Archive for Cycling
August 8, 2007 · Filed under Cycling, Doping
Ever since winning this year’s Tour de France, Alberto Contador has been at the center of rumors that he was involved in Operation 
Puerto. Before Rasmussen was thrown out of the race while wearing the Yellow Jersey, it seemed like no one but Michelle was talking about the fact that Contador was not allowed to start the 2006 Tour due to alleged involvement in the blood-doping ring. Naturally, the day he took his first Maillot Jaune, the chatter started.
It seems to have become a bit more severe this week, with a German doctor claiming to be in possession of documents that clearly indicate Contador is involved, and that his win is “the greatest swindle in sporting history”. (The doctor, Dr. Franke, is the same doctor who repeatedly claimed Jan Ullrich was also involved, which ultimately proved to be true.)
On Saturday, the World Anti Doping Agency requested the documents from Franke and the agency has since opened an investigation into Contador’s involvement.
Today, Contador and his team, Team Discovery Channel, have announced a press announcement to be made on Friday. VeloNews reported:
Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has scheduled a press event this Friday in Spain, but says he will decline to answer reporters’ questions after he reads a prepared statement.
It is impossible to guess what will be said at the conference, but it certainly sounds ominous. I figure a 50-50 chance as to whether Contador will sternly refute the claims or will admit his involvement. If I were to judge based on what has been revealed in press conferences so far this season, I would say the safe money is on an admission, but we’ll have to see.
Read more on Doping in Cycling.
July 25, 2007 · Filed under Cycling, Doping
Yesterday, the very sad news broke that Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive for a homologous blood transfusion Saturday after 
winning the first long time trial at the Tour de France.
Vino was one of the last riders who were at the top of the sport during the Armstrong era who had managed to avoid doping suspision. Armstrong never failed a drug test but spent his entire career fighting doping allegations. Tyler Hamilton has the dubious honor of being the first rider to test positive for homologous blood transfusions. Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, and Joseba Beloki all seem to have been clients in the blood doping ring of Eufemiano Fuentes. Finally, Floyd Landis is fighting test results that indicated he doped to win the 2006 Tour de France.
Cycling has been suffering blow after blow as it tries to clean up its image and fight doping. With that fight, all the big stars seem to be falling one by one, and the fans are left without their heros to cheer for. But if the sport cleans up, then maybe it’s worth it. One thing is certain, the riders are victims of pressure from their teams and sponsors. In many cases the teams appear to not only turn a blind eye to doping within their ranks, but organize it. Some teams appear to even have made arrangements with the labs (bottom) that conduct the tests to help avoid or suppress negative test results. As long as this kind of thing is going on, it will be impossible to clean up the sport. And how long can we continue to blame and punish the riders for their teams’ actions?
Updated: The Astana cycling team announced Wednesday, August 8, that Vinokourov’s teammate, Andrey Kashechkin, tested positive for homologous blood doping following an out-of-competition test in Belek, Turkey on August 1. Read more.
Read more on Doping in Cycling.
June 12, 2007 · Filed under Cycling, Doping
The UCI is meeting Wednesday with the 20 Pro Tour cycling teams to discuss and release the names of the riders it 
considers implicated in Operation Puerto. In other words, Wednesday will be the day we find out who is and who is not allowed to start the Tour de France. The list is rumored to contain over 50 names. It is also being speculated that they will take the unprecedented step of not allowing Erik Zabel to start nor to allow Rolf Aldag or Bjarne Riis to act as Director Sportif based on their admissions to have used drugs in the 90′s.
The fight against doping in cycling has recently seemed to be a little more level-headed, but at the same time, it continues to be very odd who is and who is not considered to be implicated in the case. It will be very interesting to see what comes out of the meeting and which names are released.
My big question is whether Valverde or Vino will be on the list. They strike me as obvious candidates, but they have so far been almost entirely ignored. We’ll see.
Correction: It appears the UCI is not meeting with the Pro Tour Teams until Tuesday, June 19; the June 13th meeting seems to have been between the teams themselves. They decided that any team not upholding the Pro Tour Ethics Code (i.e. suspend and not associated with any rider involved in a doping investigation, in particular Operation Puerto) will be excluded from the Pro Tour Team’s Association. This could spell trouble for Caisse d’Epargne, Saunier Duval and Discovery Channel.
