Friday Roundup

News
USAToday has a short AP piece about the closing gap between WADA and the drug cheats it seeks to catch. According to WADA official David Howman cycling will not be easily cleaned up, but it will happen.

Sport.iafrica.com , in an editorial, praises cycling for its openness on doping even though the revelations of late seem to make it the poster child of PED abuse. Cycling is not the only sport with a looming doping crisis, but it is the most open one.

Letters to CyclingNews June 1 part 2 is replete with letters about doping; confessions of doping, allegations of doping, Greg LeMond, and Floyd Landis. Floyd gets support of a kind in a couple of the letters but one thanks him for helping to make cycling a three ring circus and regrets that Floyd didn't wear a straw hat with those yellow ties.

Washington (State) Olympian notes Teva games participation in a blurb.

The Star Telegram has the same blurb, followed by one about Gatlin having a hearing scheduled for July 30-31 about his case. Those thinking the wheels turned slowly on the Landis case should note this is even longer from the report of the offense than Landis' hearing was from his. We haven't heard if Gatlin's is public or private, and the scheduling could be because USADA was frying other fish first. We also don't know if USADA is using (the same) outside counsel against Gatlin.

Blogs
Rant writes about the many mysteries of how we remember, or forget, what we do and relates this to the mistake made by a reporter yesterday in the Lancaster, PA online publication yesterday. Rant also wants us to remember that Floyd Landis will be competing for charity this weekend in the Teva Mountain games, and throws down a record for the road bike time-trial climb up Vail Pass for Landis to shoot at, 26:33.

Which reminds me of a story.

On the first Wednesday at the hearing I ran into Floyd in the hall, and tried to invite him to my nearby mountain climb. The instant response was, "what's the record and how does it compare to Palomar?"

"I think it's around 43:00. It has sharper switchbacks and an evil 18% at the very end to the summit, but if you do Palomar in 30:00, you'll probably do it about that too", I said, not mentioning my dream of 1:30:00.

He shot back, "Then it's not much of a record, is it?"

Some people are just competitive.


CrystalZenMud passes on an indication that Mr. Pound may not be up for the CAS Presidency anytime in the near future, as Mino Auletta seems to be serving another three years on an interim basis.

CyrystalZenMud also notes that it appears the name "LNDD" is dead, and the facility is now being called the "AFLD Department of Analyses". That solves everything. Next time we're in Paris, we'll swing by and see if the silver sign with red letters has been changed to match.

Joe Schmoe really liked Hiltziks article of yesterday, almost as much as he liked our hearing coverage.

Pommi may be heading north of the border, but takes time before he leaves to post Dr. Kay's announcement from floydlandis.com.

Quickrelease.tv thinks what a wonderful world it would be if the LNDD had its own theme song.

Chris at Podium Cafe runs down his list of "Grand Tour Virgins" giving us the lowdown on how first time grand tour winners got the big prize starting with speculation on this year's Giro and of course including Floyd Landis' TdF last summer.

Triple Crankset talks about the convoluted line of succession created by doping scandals in the Tour de France. This applies not only for last year's winner Floyd Landis but also for 1996 winner Bijarne Riis and the question may be, who really won? It would be so much easier if the Tour were run like a beauty pageant.

Can't Holder Tongue expands her idealism about Landis into consideration of the Mommy Track.

West Spring Blog had a day at school, partly involving a Social Studies worksheet about doping in cycling, and the goodness of Dane Bjarne Riis' recent confession. Lesson:

I learned that taking drugs was a wrong action