Monday Roundup

News

The USOC and IOC told the Gatlin Court in Florida today that they don't want to play there, but in Switzerland, according to the AFP and AP. We now have Friday's TRO that will let him run at the US Trials.

The CyclingNews says Eugenio Bermudez, the secretary general of the Spanish Cycling Federation, was acquitted last week of leaking information from OP. The court also supported former Spanish Superior Council of Sports director Rafael Blanco, who was accused by former Liberty Seguros manager Manuel Saiz of "prevarication, falsification of documents and revealing secrets." So some kind of proceeding was held to determine where the OP leaks came from and who made them -- it just didn't go anywhere.

CyclingWeekly provides its usual hodgepodge of news from the cycling world and says that this week is when we should hear the Landis verdict from the CAS. Let's hope this is correct, but we are not holding our collective breath.

HuffPost has a roundup of interesting articles about commercial interests, the IOC, and the Beijing Games. Remember, about doping in cycling and the Landis case, "It's the Olympics, stupid."

Take a look at "The Beijing Olympiad: The Political Economy of a Sporting Mega-event", which talks about "the "IOC's commitment to a market-oriented, private-sector partnership approach to financing the Olympics." The authors call this part of an "Olympics social compact," one that provides an extraordinary convergence... between modern Olympism and the ideals and tendencies of market capitalism."

There's a riff about exploitation of the working (athlete) class to be made, but we wouldn't dare.

Blogs
Rant covers many topics this morning including: Justin Gatlin's chance at making the Olympics, China's belated "crackdown" on drug labs, the placebo effect and HGH, and good old Travis Tygart who Rant thinks took a confusing cheap shot at Floyd Landis in his Denver Post interview yesterday.

Spinnin' Wheel notes Versus' "take back the tour from the dopers" movement and is rather confused by who is included in its ad, and who is not. Speaking of "cheap shots" (see Rant above) Floyd Landis was sadly front and center in the backwards running ad showing his winner's jersey being taken from him. Versus seems to have no compunction about kicking someone -- who still awaits a CAS decision by the way -- when he's down if it seems to meet their commercial interests by attracting viewers.

Jack saw the new Versus commercial too, and didn't think it was fair.

Racejunkie rambles on about lots of things today. One good point is why has no one has ever been held accountable for the "hosing" Floyd Landis got from the press due to the "leaks" of his "positive" in 2006. We wanna know about that one too, RJ, but don't expect much of an answer as long as he's generally held to be a "dirty doper". DD's get not any sympathy or protection of rights -- see Saiz above, or Tygarts comments of yesterday.

Going Against the Daily Grind writes about Fatty's triathalon this past weekend and says he wound up with a Fat Cyclist jersey that was destined for Floyd Landis. Sounds like a great event for a great cause, and Floyd's loss.

Brad Keyes went too, and was demoralized in the first transition. So was UT Rider. But Kanyon Kris was undaunted, and krushed the event with perfect form, though he wonders if the duck is a doper.

Hands relaxed, pointing in target direction. Photo: KK

Reminder: TBV Triathalon Oct 5th, RSVP.