Wednesday Roundup

News
The CyclingNews reports that the Kazakh cycling federation says that Andrey Kashechkin's blood has been tested and came back negative, but representatives from Astana has denied that it was the official B-sample from his positive test which was sent to an "independent French lab". Mysteries abound.

Aspen times reports 24 year-old Max Taam, who finished 4th behind Wiens, Landis and Kloser at Leadville, was a runner up at the Dillon Pro Criterium. Sounds like a good set of results for his first summer as a competitive cyclist!


Blogs
FloydLandis.com provides a triple entry with recaps on the Leadville 100 by Floyd himself, Dr. Brent Kay Floyd's physician, and Robbie Ventura Floyd's friend and coach. From Floyd's perspective the race was a great experience, with the exception of the results his wash out early on (see photo). He expresses gratitude to a number of folks who helped in this endeavor. From Dr. Kay's viewpoint of Leadville the BHR was a complete success and will be an example of what might be accomplished by a world class athlete after a hip resurfacing procedure. From Robbie Ventura comes perhaps the most interesting entry which emphasizes Floyd's preparation for the race and what that entailed:

I was able to do one test with him a week before the event on some smaller climbs near Vail and he did very well on his 20 minute power. It was about 90-95 percentage of where it was when he won the tour in 2006. He was able to do 380+ watts comfortably for a 27 minute climb and that was after a significant climb earlier in the day. Floyd did about 20 hours a week for three weeks with several big climbs each day. Floyd struggled the first 10 days but really turned the corner about 10 days before the race. He wanted to train harder and longer but I thought it better that he not overdo it since his longest week since the surgery was just over 17 hours. I was impressed with the quickness he came around and it just leads me to believe that he should be ready to compete at a very high level in a matter of months once we set some goals and lay out the rest of the year and next.

Rant ponders the possibility of an IAAF proposal to WADA to reestablish a 4 year ban for doping offenses replacing the current standard 2 year suspension. Rant feels this is overkill as most competitors suspended for 2 years never come back to top form anyway. It makes more sense to fix the system so it works more efficiently. Rant also links a song called Bike.


Science Fiction Twin thinks he's found out what Floyd Landis has been doing with his spare time, but the resemblance seems a bit of a stretch, and does anyone know if Floyd can even sing anyway?

PTomblin really likes the Environmental Chemistry blog posts about the Landis case.

University of Chicago Law Faculty/Randy Picker considers the limits of competition, citing Bonds and the meltdown of the last Tour, and the Landis case. (Also at the Chicago Tribune). He concludes pill-popping competition is unfair.