Sorry Lemond, please get your shit together if you are going to tear down the sport that gave you your success and fame.

Update, Lemond will sounds very coherent in the above video if you watch this video first.

Ugh, hope this turns out to be nothing. The car of Johnny Schleck the father of Andy and former Yellow Jersey Frank Schleck was searched by customs agents.

So far news reports are simply that the car was searched for 30 minutes. Schleck’s car was then seen following the French customs police vehicle during the Tour stage. Nothing is concrete, but there is a sick feeling in the gut of all cycling fans at the moment.

Yahoo Sports News: Customs search car driven by Schlecks’ father

Update – from velonews.com

Sources say that officials found “no doping products or banned substances” in the car belonging to Andy and Frank Schleck’s father, according to Agence France Presse.

Ricco used CERA/Micera which is not detected by any doping tests. It is thought that riders in the Giro were using CERA/Micera because it is not detectable by the tests.

Doping expert stunned by Riccò news

Professor Michel Audran is one of the world’s leading experts on blood doping. He is also one of nine independent experts chosen to act as consultants in the formulation of the UCI’s biological passport. Daniel Friebe, Procycling features editor spoke to Audran this morning within minutes of L’Equipe’s website announcing that Riccardo Riccò has tested positive for an EPO derivative after stage four of the Tour de France, the individual time trial around Cholet.

Riccò’s case stuns doping expert Michel Audran

Daniel Friebe: In the last twenty minutes we’ve heard that Riccardo Riccò has tested positive for an EPO-like product. The early reports suggest that Riccò used CERA or Micera. a so-called third generation EPO. What’s your reaction?

Michel Audran: Wow. I’m stunned. I’m amazed they’re saying it’s Micera, simply because there’s no validated test for that yet. The World Anti-Doping Agency is working on a test, but it certainly doesn’t exist yet.

DF: What exactly is CERA, or Micera to give it its commercial name?

MA:It’s a delayed-action EPO, which has a different molecular mass from EPO. It’s only been commercially available since the start of the year. We can tell when someone’s used it but we can’t declare them positive. In that respect it’s like Dynepo, another EPO-like product. We know that Micera was being used on the Giro, so I’m not surprised that it’s also turned up at the Tour. But I would be very surprised if they AFLD had declared Riccò positive for Micera, for the reasons I’ve just mentioned. Maybe they searched Riccò’s room and found the product itself…

DF: What’s the difference between Micera and traditional EPO?

MA: It’s more convenient for clinical patients. They might only have to take Micera once a fortnight or once a month. EPO has to be administered much more often. The effect for an athlete is the same: raised haematocrit, raised haemoglobin, more oxygen to the muscles. It’s funny, because Riccò has UCI certification for his high haematocrit already.

DF: You talked about the differences between EPO and Micera, and also the fact that the latter is visible in tests, even if it, until now, it couldn’t lead to a positive test. Could you talk a little more about that?

MA: Well, you see synthetic EPO in urine the form of bars on an electrophoregram. If a rider’s taken Micera, the bars are located in a different place to those you see in a simple containing synthetic EPO.

DF: This is the third positive since the start of the Tour. Does that suggest to us that the testing being carried out by the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) is more rigorous that the UCI’s?

MA: What the AFLD have done very well is target particular riders. I don’t think their tests themselves are any more rigorous, though. They’ll be adopting the same criteria for positive tests as WADA. I would say, though, that if the UCI’s biological passports had been ready, which they should be soon, Riccò would never have started this Tour.

Cyclingnews: Doping expert stunned by Riccò news

This year was going relatively well in terms of cycling related drug scandals. Sure there is the Alessandro Petacchi overreaction due to one too many puffs of the inhaler, but most of the big names were relatively free from drug related scandals. Now that most cyclists stay away from the performance enhancing drugs they have to let loose when not riding. So Tom Boonen gets caught with cocaine in his system. Sad that Belgium’s golden boy fresh off another Paris-Roubaix victory is facing criminal possession charges.While WADA says it is OK to have some cocaine when you are out of competition thereby not penalizing Boonen for his out-of-competition cocaine use.

