Thursday Roundup

News
Jaffe Legal News reports Richard Young has been made co-chair of HRO's litigation practice department, trumpeting a well known case:

Richard Young, managing partner of the firm's Colorado Springs office and world-renowned sports lawyer and arbitrator, is perhaps best known for his success representing the United States Anti-Doping Agency in a trial of doping charges brought against Floyd Landis following positive test results for the presence of synthetic testosterone at the 2006 Tour de France. Mr. Young was the principal draftsman of the World Anti-Doping Code, which has been adopted by the entire Olympic Movement and the governments of more than 150 countries

ESPN has an AP piece in which Pat McQuaid of the UCI declares no sanctions will be placed upon any Olympics bound cyclists who take part in this year's Tour de France, which is being contested outside of the auspices of the UCI:

"No matter how grave the situation might be or how disloyal we feel the French federation has been to the UCI, I don't see the Olympic Games being touched," McQuaid said.

"Nothing is beyond repair," said McQuaid, who will not take part in the board's discussion or decision. "But what we cannot have is one set of rules for France and one set for the rest of the world."

The VeloNews posts an extensive interview with Pat McQuaid concerning the never ending war of words with the ASO. McQuaid claims that the ASO/FFC did not need to take charge of the Tour de France based on fears of repeating last year's fiasco as the peloton is the "cleanest that there is". McQuaid then comments on the suit against Dick Pound which seems to be at the center of the widening rift between the UCI and WADA:

Dick Pound has been making wild statements over the past couple of years about the UCI … So if we allow that to go unchecked and remain [on the record] then what could happen in six months or a year or two, a cyclist could end up positive in a race, he could be sanctioned, he could then go to a civil court and use those statements of Dick Pound’s against the UCI to have the judge agree with him that the UCI didn’t take enough measures against doping, and therefore clear him on that, or he could have a case against the UCI on that basis.

That’s one aspect of it, so we have to protect out liability against that and that’s why we have opened up a case against Dick Pound. We didn’t go anywhere near WADA. It’s nothing to do with them because he’s now out of WADA. The second aspect of it was to protect the UCI against him making further statements. He now does these speeches in universities and other places for quite a sizeable sum of money. What we don’t want is him continuing within those areas to publicly berate the UCI …. That’s why that process started against Pound.

CN's letters column this week contains loads of comment on many cycling topics, with an interesting one concerning last week's letter about Lance Armstrong's "positives". There are also many notes on recent tragic "road rage" incidents involving cyclists.

The NY Times reports Big Brown is "virtually" free of PEDs and ready to contest the Belmont Stakes on Saturday. The colt was last injected in April, and has not received any Winstrol since the 15th of that month. Gary Wadler is quoted:

Gary Wadler, a New York University medical professor and anti-doping expert, said that if you took Rick Dutrow’s claims at face value, that Big Brown has not received steroids since mid-April, then it would be fair to argue that a victory in the Belmont Stakes, at least, could be considered steroid-free. "The impact on the race, if any, would be minimal,” Wadler said in reference to the April steroid injection.

AP/Yahoo reports that a convicted steroid dealer who spoke to the NFL and his girlfriend wer found shot dead in his Texas home. There has been speculation it was a murder/suicide, or a random encounter, or an example of omerta in action.


Blogs
Racejunkie serves up some leftover comments on Giro happenings, and then provides a few appropriate "jobs wanted classifieds" we might see in a different world. Here's one from someone we'll all recognize that has the ring of truth to it:

--Tour de France winner goddammit, still gamely training on mountain bike, won't cop to crime I didn't commit. Vindication and honorary B.S. in Crap Monkey Labwork Studies anticipated late June 2009. Much stronger than last lame squad would suggest.

The Competitive Cyclist digs into "Dopers Suck" posturing, wondering why Millar gets the love. We're absolutely crushed not to have made CC's blog roll. (Pointer by CalfeeGirl)

Information-Cul-de-Sac/LunarPoodle/Eight-Zero deconstructs the USA Cycling license terms in a way racers and would-be's may find illuminating.