Saturday, October 13, 2007

Saturday Roundup

News
Tha Daily American shares some opinions on gun control legislation, the use of mercenaries in war, and doping which should garner a lifetime ban from all sports, period.

The Jamaica Gleaner notes that while Floyd Landis is still "bleating" his innocence, tennis may be harboring a far more incendiary scandal within its ranks, the fixing of matches.

The Canadian Press speaks with several agents who represent track and field stars and gets a few comments on the Marion Jones story and doping in general. Still, the Landis case exposed flaws within the anti-doping system and the USADA "victory" came at great cost to it's reputation.


The Washington Herald is sick of seeing sports stars on Court TV , and the age of CNN dictates that we see the scandals played out over and over again as athletes try to gain some small advantage over the competition by cheating.

Voices News.com recounts the story of a woman in Connecticut who had bilateral hip resurfacing surgery.

Blogs
Dugard wrote mostly about Al Gore yesterday, but also said he is clinging to the hope that Floyd Landis will win his appeal to the CAS. Dugard also thinks that it's somehow fitting that Oscar Pereiro will finally get the yellow jersey from the 2006 Tour de France, the two opinions seem rather contradictory.


The Oz Report
has Floyd Landis fighting the good fight, though he has doubts that Floyd will find any justice in Switzerland.

The Second Most Useless Blog Ever wants someone, anyone, to tell him why oh why Floyd Landis is appealing his case to the CAS when we all KNOW he will lose. He thinks Floyd should save his money lest he wind up working at Mickey Ds. Perhaps Floyd has more things to save than just the monetary.

Go Faster Jim is dismayed by Travis Tygart's comments following the announcement of the Landis appeal, and thinks USADA should save its' pennies to fund better testing.

MVN Tennis feels Floyd Landis may not have been "read his rights" even though he is probably guilty, but isn't generally impressed with the fairness of the WADA system:

Anti-doping agencies can’t possibly satisfy the laws of every country represented by the athletes it passes judgment on, but the process is currently weighed in favor of the anti-doping agencies. If an athlete’s career can be taken away, that balance needs to be adjusted to give the athlete a fairer decision
.
Paul Luvera passes on snark about Landis and Jones wanting to move to Washington, because the State Supreme Court has ruled it's OK to lie in political campaigns

Of course, the media had a field day. One Seattle Times Columnist wrote:

"Among the other campaign activity blessed by the justices: hair pulling, lighting bags of dog doo-doo on fire outside campaign Hqs,...Within moments of the state supreme court decision, disgraced drug cheats Marion Jones and Floyd Landis announced plans to relocate to the Evergreen State..."

Not very good press for our Supreme Court and the majority opinion with it’s overly broad and loosly written statements which invite ridicule from the press and public. When writing about constitutional rights courts should be very careful, precise and legally correct.


3 comments:

Eightzero said...

ASO will be giving Oscar Periero a yellow jersey next week - anyone know if they will also be giving him the GC winners prize money? Will he be distributing it to his teammates? And will UCI be updating the points lists for 2006 because of the change?

And while we're on the topic, isn't these prize money awarded for stage wins in Le Tour? What happens to the prize money form Floyd's S17 win? IIRC, he also won the final time trial. Prize money for that? And wasn't these some issue with exo-T in B samples from that?

Even more questions: aren't we supposed to test the GC leader after every stage? So by awarding the yellow jersey to Periero, doesn't he "win" without the associated testing? If Floyd should have been DQed after stage 17, why wasn't Oscar tested after stage 18?

Maybe we need to start thinking about testing everyone, with procedures that are reliable. Expensive? Yeah. My heart bleeds for the ASO and their lost profits. They sure didn't care about what they did to Floyd with their sloppy shenanigans.

cat2bike said...

I'm making this comment without reading Dugard's post....I've read enough with him back and forth on Floyd, and have lost my appetite for his opinions. Between TBV and Sara Best's First 100 miles, I find consistent opinions, that more interesting to read.

cat2bike said...

Oh, and eightzero, you raise interesting questions. The ASO is giving the jersey to a rider that WAS NOT tested, after stage 16. Unless he was a random. The money deal is interesting too. Are they going to screw Floyd out of all his money???