Did Boonen get some South American candies from Gilberto Simoni’s Grandmother recently? Or maybe he has a really old school dentist that uses cocaine to numb the pain when doing dental work. These are ust a couple of excuses used by Gilberto Simoni years ago when he was caught with cocaine. Otherwise he will be meeting with Belgian police who want to know where he got the coke. Boonen’s alibi’s may not work so well since his house was already searched for suspected cocaine possession earlier this year.

The banning of the Astana Cycling Team became official today as the A.S.O (Amaury Sports Organization) officially rebuked the team from participating in all A.S.O sponsored events. This comes after the Giro D’Italia snubbed the Kazak-sponsored team from participating in Italy in May. The snub comes despite a complete overhaul of the team structure from the scandal-ridden squad of 2007. The 2007 Astana team had a similar promise last year as Alexandre Vinokourov took over the team and overhauled the management structure from the previous incarnation as Liberty Seguros. The shakeup only brought more scandals as Mattais Kessler, Eddie Mazzoleni, Vinokourov and Kashekin tested positive or were involved in some scandal last year.

The same promise of a shakeup was not enough for the A.S.0. as they are very weary of more scandals in cycling biggest event. The Giro and Tour organizers taking a harder line and choosing which teams they wish to invite. This rift with the U.C.I. and the ProTour allows the Grand Tour organizers a chance to wrestle back control of who is invited.

The Giro suffered from too many Pro Tour teams using the event as a training race for their young racers or Tour de France hopefuls. Therefore they invited more Continental based Italian teams while snubbing Astana, High Road and a few French teams. Now the A.S.O. which is scandal weary has taken a similar hard line and barred Astana.

This may seem like a drastic move, but I would have to applaud the move as a serious hard line against doping. Contador was already coming under suspicion for his involvement in Operation Puerto. The investigation seems to be getting legs again just as the cycling season starts up. Andreas Kloden is still in the Astana team from 2007 and was in the T-Mobile teams that were suspected of doping. His involvement with the current Astana team does not show a serious break enough break from the past. Astana has not had any time to really prove itself on the road and in the headlines.

Part of the restructuring of the Astana team involved using a rigorous anti-doping testing program. The new structure with medical tests employed by Astana are similar to teams such as CSC and A.S.O. favorite Slipstream. These tests would check racers in a regular basis to help check against doping. Despite this positive aspect the A.S.O. still looked unfavorably on the team being present in France in July.

With this drastic move the fate of Astana may rely on the sponsor’s willingness to stick out a year without the main publicity generated by racing in France. Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer will have to think of a Plan B now that their season has a large chunk of free time in July.

T-Mobile has dropped their main sponsorship from their Bob Stapleton run cycling team. The news comes after Adidas dropped sponsorship of the team in light of the ongoing-neverending doping stories surrounding the team. The team will not disband as T-Mobile’s contract was set to go until December 2010 and there must be a decent enough exit payment that will allow Stapleton and Co to continue for at least 2008. The team will now be called appropriately enough Team High Road. The good news for George Hincapie is he won’t have to wear Magenta in South Carolina. Riding with feminine like colors in the South is not good. Then he would get into more trouble when the UCI would say he was a “man in black” for training without his team colors. Perhaps that is why George was pissed at Levi for winning the US Pro Championship. Levi and others probably knew that George was going to go to T-Mob next year and the specter of wearing pink in the South must have been a real FU to George when Levi took the win.

With Team High Road and Team Slipstream in the Pro Peloton could this be the dawn of sponsorless team names? I hope so. It would actually be better for a team’s long term survival since they would not necessarily be attached to a specific sponsor. Team could weather the storm of a major sponsor loss since they would not necessarily be associated with a specific product. Products would then be associated with the team making it easier to switch around.

Anyway, thanks for the years of cycling T-Mobile. It is unfortunate that just as the team was clean T-Mobile decided to leave the sport. It is perhaps premature and hasty. T-Mobile could have stayed on with a cleaner image instead of leaving under a cloud of doping related stories.

Levi is rumored to be switching to Astana along with Johan Bruyneel and defending Tour champion Alberto Contador. Meanwhile he is living it up by eating “blue cheese crusted tenderloin of beef and chocolate mousse cake” in Utah.

