Gus: What has cycling to do with democracy? Quite a lot really... There are teams, there is competition and there are cheats. There is endurance, there are surges and mountains to climb. There are stages and leaders. But most of all, there are wheels.

Hopefully we are on run towards a change of government, and bar a flat tyre in the home straight, the peloton of the Howard gang wont catch up, despite their mad backpedalling...

Tour Leader Is Kicked Out of the Race

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 25, 2007

GOURETTE, France (AP) -- Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen was removed from the race by his team after winning Wednesday's stage, the biggest blow yet in cycling's doping-tainted premier event.

''Michael Rasmussen has been sent home for violating (the team's) internal rules,'' Rabobank team spokesman Jacob Bergsma told The Associated Press by phone.

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Gus More cheats, more lies, more illusions... Sport and politics. See cartoon and comment above...

Spaniard Beltran tests positive

Manuel Beltran is being questioned by French police after a positive test for the banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO) at the 2008 Tour de France.

After an anomaly in Beltran's pre-Tour blood test, the Spaniard was targeted by France's Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD).

And the 37-year-old Liquigas rider was found to have EPO in his urine 'A' sample taken after the first stage from Brest to Plumelec on Saturday 5 July.

"There are not just traces of EPO, there is EPO," said the head of AFLD.

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In 50 years, due to the lack of oil we'll all going to fake walking and cycling (not me —I'd be pushing daisies) thus taking EPO will be compulsory like eating GM food crops and composite steaks made of one canola bean mixed with the last fudgy-whale blubber. The poor will still be eating leftovers mixed with sand. Most people would have fried in a major bout of global warming or moved to Tasmania. Old growth forest there would be replaced with furniture plantations in which GM seeds would be designed to produce chairs, settees and tables directly from the ground up. Polonia trees are good for this: light weight, sturdy and superfast growth... 

See toon at top

Two Tour de France stage winners have tested positive for an advanced blood doping product.

Italy's Leonardo Piepoli and Germany's Stefan Schumacher tested positive for Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator (Cera).

Italy's Riccardo Ricco has already admitted to using Cera, a version of the blood booster erythropoietin (EPO).

Between them the three riders won five stages during the July race - or about a quarter of the 21 stages.

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see toon at top and read the blogs below it...

Former world number one tennis player Andre Agassi has confessed to using crystal methamphetamine during his career and lying to the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) after testing positive.

Agassi's revelation features in his tell-all autobiography Open, which is set to be serialised in The Times.

The American recounts in the book the day he experimented with the drug in 1997 with an assistant, who he identifies only as Slim.

"Slim dumps a small pile of powder on the coffee table. He cuts it, snorts it. He cuts it again. I snort some. I ease back on the couch and consider the Rubicon I've just crossed," Agassi writes.

"There is a moment of regret, followed by vast sadness. Then comes a tidal wave of euphoria that sweeps away every negative thought in my head. I've never felt so alive, so hopeful - and I've never felt such energy."

The now 39-year-old goes on to say he received a call from an ATP doctor informing him he had failed a drugs test and under the game's laws for recreational drug use Agassi could be facing a three-month suspension.

Agassi then admits to fabricating a story to the ATP in which he said he accidentally drank from one of his assistant's drinks spiked with the drug.

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see toon at top and ponder...

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have both said they are shocked by the news that tennis authorities covered up Andre Agassi's use of banned drugs.

Multiple Grand Slam winner Agassi said he lied about using crystal meth to the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in 1997 to avoid a ban.

Nadal said: "If the ATP covered for Agassi then I think that's dreadful."

Federer added: "It was a shock when I heard. I am disappointed and I hope there are no more cases in future."

World number two Nadal, who played Agassi twice in his career, said the ATP's decision to take the American on his word without further investigation was a slight on his fellow tennis players.

see dopey at top

From The Monde ( the World) bad google translation...

The noose is tightening around Astana, the team that Alberto Contador won the Tour de France 2009.  Lance Armstrong stole the third place for his return to competition. ...  The Paris prosecutor's office told the World, Wednesday, December 23, the Kazakh training had committed a "crime" during the last Great Loop.

These are the first findings of the preliminary inquiry opened by the Deputy Prosecutor of Paris, Dominique Pérard. ... According to our information, infusion sets belonging to the training the winner of the Tour have been seized by police from the Central Office of the struggle against environmental damage and public health (Oclaesp).

