Thursday Roundup

News
CyclingNews reports that Landis is doing the whole National Ultra-Endurance (NUE) series, regardless of the appeal outcome and process. He has some sponsorship. (tip from an emailer).

Schedule:

April 19: Cohutta 100 (Tennessee)
May 31: Mohican 100 (Ohio)
June 14: Lumberjack 100 (Michigan)
July 19: Breckenridge 100 (Colorado)
July 26: Wilderness 101 (Pennsylvania)
August 16: Fool's Gold 100 (Georgia)
August 31: Shenandoah 100 (Virginia)
September 6: Tahoe-Sierra 100 (California)

ESPN's Bonnie (DeSimone) Ford writes at length about Slipstream camp, along with a visit by Anne Gripper of the UCI. There's some Landis content:

Clean sport makes strange bedfellows. Flanking Steffen at the medical briefing are Lim and ACE's Scott and Strauss. Scott, a former administrator at the highly regarded, WADA-accredited UCLA laboratory, served as an advisor to Floyd Landis' legal team last year after concluding that the case was botched by the French lab that handled the samples. Scott says he feels he was acting honorably, but Steffen isn't wild about that association and neither is the team at the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that pursued the case against Landis.

Lim, a numbers-crunching training guru with a Ph.D. in physiology, is also Landis' former trainer, but was never implicated in the Landis case.

When the subject comes up over dinner, Lim looks pained and says he hopes his work with Slipstream helps "get this demon off my back." His distress about the Landis case has been compounded by stinging accusations, most of them in anonymous blogs and forums, that he must have known Landis was dirty.

"I will not comment on his guilt or innocence," Lim says later. "I'm not so naïve as to think that no one takes drugs, but I'm also not so cynical as to think everyone's taking drugs. If he did dope, he's one helluva conflicted individual, because if there's anyone who understands the distinction between right and wrong, it's Floyd."

The VeloNews posts an AFP piece that has Michael Boogerd and Denis Menchov both denying any connection to the Austrian blood bank which is at the center of the most recent doping scandal in Europe, and now the IOC wants answers as well.

The CyclingNews reveals yet more problems for Patrik Sinkewitz, and they could have far reaching consequences for other cyclists caught up in doping scandals. A former sponsor, Förstina which produces mineral water and other drinks, is suing him for monies lost due to the cancellation of an ad campaign which featured Sinkewitz:

"Förstina invested money in someone who claimed to ride clean, but didn't do it," the firms' attorney, Christian Schmitt told the dpa press agency. "Because of that, the firm has suffered damages, which must now be paid for."

The LA Times writes a nice profile of track cyclist Sarah Hammer, who gets some support in her efforts to reach the Olympics from Dr. Brent Kay and his OUCH Sports Medical Center. Hammer will be competing this weekend's Los Angeles World Cup championship at the Home Depot center. The piece needs a fact check saying Dr. Kay performed Floyd Landis' hip replacement, which was really done by Dr. David Chao.


Bloomberg posts what appears to be a burgeoning war of words and philosophies between WADA president John Fahey and MLB. WADA claims that HGH testing has been done for a long time and baseball is disregarding the truth when it states that there is difficulty in the development of an accurate and easy procedure to look for the substance. Baseball shoots back at John Fahey and his predecessor:

``These continuing, unprovoked, inaccurate publicity stunts by WADA have created an unwillingness to become more involved with WADA and its affiliates,'' said Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president. ``We were hopeful that false public statements by WADA would end with its recent change in leadership and we are deeply disappointed that Mr. Fahey is showing the same counterproductive tendencies as his predecessor.''

[...]

``Perhaps Mr. Fahey should become more familiar with the operation of the WADA laboratories before attempting to criticize Major League Baseball,'' Manfred said.

Blogs
Rant wonders if the "Austrian blood bank story" is OP redux, or maybe just OP lite.

2per Santos says you can help but feel for Floyd Landis after all he has been through, even though 2per's "sympathy" is somewhat questionable as he feels Floyd did dope. He then posts "bikin' dirty" the Youtube parody about the Landis case that has been floating around the net since July or August 2006.

Maglia Rosa compares Landis to "Jason" and the Highlander. We presume it's about the absence of "quit" in the boy.