Second Correction: It appears the UCI did not provide any information regarding Puerto and no new riders will be implicated. In fact, they say they only received 1,000 of the 6,000 pages from Spain and they did not contain any new information. However, Discovery Chanel did resign from the Pro Tour Team’s Association. Apparently, Johan Bruyneel did storm out of the meeting in a style modeled after the Bush Administration. Nice to see the influence that working for an American company is having on Bruyneel.
More of an Overcast-with-Chances-of-Rain-Wednesday than a Black Wednesday, then.
June 1, 2007 · Filed under Cycling, Seattle
Here’s the funny thing about cycling: I go out of my way to find the biggest and hardest hills I can, and I start to talk excitedly about how “good” the climbs are. “Good” in this application is taken to mean hard, steep, and long. Then, when I actually ride these “good” climbs, I suffer like a pig and find all I can do is try to keep my lungs from popping out through my eye sockets. I am increasingly certain this can in fact happen.
I found a site called MapMyRide. When I say, “found” what I really mean is “VeloNews posted a Site of the Day which happened to be MapMyRide and I clicked on the link and when the web site loaded, I saw it was cool.” I used a similar technique to “find” the Google on the Internets.
Anyhoochiemama, I played with this site, and it is awesome. I highly recommend that you sign up (free) and use the site even if you don’t ride, but partake in any activity which involves a route, such as walking, hiking, or Embrioing.
Naturally, I mapped the regular training route that Michelle, Jim, and I have painstakingly put together. Since I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, this took about an hour and a half. (I was really freaked out about doubling back on the route since the little green line looked wavy when doubled up, so I redid all the parts of the route that had doubled up sections and made sure the little green line stays neatly on opposite sides of the street in those areas. That was another solid 35 minutes.)
Here’s a screen shot (no, Paris, that is not the same as a money shot):
Coolest part of this tool: there is an elevation option which shows the elevation of the route and displays a neat little profile along the bottom of the map. To my delight and surprise, the little elevation tool told me I’m not a ninny and that the 36km route has a total elevation gain of 1500m (that’s almost a mile, for you Americans out there).
Check the route out here: MapMyRide.com
May 25, 2007 · Filed under Cycling, Doping
What a shocking week in cycling. About a half dozen riders and two team doctors have admitted to doping at Team Telekom 
(which later became T-Mobile) during the 90′s. Among the riders who have admitted using drugs are cycling icons Erik Zabel and Bjarne Riis.
So far, the admissions have culminated with Riis admitting that he used EPO during the 1996 Tour de France – which he won. (Riis was rumored to be nicknamed “Mr. Sixty” due to his high hematocrit count, which becomes dangerous when above 50.) We will have to wait and see if this ends up with anyone losing their titles: Riis could lose his yellow jersey (overall winner), and Zabel his green jersey (points winner).
Interestingly, if you look at the results of the ’96 Tour, more than half the riders in the top 10 have admitted to drug use or have been very closely tied to it:
- Bjarne Riis – admitted drug usage during the ’96 Tour
- Jan Ullrich – no admitted drug use, but his DNA matched blood found in Operation Puerto
- Richard Virenque – admitted drug use after the ’98 Festina Affair
- Laurent Dufaux – admitted drug use after the ’98 Festina Affair
- Luc Leblanc – admitted drug use after the ’98 Festina Affair
- Fernando Escartin – admitted drug use
Perhaps most surprising about the admissions is that many of the riders were not star riders looking for the extra edge to win; they were riders of the domestique category: a caliber of riders who’s role it is not to win races, but to serve the team in other ways, such as setting tempo at the front of the peleton, chasing down breakaways, or to protect their team leader during a race. Rolf Aldag, who was an excellent domestique, said that during the ’95 season, was was in awe as he would routinely get dropped by the peleton during races. He simply couldn’t keep up with the pace – let alone serve his duty as domestique. He turned to drug use in order to be able to continue in his profession. It seems the speed of the races increased so dramatically during the 90′s that just to keep up, riders had to dope. Drug use was wide-spread and riders were not simply doping to win, but to handle the speeds.
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