and nor biarne and even nor floyd.
Asume anything else and you can be called naive for a good reason if not ignorant.
I wish American Sports would follow suit and get as aggressive as cycling is starting to get.
Still, the suspensions need to be attention getters -- to hell with this 25 game/50game/1 year crap in baseball, or the 4 game/1 year crap in football, or even the 2 year crap in cycling --- all sports should sign an agreement RIGHT NOW : IF YOU ARE CAUGHT USING PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS YOU WILL BANNED FROM ALL PROFESSIONAL AND AMATUER SPORTING COMPETITIONS FOR LIFE.
That is the only thing that will get thier attention. Give them thier just due, just like Landis is getting, but if after all is said and done they are found guilty - the ban stands. LIFETIME - no chance for reinstatement! Do not pass go, do not collect $200 Million in endorsements.
But you are right - he’s a great athlet as the others I quoted. You can learn from their attitude - that’s why I think it was about time for the broom to be swung. they deserve better then beeing the test tubes for the pharmaceutical industry - gene doping is possible - relatively cheap and now.
Exactly. A lifetime ban will finally make the stuff like kryptonite to kids coming into the sport.
What’s next you aks.
Unfortunately, Contador has also been linked to doping. According to French papers he was connected to the Spanish doping affair, but apparently cleared - for the time being, it is best to add.
A few weeks before the race started when Bjarne Riis, the Danish former Tour winner, was the latest of old stars to come forward and confess the use of doping, I noted in a post that it seems like poetic justice that in the end the only ones not shown to have doped among the leading racers the last 5 - 10 years are the big winners, Miguel Indurain, and LANCE ARMSTRONG.
Also, in re Contador, I saw that this morning & posted elsewhere that the bloodletting may not yet be over.
But you can't have dawn without darkness first.
Maybe professional baseball & all the others will learn from all this in a couple of years when cycling is the only sport kids can go into knowing that they won't have to compromise their health just to have a shot at winning.
Any sport that wants to defeat this is going to have to be willing to stand up in the line of fire & take some hits itself in order to prevail at the end of the day.
But the athletes have a part to play in getting cycling on track so that the public & their fellow competitors can have confidence in the integrity of their victories.
Christian Moreni yesterday admitted he doped the same day he participated in a demonstration AGAINST doping. Denial doesn't get any nuttier than that - some of these guys are clearly still doing it, it just can't be disputed.
Both Floyd and Michael tested negative on all stages until a stage near the end of the race. Someone wanted them the lose more than either of them wanted to win. Even stranger is that this is the only thing I have ever blown the conspiracy whistle on, and I’m even not a road bike fan. If Floyd and Michael cheated, so did Lance. He just never got caught.
Testosterone is also quite effective - there’s no ‘minor case’ for landis.
The ones are others (maybe today) not. Perhaps there was a difference between the sprinters and those who go over the mountains. (Remember super Mario) I guess these guys really had good contacts to the agricultural branch of belgium.
Yeah - like ‘the tour’ would chase away the chash cows.
You think the french secret service is trying to discredit american sports heroes ?
... and then start with vino ? (only that it didn’t start with him but with guys like virenque)
I don’t think the labs are going specifically after non-French riders, but I do harbor some (perhaps completely irrational) paranoia that the integrity of a certain lab might be compromised by a connection to big-stakes gambling. Something smells at Chatenay-Malabry & it ain’t old urine specimins.
It would surprise me if Lance was doped up when he rode with John Edwards yesterday. Haul him in for testing!
It wouldn’t surprise me if Lance was doped up when he rode with John Edwards yesterday. Haul him in for testing!
Is huffing hairspray fumes aginst ICU rules? ;-)
If you sent the samples to the right lab, they can find about anything that would disqualify him per ICU rules.
insert picture of Lance
This is Lance being a dope
insert picture of Lance ride bike with John Edwards
Effects of androgenic-anabolic steroids in athletes
Therefore, for Landis to take steroids, in the middle of the race would have been stupid both because he was going to be caught if it helped (the first three on any stage are automatically screened) and secondly because there is no reason to believe this type of doping would help.
Of course he may not have known that, or have been convinced by his "doctor" that it would help, and generally just been stupid - and immoral.
Note, that I did not call Landis's case minor. The only thing I pointed out was that in his case the drug found in his blood did not make any sense (but a lot of crimes don't) whereas blood doping would definitely enhance the riders abilities.
The simplest explanation (Occam’s Razor)is that the riders actually did what they have tested positive for. But the variable is the knowledge that with absolute certainty that if they win a stage or have the yellow jersey they will be tested.With that sort of knowledge, it is almost impossible for me to believe that they would be so colossally stupid. Perhaps I’m just being naive...but something just doesn’t make sense.
Oh, Please no. That horrible image of Lance with Lurch still haunts me.
Lance Armstrong’s achievement of consistently winning against a field that we all know was heavily doped up is certainly remarkable. It could be that he was the sport’s Michael Johnson, but frankly I’m not surprised the French were heavily suspicious of him.
One thing for certain, Lance was riding with a dope.
Testosterone is not a milkshake - it’s long term anabolic
and it lowers the pain barrier significantly
Both facts from: (Wilson JD:Androgens
In: Goodman & Gilman’s The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics (JG Hardman & LE Limbird, eds), McGraw-Hill, New York; pp 1441-1456, 1995
ISBN: 0-07-026266-7)
so it helps you to go over your barriers and it builds muscle.
it even helps to more Erythrocytes
(Plumb DC: Veterinary Drug Handbook. PharmaVet Publishing, White Bear Lake (USA); 790 pp, 1995)
A friend of mine is on it after his cancer treatment and he looks just great - I really had some moments when I thought I might use this patch (weightloss would be my desire) then sanity suddenly stopped me - and the price 100€ per ;-)
Sorry - but Lance has just one Testicle. So he has to take testosterone as a treatment - Tour or not. He was caught with corticoids in 99 but back then it was a new test and he was just shown a yellow card.
Maybe there are some clean guys in the tour - but you want to search them under the last 10.
Speaking of other sports, a few years ago, Bret Boone, then with the Mariners, suddenly became a muscle man and turned in a couple of big power years like he’d never had before. Then baseball began having the steroid hearings, and Boone showed up for spring training noticeably smaller that season. He lost his bat speed and was out of the game within a year. But as far as I know, despite what looked like obvious steroid use, Boone was never checked.
It is a looong term anabolic - and it has no (proven) use as a shooort term enhancer of your endurance, speed or force. Landis tested negative several times during the last year's Tour, prior to his positive test. Thus, it appears that he took the drug during the race - something that just would not have helped him - except for the placebo effect.
The effect on the pain barrier (increase (!!) - ie you can take more pain without giving up) has never been shown in man but on rats.
PS:
OK, I'll admit that there are three possibilities: a) Landis used androgenes together with another drug that confounded the tests. The effect of the second drug wore off during the race, or he simply forgot to take it that day. b) He did take androgenes on that day only, and c) the tests were in error - either because of sloppiness or intentionally.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.