Thursday Roundup

News
The Boulder Report satirizes the UCI and it's new "rules" for the scheduled elimination of technology in cycling, and Joe Lindsey is another who missed one key point not reported in the NY Times story on the variant gene that can affect t/e ratios in tests for doping, see Rant below.

The CyclingNews' letters column this week presents opinions on topics ranging from yet more on Greg LeMond and his public statements, to Ivan Basso and why he should not be allowed back into the peloton.

Velonews writes about DiLuca's CAS appeal, which we covered yesterday.

Blogs
Clint took part in last weekend's Whiskey MTB race in Prescott, AZ and wanted to thank Floyd "Freakin'" Landis for the ass kicking. We can guess where he got his pictures.

Clarifying some other Whiskey stories, we find at SoCalTrailRiders that 13yr old Ryan Geiger finished second in the 25 proof behind teammate Chawakee Aitken, who fell off a cliff, climbed up, and kept going. That's Mountain Biking!

Ryan Geiger, age 13, approaching the line 2nd in the 25 proof.

(Photo: kanga, cropped)

Rant writes about context in stories presented by the "mainstream" media in politics and, as in the skewed version of an old story posted by the NY Times recently, in doping in sports.

Pure Pedantry talks about the genetics of the T/E test, and discusses some of the interesting graphs from the original paper. This is worth a look.

SpeedEndurance looks at it too, in a superficial manner, but does mention Landis; probably not worth the click.

Dr. Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge talked about it too, on May 1, and gets to the really immediate problems, revealing some of the over-arching geo-political problems for doping enforcement:

Presented with this new information, the obvious question is, what's a WADA to do? There are other, more expensive tests for testosterone use, which are normally used only after an athlete has already tested positive using the traditional T:E screen. But it is not feasible at this point to test, for example, everyone of Asian descent using the more expensive screen, and there is no way to know in the absence of DNA analysis which 10 percent of Caucasians to test. And the issue of DNA testing itself raises serious ethical questions.

Anyway, look for the Chinese to have a barrel of bulked-up fun on their home turf in August. That nation is already notorious for its doping practices (not that the U.S. and other countries are anywhere close to blameless), but it stands to reason that the Chinese have already heard about this and, knowing there is nothing to be done in time for the Beijing Olympics, will not hesitate to work this quirk of genetic fate to their competitive advantage.

A Chinese sweep of the cycling time-trial podium would certainly raise eyebrows.