Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Tuesday Roundup

The full story of Ibrahaim Wafula's one-legged attempt at Leadville is told. He seems to have been undone by a fragile chain, and missed the Twin Lakes time cutoff, but thinks he can do it with a little better luck.

News

Pez Cycling reviews the weekend's cycling news including Floyd Landis' second place finish at the Leadville 100 Saturday.


VeloNews posts a few letters from readers and an editorial comment about the demise of Disco. One reader, among many, writes in response to the Foaming Rant posted last week and says that no matter what happens in the sport of cycling, no one can take away his memory of seeing Floyd Landis at last year's Tour.


The Guardian Unlimited writes of the loss to cycling of the Discovery team, and places some of the blame for their disappearance from cycling on former riders who have been tested positive for doping, including Floyd Landis. The GU insists as well that the often shuttered secrecy shown by Postal/Discovery is not something that will be missed.


The Palm Beach Post.com writes that former cyclist Joe Papp, who testified for USADA at the Landis hearings in May, was at the Gaining the Competitive Edge - Strengthening Athletes' Mental and Physical Skills convention last night in West Palm Beach, FLA. He spoke about his drug abuse while pursuing a career as a professional cyclist and showed a video tape of a doping deal being made as well as a photo of himself in the hospital after being admitted due to EPO use:

"I was following this path of deceit and lies and just horrible behavior," Papp said. "I couldn't think of a more appropriate way to end my career than what you see right here."
At the time, Papp was preparing for his post-cycling life.

"I was interviewing with pharmaceutical companies to be a field salesman - ironically enough, right?" he said. "You couldn't write a script for Hollywood."

But as soon as Papp admitted using drugs at Landis' hearing, those companies stopped talking with him.
"Rightly so, because what drug company would hire a guy who admitted to being a drug cheat? Thankfully, none. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the rest of my life, basically," he said.


15 more minutes -- Papp also takes on some critics at DPF.

ASAP had a John Marshall podcast interview done with Floyd Landis after his second placer finish in last weekend's Leadville 100.


Blogs

Cycling 4 All pulls it's own plug in frustration. Cheers to Wim van Rossum for keeping it up for so long.

Rant points to Cristian Moreni's complaint that he was punished too severely for testosterone use at this year's TdF and doesn't think he had one coming.

Electric Bike posts various news about cycling including articles about Floyd Landis' exploits in Colorado this past weekend.

Racejunkie deserves points for restraint in his comments about Cristian Moreni's "enhancement". Later in the piece he riffs on Floyd Landis being a "renegade nefarious criminal" who was responsible for everything that happened at Phonak and by his former teammates. Simple answers are so...simple.

Simon
loves the quote from "Positively False" ,"There's no such thing as over training".

Fatty writes close but no cigar part2, and he revisits his ride last weekend at Leadville. Among many interesting revelations is that it's hard to eat salty stuff at altitude with low humidity while riding. BTW Happy Anniversary.

The Windermere Roadies got suckered into trying Leadville by a "friend" they are now calling "F'ing Ralph" who didn't adequately warn them how tough it was going to be. Speaking of tough, here's how they heard the Landis/Wiens duel went down through the gossip net on the scene:
Floyd lost the race by 10 seconds to the local hero who has won the race 5 years in a row. Reports are that Floyd sucked this guy's wheel for almost the entire last 40 miles, and still was unable to beat him to the finish line.

I think this turns 100 secs into 10 for dramatic effect -- what's a zero between friends? It also seems like a novel translation of Wiens' comment, "having Floyd Landis behind you sucks."

Probably the other side of the coin of creative retelling is that Landis faked his flat and smoked a cigar out there to let Wiens win because it wouldn't do to show up the local hero. There were people who suggested he faked his hip injury too.

Phantom Reflections feels that winning the Tour de France may be a career killer, at this point few would argue that statement in light of Floyd Landis' year:

Let’s look at the career carnage over just the past year. First, Floyd Landis wins and is almost immediately accused of doping. A year later with evidence mounting in his defense, we still have no verdict. For his hard work in winning the Tour, Floyd has lost his reputation, his chance to race in the sport he loves, and all his money in defending both his innocence and his honor.

Cyclists, beware the Tour de France.

Partmule snarks a few choice "titles" at Floyd Landis for daring to compete this past weekend at Leadville.Mountain Bike Blog notes Floyd Landis' fine showing at Leadville.


Pinch Flat News thinks he knows why Lance Armstrong stayed in Colorado Springs this past weekend, he also feels there may be fluctuations in Floyd Landis' testosterone levels in the future, depending on his choice of belt buckle that is.


Mountain Bike Riders also posts a review of Floyd Landis' second place at Leadville this past weekend.


Wigging out in Arizona mourns the loss of Disco.


Yore Blog notes the passing of yet another Leadville 100, made better this year by the participation of Floyd Landis.


Far and Wide describes HOW John Marshall tracked Floyd Landis and got the interview he did with an injured Floyd after the Leadville 100 last Saturday.

Shirley Today got a new job, and had to pee in a cup...
[S]ince I'm not concerned about the drug test (although maybe that's what Floyd Landis said), everything should be a go!

Let's Snook 'Em
thinks pins are still falling over from the Tour '07 scandals, and we're still waiting for the Landis decision.


Bicycle Multi Sport
reviews all the recent cases, and concludes the Tour podium was clean, and Ras must have been on something.

5 comments:

nahual said...

So do Messieurs Campbell, Brunet and McLaren have day jobs? And they have to schedule time to meet and arbitrate. "...can't on wednesday I have 18 holes scheduled, I'm tied up with tennis on Friday, why don't you guys come over and help me wrestle with this slow drain, my derailleur is skipping and my wife wants to go for a ride Tuesday.............."

Are they being paid for a 40 hour week to make a finding in the LANDIS V USADA or is it catch as catch can?

DBrower said...

I'm sure they're on billable hours, and golf games aren't billable.

TBV

racejunkie said...

Don't worry TBV, I didn't mean to attack your boy--my intent, if clearly poorly executed, was actually to slag the goons who unaccountably blame him for Phonak's disastrous train-wreck.

regards,

racejunkie

wschart said...

There was an article today in the Columbia (MO) Tribune quoting McQuaid as blaming ASO for the turmoil resulting in the Disco folding. He rips ASO for pulling teams out of the tour, he says that sponsors won't want to sponsor a team if they don't know it will finish a tour.

Now I am thinking: there were 5 riders who either had a positive drug test announced during the TdF or were under doping suspicion for other reasons. Of this 5, only 2 were result of tests administered during the Tour. Should not these things be dealt with prior to the Tour. It seems to me that there was enough time for Sink's test to be done and the results relayed to the team so he could be pulled prior to the start, maybe a bit under cover "he has a bad cold" or whatever the excuse. Certainly Ras should have been excluded on the 45 day rule. And why did Franke wait so long to accuse Contador? If he is so anti-doping and believes that he had good evidence AC is guilty despite being cleared by both the Spanish authorities and UCI, why not turn that evidence over shortly after Contador was cleared, or even during the investigations during the OP affair.

cam said...

first it was the Curse of Superman, now it's the Curse of the Tour de France Winner... i think Floyd needs to lose the orange and wear blue and red for his next race!