Monday, May 05, 2008

Monday Roundup

News
The CyclingNews announces Asatna's "official" invite to the Giro which Johan Bruyneel acknowledges is appreciated, but is too late for adequate preparations. And the German TV network ARD found more links between the old T-Mobile squad and the Freiburg University clinic. Unaccounted for payments were made to the clinic in 2006 and 2007 that are assumed to be for unauthorized activities, a.k.a. doping.
In a later edition of Cyclingews, it is expected that the CAS will announce its decision in the Petacchi case later this week.

The VeloNews says Oscar Pereiro is sick of talking, or thinking, about Floyd Landis' legal struggles and has moved on. Pereiro insinuates that the "Landis distraction" cost him the 2007 Tour de France:

Although he managed to finish 10th in the 2007 Tour, he admits the distractions undermined his motivation to train and race at the level he had grown accustomed to.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Pereiro insinuates that the "Landis distraction" cost him the 2007 Tour de France:


Either that or no-one let him run away with a stage by 30 minutes because he was way out of contention.

Unknown said...

Poor Pereiro. He actually seems to believe he can win a Grand Tour. mman has it right. There is a reason the peloton let him get 30 minutes up the road in the 2006 TdF. It wasn't because they couldn't reel him in, and it wasn't because he was a legit threat to win. Still isn't.

Distraction is a convenient excuse. Nice try Pereiro. Nice try.

bobble said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bobble said...

Um yea...

Let's just call it what it is, a lame @ss excuse for getting your butt kicked.

Unknown said...

Sigh. Pro Cycling has such a culture of failure now. It's not about winners, losers, good peformances. It's about who is to blame for you not winning.

I could have won four more tours if those dirty dopers weren't there. I could have won the stage if that guy hadn't attacked when he did. I could have won this year if you hadn't distracted me. But, it certainly wasn't my fault for not performing.

Eightzero said...

...I could have won if my team hadn't fired me for lying....

Unknown said...

Who wants to take odds on who the 'one' top level cyclist is?

I'm betting 75% it's American

24% it's Italian (Di Luca)

1% it's Lance....

Mike

Unknown said...

Pro Cycling has such a culture of failure now.

Winners are assumed to be cheaters.

This is not a good thing.

Unknown said...

"...I could have won if my team hadn't fired me for lying...."

Actually, he could have and was the odds on favorite (although not my favorite) to do so.

There was a lot more lying being done, regarding the general subject, than that which was attributed to Ras. It took out Ras and his manager. Still plenty of dirty hands at Rabo and elsewhere.

If WADA is so damned good, where are the AAF's on Ras???

Watch out for Thor H. He likes to hunt and is said to sometimes list his whereabouts as "Norwegein woods". If I were collecting, I wouldn't want to see a bike racer with a rifle. Ha! Turn about can be fair play.

racejunkie said...

That's a skank move by Oscar to imply that Floyd's at fault for pursuing his pesky due process rights to Oscar's distraction. Pereiro--fine a rider as he genuinely is--wouldn't have been in contention in '06 in the first place if the favorites hadn't all been knocked out by Op Puerto and the peloton hadn't wholly discounted him as a GC threat til it was too late to reconsider. Still, best of luck to the boy in '08--just lay off Landis, will ya?