Friday Roundup

News
AP carries the announcement of the UCI's case against the FFC, that CAS recusal, and has this quote:

“We maintain the French federation didn’t have to accept the request to put the race on the French calendar,” UCI president Pat McQuaid told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Which also doesn't say the FFC was obliged to reject it, either. Pitallier shot back:

It was “regrettable and disastrous that an international association which says it defends federations and its members can hold responsible people who have done nothing wrong,” he said.

CAS issued a press release announcing their rejection of the case by the IPCT. The UCI and ASO claimed CAS was "not competent" to to decide the dispute. CAS has agreed not to try to ajudicate the short-term provisional matters, but says it is available should the parties decide to play nice and accept a decision about who owns the lolipop.

The UCI issued a press release saying they were going to commence disciplinary action against the FFC and Pitallier, and want Boyer to resign the AIGCP. (both found by Larry).

The CyclingNews reports that while the CAS has said it would hear the dispute between the ASO and the UCI, neither party has accepted the judicial body competent to do so adding another complicating layer to this already ponderous situation :

"The CAS informed all the parties concerned that an arbitration hearing could take place on 7 March 2008 on the condition that all the parties agreed to accept the jurisdiction of the CAS to decide the case in question. However, neither the UCI nor the ASO have accepted the jurisdiction of the CAS to decide this dispute," a press release by CAS read. "In these circumstances, the CAS must rule during the day of 7 March 2008 on its competence to decide this dispute and, if necessary, on the request for provisional measures filed by the claimants."

In other CyclingNews cyclist Amber Neben is suing Hammer Nutrition for not including a list of all of the substances it put in one of its nutritional supplements which consequently are alleged to have caused a positive doping control. She, along with several others, will be represented by Howard Jacobs. And the UCI has formally established its own anti-doping foundation which will look for new strategies in the fight against PED use:

The foundation has been allocated a budget of 5 million Euro per year, which will be used to optimise the practical and scientific aspects of the UCI's anti-doping activities by developing new synergies. To ensure transparency of the organization a contributors' committee has been established, which will be spearheaded by former Tour de France second in charge Daniel Baal. The former ASO employee will be joined by yet to be named representative from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), organisers, teams, riders and other parties.

Where they are getting 5 million Euros we don't know, and they are saying the "Passport" system may not be deployed quickly because they are short cash for that -- partly because they say ASO etc. haven't paid up.

The VeloNews posts an open letter from Pat McQuaid which was printed in Le Monde today; full text in our post.

The VeloNews also posts a feature on the UCI's new anti-doping foundation.

ESPN hosts a Reuters report in which Pat McQuaid tells riders that IF they take part in Paris-Nice they are out.

And the AP says Sinkewitz is off the hook from the German Cycling Federation since he dropped his appeal yesterday. No word if the German Federal Prosecutors will carry forward their threats of jail time if he doesn't sing more notes. We suspect he's less motivated now than he may have been before to testify against Landis at the CAS appeal.

Later the other shoe drops, as CyclingNews suggests that Sinkewitz may have implicated Kloden in a trip to the Freiburg University Clinic, this perhaps from a chat with the Federal Prosecutors on Monday. CN has more about the ASO/UCI impasse and history as well.

Blogs
CFA is glad that Paul Scott has resigned from ACE, allegedly because of his continuing participation in the Floyd Landis case. CFA makes a few suppositions about Scott's motivations in the matter, and drags an old chestnut out for good measure:

It makes it seem like he must really believe Landis is innocent...because otherwise he's just helping a doper get off. I do wonder if Scott has studied Landis's blood profile and noticed the increase in hematocrit during the Tour? And if so, what he has to say about it. I also really wish that some cycling journalist would ask Landis to explain that blood profile. I realize that his doping case is only about testosterone and not blood doping, but the bigger question is whether Landis was a doper or not. An increasing hematocrit during the extreme exertion of the Tour is not normal, and so far this issue has not been addressed adequately.

We refer the reader to a discussion of this in comments at Rant. We don't think it leads to any conclusions, and yes, we're pretty sure Scott knows about it. There's really no reason For Landis to address the Hct values unless and until he wins his appeal.

NewsBiscuit snarks , with Photoshop assistance, that Le Tour will let pizza mopeds in this year's tour at the behest of a new sponsor. (from an emailer.)