Levi is asked about doping particularly the Landis case:

“Yep, that’s pretty much all we talk about,” he said, only half sarcastically over dinner. “I hope now that Floyd’s deal is kind of over, that we can move on. Everyone acts like we’re the dirtiest athletes in the world, when I think the reality is we are the cleanest. We get tested all the time. They show up at your door unannounced and test you. We’re tested before races and after races. We’re tested all the time.

“When someone gets caught it gets all the attention,” Leipheimer said. “But do you really think we’re dirtier than football players who hardly even get tested?”

Amen to that, it is a tough break that when doping in cycling is in the spotlight while many other sports either don’t testing or have very lax testing rules. Just because there is no testing does not mean that the sport is clean. Meanwhile NFL players get cortisone injections (which are banned in cycling and other Olympics sports) like they drink water.

Deseret Morning News via TDFblog

Paolo Bettini was almost going to be sitting at home watching the Worlds instead of defending his World Championship of 2006. The reigning World Champ was defending himself on charges of not signing an anti-doping declaration and was almost banned from starting the race. Cooler heads prevailed and Bettini was on the start line. The events of the week motivated Bettini who had a relatively quiet year as World Champ.

The Italian National Team was stacked with top racers. Visconti, Pozzato, Rebellin and more were part of a star-studded Italian team that under the leadership of Franco Ballerini was slowly keeping the mantra of all for one. Last year and in the previous Olympics the Italians worked hard for one man Paolo Bettini. This year the Italians kept their game going by always controlling the race with several men in the front for most of the race. It would be easier to mention the non-Italians who were at the front since it was all Azzurri kit wearers driving the pace.

AP Photo/Daniel Maurer

Bettini was angry at the allegations and showed the anger in his winning pose making a mock shooting motion that was directed at all of those “who think it is directed too”.

“It was a torturous week for me,” Bettini said. “I had a lot of anger inside me. The only thing I could do was respond with a victory.”

AP Photo/Daniel Maurer

“It was an instinctive gesture, not targeted at anyone,” Bettini said. “If anyone felt it was directed at him, they have reason to think.”

Bettini is the first repeat World Champion since fellow Italian Gianni Bugno scored the repeat in Stuttgart, Germany 15 years earlier.

Paolo Bettini is cleared to defend his title at the World Championships in Stuttgart Germany. Following the denial of Danilo DiLuca who is about to receive a four month preliminary ban , Bettini was ready to also go home. This Worlds is best know for the polemics of who will or will not race. Erik Zabel, Bettini, DiLuca and Alejandro Valverde have all been in limbo about their Worlds involvment. DiLuca looks to have some charges in the mysterious “Oil for Drugs” case being looked at in Italy, Zabel admitted to doping in the 90s and Velverde *may* have some involvement in Operation Puerto although no solid evidence or case has emerged. Now, Bettini was not being admitted on the basis of not signing a decree to by the UCI that was deemed “optional” and to submit to a compulsory blood test ahead of the Worlds.

The burden of proof is now on the racers and not on the various doping agencies. After the somewhat questionable outcome of the Landis case is it any wonder why a racer would distrust giving a voluntary sample? The French labs were acknowledged to have been sloppy and made numerous mistakes, so why submit a sample if you do not have to? Why does their have to be a gestapo like prosecution of athletes merely on the basis of suspicion or not abiding to arbitrary rules? True doping continues to be an issue in cycling, but these overly aggressive methods put cycling in the doping spotlight unnecessarily. Bettini is breaking no rules.

The ruling came down to a 2 to 1 decision.

According to documents obtained by AP, the vote was 2-1 to uphold the results, with lead arbitrator Patrice Brunet and Richard McLaren in the majority and Christopher Campbell dissenting.

Not surprisingly Travis Tygart feels vindicated by the ruling:

“Today’s ruling is a victory for all clean athletes and everyone who values fair and honest competition,” U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart said.

The ruling is interesting in that the lab was found to violate WADA rules when conducting the tests, but this finding did not help Landis overturn the overall conviction of being positive in his first test.