However, a source close to the investigation, "the possession of infusion sets is itself a crime" under the Act of July 3, 2008 on the fight against trafficking in doping products. The infusion is indeed on the list of prohibited methods by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

The preliminary inquiry, which involved several teams originally laid, now focuses solely on Astana, investigators have not found sufficient evidence for other races. Moreover infusion kits, they have made other discoveries in the garbage and hotel rooms of the former team of Lance Armstrong.. Thus they found syringes and needles of different sizes. The analysis, performed by the Paris laboratory toxicological expertise Toxlab, have so far only revealed the presence of "polypeptides".

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see toon at top...

From the NYT

Detroit may be introducing electric car designs and China may be pushing forward with a big expansion of its highways and trains. But people like Mr. Jiang, Ms. Wijzenbeek-Voet and Mr. Chiu — as well as delivery workers in New York, postal employees in Germany and commuters from Canada to Japan — are among the millions taking part in a more accidental transportation upheaval.

It began in China, where an estimated 120 million electric bicycles now hum along the roads, up from a few thousand in the 1990s. They are replacing traditional bikes and motorcycles at a rapid clip and, in many cases, allowing people to put off the switch to cars.

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see toon at top, just for fun...

Landis, Admitting Doping, Accuses Top Cyclists of Drug Use

By JULIET MACUR and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

VISALIA, Calif. — After four years of maintaining his innocence after doping charges ruined his reputation and caused him to be stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title, the American cyclist Floyd Landis has admitted using performance-enhancing drugs for most of his career, according to emails Landis recently sent to several cycling officials in the United States and in Europe.

In those emails, described Wednesday by one of the officials who received them, Landis said he had used performance-enhancing drugs or methods since 2002, his first year racing with the now-defunct United States Postal Service team, once led by Lance Armstrong. The official did not want his name published, citing ongoing investigations, including by federal authorities, into the content of the emails.

In those messages, which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Landis also detailed the performance-enhancing drug use of other top American cyclists on the U.S. Postal Service team, including Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France champion. Other cyclists named in the emails were current U.S. road racing national champion George Hincapie, three-time Tour of California champion Levi Leipheimer and five-time U.S. time trial champion David Zabriskie.

Landis also said that doping regimes were tolerated and encouraged by some team officials, including Johan Bruyneel, the longtime U.S. Postal Service Team manager and current head of Armstrong’s RadioShack team. The former head of the Swiss-based Phonak team, Andy Rihs, also tolerated doping, Landis wrote, according to a person who received the emails. Landis was a member of the Phonak squad when he won the 2006 Tour. Rihs now owns BMC Racing, which is based in the United States.

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see toon at top...

Batteries Power New Talk of Cheating in Cycling

By IAN AUSTEN

Cycling’s long history with doping means that any dramatic victory is as likely to create suspicion as admiration. But the whispers surrounding Fabian Cancellara’s decisive wins in two of this spring’s most important races have a novel twist: they accuse him of using a tiny electric motor to help power his legs.

Although no one offered proof, and Cancellara dismissed the allegations as “stupid,” online speculation reached such a point that on Wednesday it crashed the Web servers of an Austrian company that makes an invisible motor system for bicycles. And the International Cycling Union, while carefully noting that it is not investigating any specific rider or team, is reviewing the need for a new bicycle inspection system to detect motorized cheating.

Several weeks have passed since Cancellara, an Olympic champion from Switzerland, won the Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. The suspicions about his winning methods were outlined in a report shown last week by RAI, the Italian broadcaster, that did not mention his name.

In the report, Davide Cassani, a cycling commentator for the network and former professional rider, displayed a racing bicycle that looked normal. When he pressed a button hidden under the rubber hood of a brake lever, the pedals began turning, powered by a motor and batteries tucked into its frame.

Cassani, 49 and long retired, said the assistance of a motor might enable him to return to racing and win a stage of the Giro d’Italia, which ended Sunday. Such bicycles, he said, had been used by professional riders in races, but he offered no names.

The idea of motorized cheating strikes many in the cycling world as absurd. Nevertheless, some prominent professional riders are concerned that some of their race competitors may be motoring away from them. Marco Pinotti, an Italian who races for HTC-Columbia, said that when he first heard about the hidden motor, “it seemed a stupid thing.”

“But then I came to know the technology,” he added, “and I started making connections.”

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see toon at top.

Tour de France champion Alberto Contador has tested positive to a banned substance in news that will send shockwaves through the cycling world. Contador - who has won three Tour de France championships – tested positive on July 21 this year with the analysis revealing traces of clenbuterol. Contador has blamed food contamination for his positive test result.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling/alberto-contador-tests-positive-to-banned-substance-20100930-15y37.html?autostart=1

See bicycle pump at top...

