In an earlier post I mentioned the swashbuckling attacks that Alexandre Vinokourov would launch in Tour’s past. Now that Vino is hurting and pretty much out of contention for the 2007 Tour lets look at one of Alexandre Vinokourov’s finer moments, his stage win at Gap in 2003. This is the Tour where everyone seemed to be putting the hurt on Lance. Even a doped up Tyler Hamilton who was racing with a broken collarbone (that’s a whole ‘nother story) gee, who’d a thought he wasn’t doping?
Vino was a thorn in Lance’s side attacking at the craziest moments such as the descent into Gap that resulted in Joseba Beloki’s eventual career ending crash.
tuttobiciweb.com reports that Tyler Hamilton has signed with the Tinkoff Credit Systems Team for 2007. The long rumored move is said to be complete as Hamilton joins a 17 man continental Italian squad.
Oliver Piscina says that “With Tyler on the team we will have an immediate increase in the quality of our team”
Tinkoff is made up of riders from the now disbanded LPR team. We understand his past, but every athlete deserves a second chance”
The Floyd Landis case will not end cleanly. This week brings news of hackers breaking into the French labs’ computers and the lab itself admitting that there were errors in the numbering of the samples. The French lab clarifies that this error in no way affected the positive result, which is part of the Landis defense. To say that the lab work and security are shoddy is an understatement.
The revelation of the computer hacking that includes a letter written in poor French that misspelled the name of the lab in the fake logo is bordering on hilarious. This is almost as bizarre as the Tyler Hamilton “Fake Mustache Man” story that was floated about, but never really followed up on.
Ivan Basso wasted no time climbing on a new Trek and donning the Discovery Channel kit after word of his signing was released to the world last week. To say that Ivan is motivated for 2007 is an understatement. Basso is already dressed in Discovery Channel blue and has the matching blue SiDis. This move must have been close for a while since the matching blue SiDis are not a standard color in their 2007 lineup. They need to be custom made and the turn-around time on those must be more than a few days.
Basso is probably counting down the days until the December 3rd Discovery Team training camp. No cold nights in the Norwegian tundra this year. Just some warmer nights getting to know a team that is probably just as eager to meet him.
El Pais is churning out stories from Operation Puerto on a daily basis and Tuttobici web has some translations to Italian. Velochimp kindly translates it for you while providing some insight.
Seems like information is starting to come out and names are being tagged with the documents. In all due respect, it is not fair to the cyclist in question to have their names drawn out in public especially if they have not been officially caught doping. There are rumors that Jan Ullrich’s name can be extrapolated from some of the documents. But without a positive test and simple speculation, it is not wise to throw accusations at Der Kaiser until all of the facts are conclusive.
One rider that did test positive and shows up in the documents related to Fuestes and Merino Batres is Tyler Hamilton. Among the documents are a 2003 season schedule for Tyler Hamilton and a fax number for Haven Parchinski who is Tyler’s wife which included a bill for services rendered. The bill included 35,000 Euro for medical services and 8,500 Euros for products. The 2003 season calendar shows that Tyler was to start administering two units of EPO daily starting on December 21st until December 24th. Then he would take doses every other day until January 9th. On January 14th before the winter training camp Hamilton started with the first extraction of blood and on the 24th he would begin the anabolic steroid treatments. In March Hamilton would take HMG as he would reduce the use of anabolic steroids. HMG is a hormone that promotes the creation of insulin.
The schedule shows that Tyler won Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour de Romandie six days after taking a reinfusion of blood in April. In the month of May, Hamilton resumed the use of anabolic steroids and EPO. In June Hamilton drew blood, took growth hormone and IGF-1 and reinfused blood a few days before the start of the Tour. So the broken clavical that Tyler suffered during the 2003 Tour probably did not mean much since he was already juiced up beyond belief.
Be aware that these are documents seized by Spanish authorities and leaked to the press. The validitiy may be in question until there are either charges files or something official is done. But, with all of this current evidence and the positive test results it is very difficult to still Believe Tyler.
Adam Bergman the Jelly Belly riders who was caught for using EPO in 2004 has finally admitted he used the drug. Velonews received an open letter from Bergman where he admits that he did take EPO in a moment of desparation and tries to send a message to others to stop taking performance enhancing drugs. His admission was frank and honest and it could be a subtle message to other riders currently fighting suspensions.
It is time to tell the truth. I did it. I experimented with the drug EPO when I was preparing for the Tour de Georgia. This admission has been a long time in coming, and I should have done it a lot sooner. It seemed easier to say the test is bad or blame it on someone else’s error than to admit the truth. I made a big mistake when I tried EPO, and I made matters even worse by not having the courage to admit that mistake. My family raised me to be a better person than that.
I applaud Bergman’s candor in finally admitting the use of EPO. With riders like David Millar and Adam Bergman coming out and talking openly about EPO and other performance enhancing drugs, it will help younger riders who may face similar pressures. These riders who get busted and then come back racing clean may be more help than any doping tests or crackdown. These riders can speak frankly about the reasons for using EPO and other drugs and can be used as a lesson to be learned. It does not help when a big name rider is caught using drug but denies it to no end (cough cough Heras and Hamilton).
I can’t say for sure if they did use the drugs or not and the validity of the tests is another issue, but remember that old saying? “The coverup is sometimes worse than the crime.”
The news is better reported from other sources and it has been out for at least a day. Tyler Hamilton is now out of the appeals process and will have to sit out the rest of his suspension. There is a possibility that his suspension will end on September 22 2006 which is 2 years after Phonak issued the suspension. This would allow Tyler a chance to race in the World Championships road race. The course in Austria fits a rider with Hamilton’s abilities. So this could be a possible point of redemption going into 2007.
For 2007 and 2008 Tyler cannot sign with a ProTour team and cannot compete in ProTour events. That leaves a few possibilities still available for Tyler. He could signup for a European continental team such as Panaria, Barloworld, Agributel or others. One major problem would be that bigger squads are hoping to get the ProTour promotion if a slot were to become available. The ProTour would not look to highly on a team with a tainted Tyler on the roster.
One strong option would be for Tyler to come back and race the domestic circuit. He could help build more interest in continental racing on this side of the pond. He could also try to use his sponsorship connections to start a developmental team. Seems that his strengths would be better suited to this type of endeavor than to race anonymously in smaller European races when he was once considered a Tour de France contender.
Not surprisingly Roberto Heras is now officially suspended for two years and stripped of the Vuelta title. Denis Menchov won the Vuelta, although he does not feel like taking the trophy or the Golden Jersey from Roberto’s hands.
The suspension is for two years and the recent change in the suspension laws mean that after two years, Heras cannot come back to a ProTour team for yet another two years. So he will effectively be out of major events such as the Vuelta and Tour for 4 years. No chance for redemtption unless his lawyers can get him out of the suspension by overturning the positive drug test. In the meantime, he can probably ride with Tyler Hamilton who (as Cyclocosm pointed out) has been relegated to lowly roadcycling magazine.
David Millar was suspended just before this rule took effect and is now enjoying what is basically a 1 to 1 1/2 year suspension. You may have noticed Millar all over every cycling magazine and cycling news site with “in-depth” interviews. He will come back just in time for the Tour. So if he were doing the Lemond-Armstrong method of Tour prep, then he is not missing anything at all.