In its 84-page decision, the majority found the initial screening test to measure Landis’ testosterone levels — the testosterone-to-epitestosterone test — was not done according to World Anti-Doping Agency rules. But the more precise and expensive carbon-isotope ration analysis (IRMS), performed after a positive T-E test is recorded, was accurate, the arbitrators said, meaning “an anti-doping rule violation is established.”

“As has been held in several cases, even where the T-E ratio has been held to be unreliable … the IRMS analysis may still be applied,” the majority wrote. “It has also been held that the IRMS analysis may stand alone as the basis” of a positive test for steroids.

The decision comes more than a year after Landis’ stunning comeback in Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour, one that many people said couldn’t be done without some kind of outside help. Flying to the lead near the start of a grueling Alpine stage, Landis regained nearly eight minutes against the leader, and went on to win the three-week race.

“Well, all I can say is that justice has been done, and that this is what the UCI felt was correct all along,” Pat McQuaid, leader of cycling’s world governing body, told The Associated Press by telephone. “We now await and see if he does appeal to CAS.

“It’s not a great surprise considering how events have evolved. He got a highly qualified legal team who tried to baffle everybody with science and public relations. And in the end the facts stood up.”

So, the testing procedures were violated, but the ruling of doping still stands? Chris Campbell had many concerns about the procedures and his vote was to dissent as he did in the Tyler Hamilton case.

“In many instances, Mr. Landis sustained his burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Campbell wrote. “The documents supplied by LNDD are so filled with errors that they do not support an Adverse Analytical Finding. Mr. Landis should be found innocent.”

… In his dissent, Campbell latched onto the T-E ratio test, among other things, as proof that the French lab couldn’t be trusted.

“Also, the T-E ratio test is acknowledged as a simple test to run. The IRMS test is universally acknowledged as a very complicated test to run, requiring much skill. If the LNDD couldn’t get the T-E ratio test right, how can a person have any confidence that LNDD got the much more complicated IRMS test correct?”

It was confusion like this that led to the system receiving the harsh review Landis was hoping for during a nine-day hearing in Malibu, Calif., in May. But Landis also took his share of abuse, and ultimately, USADA still improved to 35-0 in cases it has brought before arbitration panels since it was founded in 2000.

Cyclingnews.com

Yahoo News

… in athletes with bigger hearts, doping could prove potentially more dangerous than for normal people.

Athletes with bigger hearts have more red blood cells, which deliver oxygen around the body. These cells are thicker than normal cells. So if athletes decide to use an illegal agent like the blood-booster EPO, they run the risk of making their blood too thick. That puts them in danger of a clot, stroke, or heart attack.

“These athletes already have hearts that have increased in volume to adapt to their training workload,” Bove said. “If they then go and use drugs, that could potentially erase the natural advantage they already have.”

The EPO deaths were seen early on in the 1990s and late 80s when several Dutch cyclist died in their sleep. I seems that later on in the 1990s cyclist were savvier in their use of EPO as mysterious deaths were rare.

CNN Health

Finland’s Piet Kvistik, a domestique with the Crédit Mondial team, was this year’s highest-finishing non-doping rider (142nd overall). Kvistik claimed the maillot propre, the blue jersey worn by the highest-placed “clean” rider, on the ninth stage of the race when the six riders who had previously worn it tested positive for EPO, elevated levels of testosterone, and blood-packing.

“It became most difficult for us on the 7th stage, which was almost 200 kilometers and the first stage through the mountains,” Kvistik said while accepting the non-doping victor’s 100-franc check from his stretcher. “Not only did the excruciating pain and weakness in my legs make it difficult to walk my bike on the steeper stretches, it was mentally very hard to know that half the other clean riders were dead or dying. Also, the other 141 riders finished the Tour in Paris that morning, which made it all that much harder.”

read more at The Onion Thanks to Tim Bingham.

2007 Tour de France champ Alberto Contador met with the press accompanied by Discovery Channel Team Director Johan Bruyneel and his family and Spanish sports minister Jaime Lissavetzky. Contador basically announced they he never doped and he is not involved in Operation Puerto (OP). He will not stop racing and will in fact give DNA samples and help with the investigation. The growing controversy surrounding the Tour champ resulted in Contador not being invited to several races especially in Germany where investigator Werner Franke is said to have evidence linking Contador to OP.