For those who have a bit of time on their hands... read this or listen while doing the vacuuming...

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/stories/2011/3166343.htm

Dr Thompson and his team started to feed data into their computers, and they gradually became world leaders in the new frontier of high-tech bike design.

Lachlan Thompson:It may seem incredible, but the bicycle for 100 years was designed by trial and error. That means an enthusiast, an elite athlete or a frame-maker, would make something, go out and race. If they won, or if it didn't break, they would say 'This is fantastic'. If it broke, they would say, 'Oh, well, that's no good, I'll make another one.' We brought science into how you design bicycles. We saw that carbon fibre, which was being used in the aerospace industry, could enable us to make a beautiful shape, any shape you wanted. It could be of low drag, or it could be just plain. But we had the freedom. The other thing is that materials like carbon fibre, or boron fibre, are incredibly stiff and incredibly strong for their weight, compared to metals. So we could fabricate an advanced technology bicycle, and make it as light as what it was in steel, but aerodynamically lower drag, and much stiffer. And very few people around the world, even now, appreciate how important stiffness in bicycle design is. And we were able to quantify it before anyone else did. It gave us an edge.

James Panichi: That edge became the now-famous RMIT 'Superbike', something which was a bicycle, only in the sense that it had two wheels and pedals. It was a space-age design, emphasising aerodynamics and relying on carbon fibre to provide a frame which was both very stiff, and very light.

The rider was perched in an unusual position - bottom in the air and head down, close to the front wheel. It was an international sensation.

Commentator [archival]: Lucy Tyler-Sharman led the field as they took the bell for the final bonus sprint, but I fancy that Ingrid Haringa may have just come home in third position, but Nathalie Lancien, the French rider, may have just lunged at the line and taken the lead.

James Panichi: The Australian team rode the RMIT Superbike at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Canada, then again at the '96 Olympics in Atlanta.

On the track, Australian athletes were winning. But behind the scenes, cycling administrators were deeply unhappy.

The sudden changes which placed technology at centre-stage, left the old-guard mechanics - some of whom were now influential cycling administrators - at the margins of what had become a lucrative sideshow: bike design.

So even as the Australian government was supporting the RMIT Superbike through grants, an Adelaide-based group of sports administrators, including Federal public servants and employees of the peak cycling body, Cycling Australia, were quietly working to undermine it.

After the '96 Games, the administrators, often referred to as the 'Adelaide Group', had a breakthrough. The UCI, the International Cycling Union, decided to ban the RMIT Superbike, arguing that bicycles should once again look like bicycles. That meant all of RMIT's work had been wasted; its bike would never compete again.

see toon at top...

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"Alberto Contador is sanctioned with a two-year period of ineligibility starting retroactively on 25 January 2011, minus the period of provisional suspension served in 2010-2011 (5 months and 19 days)," CAS said in a statement.

"The suspension should therefore come to an end on August 5 2012."

The ban means that the 29-year-old Contador, who had threatened to end his career if found guilty, will miss this year's Tour de France and the London Olympic Games.

"In rejecting the defence argument, in particular that the presence of clenbuterol in Alberto Contador's urine sample came from the consumption of contaminated meat, today's ruling confirms the UCI's position," the International Cycling Union (UCI), which had appealed with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) against the Spanish federation's decision to clear Contador, said in a statement.

Spanish cycling federation (RFEC) president Juan Carlos Castano said of the CAS decision: "We are obliged to comply with it but we don't agree with it.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-06/contador-suspended2c-stripped-of-tour-win/3814362?WT.svl=news2

 

 

In a 15-page charging letter obtained by The Washinton Post, the agency alleged it had collected blood samples from Armstrong in 2009 and 2010 that were ‘‘fully consistent with blood manipulation including EPO use and/or blood transfusions.”

The letter alleges that Armstrong, who won the Tour every year from 1999 to 2005 after surviving testicular cancer, used EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone, corticosteroids and masking agents, and that he distributed and administered drugs to others.

Cycling’s world governing body, the International Cycling Union or UCI, said in a statement that it had been notified of USADA’s probe but didn’t identify any of the people involved.

The allegations have never been publicised before, and Armstrong has never tested positive.

Armstrong, who retired from professional cycling in February 2011 to focus on his cancer charity, has denied using banned performance-enhancing drugs.

 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling/tour-titles-under-threat-as-lance-armstrong-accused-of-doping-20120614-20b4i.html#ixzz1xiP0VnyP

 

See toon at top...

