Fallout 27

The Wilderness 101 NUE race takes place this morning near State College Pennsylvania, and as with the other NUE races held this summer Floyd Landis was scheduled to take part. He has not participated in the last two races and so may not be racing today either. Time will tell, and so will we when we hear.

Mrs. TBV thinks Chris Horner is laughing his something off at the performance of the Silence-Lotto team in the mountains.

News
At The Times, Slipstream has made Paul Kimmage a believer in cycling again.

The CyclingNews reports on the Gusev "sacking" by Astana, and in other news says that Michael Rasmussen is appealing the settlement offered him by former team Rabobank for being too stingy.

ESPN/AP posts a story that sounds sickeningly familiar as Olympic swimmer Jessica Hardy continues to vehemently proclaim her innocence against the doping charges filed against her this week.In the future her name may be added to the following reference list of "known dopers":

Although she knows there will be plenty of skeptics, those who say we've heard it all before from drug cheats ranging from Marion Jones to Floyd Landis, Hardy said her focus is on getting the ruling overturned.

Getting back her reputation is another matter. "I just want to say that I'm innocent. I've been innocent my entire career," she said. "I've never wanted to do anything remotely close to doping. It's never, ever crossed my mind. I've never been approached about doing it. It's never been an issue my entire career.

Blogs
Rant writes about a "doping trifecta" which this week includes rumors of nebulous connections between Frank Schleck and OP, Olympic swimmer Jessica Hardy and her positive "A" and "B" tests for a banned substance, and Astana's internal anti-doping program which has snagged its first rider, Vladimir Gusev.

80 percent mental runs down some research on PED benefits of Hgh, and finds little support except for placebo effects.

On the one hand, we have a research review that claims there is not yet any scientific evidence that HGH actually improves sports performance. Yet, we have hundreds, if not thousands, of athletes illegally using HGH for performance gain. Showing the effect of the "if its good enough for them, its good enough for me" beliefs of the public regarding professional athlete use of HGH, we now have research that shows even those who received a placebo, but believed they were taking HGH not only thought they were improving but actually did improve a little.

Beware if you physician ever prescribes Obecalp.