The announcement by Contador must surely be a way to help clear the air of suspicion surrounding Contador especially as he is now looking for a new team to race for in 2008. Tailwind Sports the company behind the Discovery Channel team has announced that they are stopping the team at the end of the 2007 season. Tailwind sports was unable to find a suitable sponsor since the announcement earlier this year that Discovery Channel would cease sponsorship. The never ending flow of doping news most likely scared away potential sponsors, especially with the admission by Ivan Basso of being “Birillo” of Operation Puerto fame. The involvement with Basso and other doping controversies which only intensified during the Tour de France may make any potential sponsor shy away.

Now, the remaining team and associated staff will be looking for a job for 2008. George Hincapie is said to have already signed for T-Mobile which will stay in the sport until 2010. Levi Leipheimer, Yaroslav Popovych and Alberto Contador to name a few will be looking for work.

The end of Tailwind sports marks the end of a formidable team that started way back in the 90s as Subaru Montgomery. The team eventually landed a large sponsor in the United States Postal Service who was keen to advertise overseas. In 1998 they signed recovering cancer victim Lance Armstrong. In 1999 Johan Bruyneel came on board. The rest is history. Discovery Channel finally seemed to get past the Armstrong Era with Contador. The team performed better overall placing three racers in the top ten overall at the Tour.

Just like US Postal “took over” after the demise of Motorola in the early 90s a similar pattern is emerging at Team Slipstream is gaining momentum to be the next top American team. Slipstream may not take the ProTour opening left by Discovery Channel for 2008 as their main goal is entry to the Tour de France only and not the various Pro Tour events.

Another interesting note is a developing trend. The 2007 and 2006 Tour winning team have ceased sponsorship at the end of each season. Last year’s Phonak squad ended after Floyd Landis’ Testosterone case caused replacement sponsor iShares to cancel its sponsorship of the team. Now Discovery Channel is ending its sponsorship after having a Tour winner in its ranks. Sponsors are shying away from the sport and the doping headlines causing racers and support staff to actually lose their jobs. With lots of racers around and not as many teams, they pay for racers goes down due to supply vs. demand. Therefore each racer gets less money than they would have otherwise. So, the incentive to dope should now disappear.

The same situation happened with Tyler Hamilton and Santiago Perez of the Phonak squad. Both tested positive which signaled a mix up of blood bags. Hamilton tried his best to find an excuse for the positive doping test, going so far as to say he had a vanishing twin which caused the abnormal test result.

Contador issued a release Wednesday notifying media of his plans to read a statement at the offices of Spain’s national sports council – the Consejo Superior de Deportes – in Madrid.

Contador will be accompanied by Discovery Channel team director Johann Bruyneel.

Via Podium Cafe: http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/13062.0.html

This conference could also be setup to announce that Contador will not be racing while the WADA investigation to Contador’s Operation Puerto case is finalized. WADA decided to re-investigate Contador’s involvement in Operation Puerto which was previosuly dismissed by the UCI.

The World Anti Doping Agency has opened an investigation on Alberto Contador (Discovery Channel), winner of this years Tour de France, and his alleged involvement in Operation Peurto. WADA is working with ex-Liberty Seguros rider Jörg Jaksche, who admitted that he worked with the Spanish doctor while he was a team-mate of Contador at Liberty Seguros, after it received documents from German Professor Werner Franke that supposedly links the Spaniard to Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes.

Documents seized in the case are said to contain the letters A.C., which is allegedly the initials of Alberto Contador. Jaksche’s initials are also present on the document along side the doping products that he has admitted to using. “I don’t know if Contador was a client of Fuentes,” said Jaksche. “I only know that I used those doping products that are shown on that document.”

With this action, WADA is overturning the UCI’s earlier decision to acquit Contador of any involvement in the case.

Johan Bruyneel, Contador’s team manager, has serious doubts of the integrity of Professor Franke. “‘He defended Danilo Hondo, when he was caught in the Tour of Murcia for using the banned substance Carphedon, if you ask me he only speaks the language of the person paying him,” said Bruyneel.