 

The US anti-doping agency has outlined its reasons for handing Lance Armstrong a life ban, saying the American used and administered to team-mates EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone and cortisone during his seven Tour de France wins.

USADA branded Armstrong a dope cheat a day after the 40-year-old Texan said he wouldn't pursue a bid to clear himself of charges that he used performance enhancing drugs to win cycling's most prestigious race from 1999 to 2005.

The agency laid out five rule violations for which Armstrong has been sanctioned, saying the cancer survivor who became a hero to millions took part in a systematic doping conspiracy with his then US Postal Service team.

It said that, as Armstrong has dropped out of an arbitration process, he "has received a lifetime period of ineligibility and disqualification of all competitive results from August 1, 1998 through the present".

Along with his celebrated haul of Tour titles Armstrong stands to lose the Olympic bronze medal he won in 2000 along with other race titles, prize money and other awards.

The International Cycling Union, the sport's governing body based in Aigle, Switzerland, had been fighting USADA for jurisdiction of Armstrong's case and could launch an appeal or fail to recognize the move.

However, USADA's statement made it clear they believe the UCI is bound by the World Anti-Doping Code to follow through on the sanctions.

"Because Mr Armstrong could have had a hearing before neutral arbitrators to contest USADA's evidence and sanction and he voluntarily chose not to do so, USADA's sanction is final," the agency's statement said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-25/usada-confirms-armstrong-life-ban/4222288

 

see toon at top...

USADA says it has ‘conclusive and undeniable proof’ of Lance Armstrong doping conspiracy

By Liz Clarke, Thursday, October 11, 5:03 AM

Lance Armstrong, the world’s most decorated cyclist, achieved his unparalleled feats as part of “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen,” the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said Wednesday, just hours before more than 1,000 pages of documents detailing transgressions of the U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling Team were to be made public.

According to the statement by Travis Tygart, CEO of USADA, the evidence includes sworn testimony from 26 people, including 11 of Armstrong’s former teammates, and amounts to “conclusive and undeniable proof” that Armstrong was part of a doping conspiracy.

While multiple athletes benefitted, the evidence includes financial payments, e-mails, scientific data and laboratory test results that Tygart said prove that Armstrong in particular used, possessed and distributed performance-enhancing drugs as the USPS team’s star rider.

read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/othersports/usada-says-it-has-conclusive-and-undeniable-proof-of-lance-armstrong-doping-conspiracy/2012/10/10/b8dafd3e-12fd-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_print.html

I have felt a sense of deja vu these past weeks as the Lance Armstrong story unravels. My emotions are the same as they were after the 1998 Tour de France, when the Festina team was kicked off the race for systematic doping and I was a new professional.
It doesn't get any easier to deal with something that deeply concerns you and yet something you have little control over. Once again I am disillusioned. And I ask myself, "Could it have been that bad?"
After reading most of the US Anti-Doping Agency's findings on Armstrong, the answer is, unequivocally, "Yes."
But this time I take it more personally. I was competing not just against Armstrong, but against the Armstrong years. I feel my professional years — my Tour de France years — have been stolen.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling/how-dopers-stole-the-best-years-of-my-career-20121026-28aif.html#ixzz2APE9lMsE

Lance Armstrong’s fall: A case for allowing performance enhancement

By Braden Allenby, Published: October 27

In the past month, cyclist Lance Armstrong has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles. His commercial sponsors, including Nike, have fled. He has resigned as chairman of Livestrong, the anti-cancer charity he founded. Why? Because the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and the International Cycling Union say he artificially enhanced his performance in ways not approved by his sport and helped others on his team do the same.

This may seem like justice, but that’s an illusion. Whether Armstrong cheated is not the core consideration. Rather, his case shows that enhancement is here to stay. If everyone’s enhancing, it’s a reality that we should embrace.

Look at any sport. People are running, swimming and biking faster and farther; linemen are bulkier than ever; sluggers have bigger muscles and hit more home runs. This might be due to better nutrition. Perhaps it is a result of legally prescribed drugs. Heck, it might simply be because of better training. But illegal enhancement has never been more evident or more popular.

Moreover, enhancement science — pharmacology, nanotechnology, biotechnology and genetics — is more sophisticated than ever. A recent Nature article, for example, discusses oxygen-carrying particles that could be inserted in athletes’ blood and DNA therapies that could enhance muscle performance.

In an earlier time, rules limiting the use of such technology may have been a brave attempt to prevent cheating. Now, they are increasingly ineffectual. Humans are becoming a design space. That athletes are on the cutting edge of this engineering domain is neither a prediction nor a threat. It is the status quo.

