Friday Roundup

Still no news from the CAS hearing of Floyd Landis which enters day three in New York City. The hearing is scheduled to end Monday with a day off on Sunday for Easter. The silence is maddening, stay tuned.

News
ESPN posts a Bonnie Ford piece on cycling's "selection Thursday" as the ASO send out its invitations to their version of "the big dance". A majority of the article concerns Slipstream's reaction to the invite, wonder if "bracket madness" can be applied to the Tour de France?

In another story from ESPN the AP reports that though systematic doping has been determined to have been present during the 2006 season on T-Mobile, there is thus far no evidence that Jan Ullrich partook, though suspicions still run high that he did.

The CyclingNews quotes TdF director Christian Prudhomme as saying the exclusion of Astana from the Tour this year was aimed at the team and not defending champ Alberto Contador, this is likely of no comfort to Contador:

The ASO has given Astana's past doping offenses as a reason for excluding the team from this year's event, but the team's spokesman Philippe Maertens decried the hypocrisy of the decision. "Where is the logic? There are other teams who have doping records. Rabobank and Cofidis were faulted in last year's Tour," he said.

In other CyclingNews it's rumored that former Landis Phonak teammate Axel Merckx may be named manager of troubled Rock Racing. And Danilo DiLuca is impatient to have his CAS decision announced next week as he has suffered enough.

The CyclingNews mailbag is full of discussion about Astana, the UCI, the ASO, Cadel Evans, and the Kevin Van Impe story.

In the world of real law, the SF Chronicle reports the Barry Bonds case is being pushed back until at least June for the prosecutors to fix the deficient indictment.

Blogs
Racejunkie takes a turn around the latest news in cycling from the past few days, including some comment on the former T-Mobile's medical staff, and the fact that to no one's surprise Astana has been left out of the TdF.

Rant writes about irony today: the irony, or is it really an early April Fools, of Dick Pound being sued by the UCI, and the irony of silence from a Landis hearing. As to paying for the Landis/CAS hearing Rant has a few comments as well.

Tour Squad wishes Floyd Landis lots of luck in his CAS hearings this week in NYC, and thinks Floyd should sue the pants off of anyone who accused him wrongly afterwards, IF he wins of course.

German blog American Arena, machine translated, has a skeptical view of the Landis appeal and a positive view of Dugard's enlightenment.

CFA is in an extra snarky mood as he speculates on Floyd Landis, his friends, and their relationship to Rock Racing.