Thursday, May 22, 2008

Thursday Roundup

News
WADAwatch notes how little fight by charged athletes it would take to put the WADA system deeply into the red, Mr Young's seeming conflicts of interest, and connects the late Dr. Hoffman with Landis' long strange trip. He also argues what it will take to really fix the WADA system, promising future revisions.

It remains scary to know how far one can get in the law, with a 'wink' between friends.


Stars and Stripes provides a bit more on some of the participants on the "Ride 2 Recovery", an event meant to bring more awareness to the healing process of disabled soldiers who have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq. Floyd Landis is taking part in the ride which began at Walter Reed in Washington, DC and will end at Lowe's Motor Speedway before the Coca Cola 600 Sunday.

Racejunkie thinks Landis should do even more charity work, since it paid off for Basso:
Floyd Landis has been out and about on the roads supporting charity, and that the boy can feel charitable towards anyone (except perhaps charitably like running over Pat "Dick" McQuaid with his bike at 35 miles an hour) is testament to his generosity and self-restraint. If he gathers eight thousand cameras around starts bawling and hugs every forlorn big-eyed tot in sight, Pat, can he get a new ProTour contract and a nice spokesman gig with UCI too?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I continue to be humbled by the dedication and sacrifice these men and women have endured on our behalf.

Words just can’t express the depth and breadth of appreciation.

Laura Challoner, DVM said...

Interesting news on Andrea Moletta.

Cyclingnews said this in its live report, today:

14:53 CEST
One of the riders who is now out of the race is Gerolsteiner's Andrea Moletta. The team took him out after his father was stopped on his way to the Giro by the Italian anti-doping investigators. He was in a car with two other people, and they were found to have a lot of Viagra with them – either 82 tablets or 82 packages, depending on which source you read.

The Intertnational Herald Tribune included information more than slightly nefarious:

"La Gazzetta dello Sport reported Thursday that Italian police searched a car driven by Moletta's father in which they allegedly found a refrigerator with suspected doping products as well as syringes hidden inside tubes of toothpaste.

Police said the car was headed to the Giro and the search was part of a wider investigation into doping in gyms in the city of Padua in northeastern Italy."



Reuters quoted a team spokesman as saying:

"The ethical code of the ProTour teams states that if something occurs you have to take the rider out of the race," Holczer added."

So, if something happens like your father and his friends arm themselves with enough Viagra for a month's worth of sexual adventure
each, you are out. If they are caught with a refridgerator full of EPO and syringes in toothpaste containers, you are out, too.

One I can understand. The other one is a little difficult to wrap my head around. Maybe I don't want to, as visions of my my own father blur the analysis.

Bill

whareagle said...

And of course, all of this could be perfectly legal, since he's the guy who was wrapped around a light pole at 60kph in last year's Milan-San Remo. I'm not going to be an apologist for true dopers here, but they could be, COULD BE, legit drugs to take care of pain or other medical necessities. I know, it's a reach, but had that happened to me, I think I would be a rec rider instead of a racer now.

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