Cyclingnews.com

Hopefully the press conference is a simple announcement that Contador is simply not going to race and will participate with the WADA investigation. He could also reclaim his innocence and vow to fight. The other possibility would be that he could admit to being involved in Puerto which would not be a good thing for cycling or the Discovery Channel Team.

T-Mobile decided to stay in the sport of cycling and keep sponsoring its top German team. The decision was made after several high profile admissions to past doping by 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis, Ralf Aldag and house sprinter Erik Zabel. After these revelations came the bombshell of Patrik Sinkewitz’s non-negative for elevated Testosterone levels. Sinkewitz admitted to using to making a boneheaded move of self administering a testosterone gel without realizing it would trip cause some doping issues.

“We want to prove a point through consistency and reliability which this sport is in great need of,” said Hamid Akhavan, chairman of T-Mobile International and board member of Deutsche Telekom AG. “We want to continue to accompany cycling and support it in its effort to become a cleaner sport.”

“After intensive internal talks, but also after contacting important representatives from politics, media and sport, we decided to face the challenges and not to give in to the current problems. We know that the chosen route would be difficult,” Akhavan said in a company statement.

The T-Mobile management has the right to end sponsorship if more doping cases popup. After the Sinkewitz fiasco it was thought that T-Mobile just might pull out of cycling altogether. This would have been troubling especially since the team have committed to an extensive internal anti doping testing system.

Hopefully all future T-Mobile racers will be extra careful with the gels, lotions and rubs they administer so as to not trip up a positive/non-negative doping result. If any T-Mobile racer dopes after this close call then they should probably take an IQ test because it would surely be a boneheaded move.

Yahoo ! News

Michael Rasmussen is still reeling from his firing from Team Rabobank. The 33 year old racer is back home giving interviews about his sudden sacking while leading the Tour. Whether he was doping or not, the missed tests and obfuscation of his whereabouts created enough concern from Rabobank management to sack the racer while leading the Tour. Rasmussen like any fired employee is in denial.

“I know very well that I was late with information about my whereabouts,” Rasmussen said in Friday’s edition of the Politiken newspaper. “For that I have been punished with a fine and warnings. But that it should lead to such drastic (measures) which have been taken, is out of all proportion.

“I have now had time to collect my thoughts and I can guarantee that I am not done as a rider.”

Unsurprisingly, He is bitter about the ordeal too.

“I was kicked out of the hotel like an animal,” Rasmussen told the Berlingske Tidende daily.

Newsvine story

So why dope? The issue has to do with money more than anything. In the high flying 90s when the miracles of EPO and other drugs were making pasty Italian guys fly up hills the sport was going a renaissance in Italy. More money and sponsors come in and expect results.

The Telekom guys such as Zabel and others said they had to dope to get results that the sponsor wanted.

If the whole field is doing something then in order to compete you must dope. To get a paycheck or keep your spot on a team you dope because otherwise the next guy who is doping will take your place.

Guys like Christian Moreni dope to survive another day and collect the next paycheck. When faced with the prospect of getting a real job vs. racing for a living it may be a no brainer.

Cycling is a target because there is no central control and it does not bring in enough money and have enough political connections like soccer does in Europe.

There is no powerful “players” union which would protect cyclist from various forms of doping tests. Could you imagine the NBA, NFL or Baseball having their players submit to regular out of competition tests? And have to tell some organization their exact whereabouts at all times?

It’s turning around now since sponsors are thinking twice about their commitment to the sport. Rabobank was weary of any doping related issues with Rasmussen which is probably why they decided to fire him. They did not want a Landis-style off season.

The testing process is flushing out the cheaters little by little. So now the incentive is to not cheat. If a racer is caught cheating he is basically putting his job and the entire team and supporters jobs on the line.

Teams like Slipstream, T-Mobile, CSC and others are putting testing processes in place so that their sponsors can be reassured that their racers are clean.

Its a tough process, but cycling is undergoing a baptism by fire to become a cleaner sport. Its something that other sports may face publicly in the future too. By that time us cycling fans will react with a “been there, done that” attitude.