Get over it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lance-armstrongs-fall-a-case-for-allowing-performance-enhancement/2012/10/26/6f7cccf0-1d41-11e2-b647-bb1668e64058_print.html

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Sure totally agreed... but let's not compete or claim it to be a level playing field...

Otherwise, it's going to be Pharmablood competing against Drugomatic, Steroidincol and VeinPump Limited...

I can already hear the commentators spitting in their microphones; "and here comes the Enhanced Medical Cyclists Team with their bright oxygen tanks back packs sponsored by Air Liquide, pushing hard uphill on their Mitsubishi electric bikes.."

Give us a break...

For elite athletes, competition is like a drug. How many times have we seen professional or Olympic athletes retire (or say they will retire), only to return again, inevitably older and with varying levels of success? For every Michael Jordan, who said he had played his last game — three times — and was still able to lead his team to league championships after coming out of retirement the first time, there are dozens of formerly great athletes whose decision to return only exposes how human they are. Brett Favre’s flirtations with retirement are so frequent it’s hard to keep track, hockey great Mario Lemieux retired in 1997 but laced on his skates again just three years later, and Deion Sanders retired from his dual careers in professional baseball and football, only to pick up the pigskin again several years later. 

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/17/lance-armstrongs-confession-

and-the-psychology-of-the-competitor/#ixzz2IIsbu100

 

Lance Amstrong case highlight the case that no doctors and/or service personel and'or manufacturers who supplied the drugs have been indicted... There is no possibility of doping unless someone (say a doctor to monitor the effects) is able to support athletes in their desire to use performance enhancing stuff...

 

The Pinocchio Test

Armstrong, unlike some other sports heroes, has not been charged or convicted of criminal perjury. But his lies are monumental, endured for years and were aimed at creating an image that made him famous, wealthy and an inspiration for people with cancer. He was the ringleader of lying on his team — and he kept lying even after many of his co-conspirators and teammates had abandoned him.

 It is a record of shame that he has only begun to confront reluctantly and under pressure — after almost his entire professional career has been wiped from the pages of history.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/is-lance-armstrong-the-worlds-biggest-liar/2013/01/17/2d8fff7c-60fa-11e2-9940-6fc488f3fecd_blog.html?hpid=z3

A loooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggg nose.... See toon my top... created in the 1980s about doping in cycling...

 

Just as Pravda would publish different photos of Stalin on the balcony with erased faces behind him replaced by new ones, we now erase Lance Armstrong from the Tour de France victories he was acclaimed for, not so long ago.

It’s a curious decision. It’s like saying Nixon, impeached in 1974, therefore did not win in 1968 and Humphrey did; or no-one did; or Bobby Kennedy, though dead, did, and entered the White House in a coffin in 1969. Or that Germany, ‘stabbed in the back’, won World War I after all.

This is not the way things used to be done.

We used to have the idea of crime, and the punishment of crime by gaoling. Speer, for instance, was tried for war crimes, and sentenced, after showing remorse, to twenty years in Spandau. Armstrong, for sport crimes, should be similarly treated. Like Speer, he has damaged, and sometimes wrecked, many thousands of honourable people’s lives, and defamed for all time a great Olympic endeavour, as Speer did a great nation.

What happened yesterday is a product of the American habit, nurtured in many fundamentalist congregations, of self-cleansing by public confession, and nationwide forgiveness after televised self-abnegation. A startling number of lecherous preachers have done this and got away with it, as have Clinton, the adulterer, Bush 2 the alcoholic, and McNamara the mild-mannered killer of tens of thousands of infant Japanese, after acts of public contrition weeping fans acclaimed them for.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/life/sport-2/armstrong-agonistes/

European police warned that the integrity of football was at stake, as they revealed they had smashed a criminal network fixing hundreds of matches, including in the Champions League and World Cup qualifiers.
Europol said a five-country probe had identified 380 suspicious matches targeted by a Singapore-based betting cartel, whose illegal activities stretched to players, referees and officials across the world at all levels of the game.
"It is clear to us that this is the biggest investigation ever into suspected match fixing," Europol chief Rob Wainwright told a news conference in The Hague, adding that the fall-out hit at the heart of the world game's reputation.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/football/europol-uncovers-vast-matchfixing-network-20130205-2dv0x.html#ixzz2Jy4lI0Lo
See toon at top...

as found widespread drug use in Australian professional sport, with some athletes being given substances not yet approved for human use

The year-long investigation says organised criminal networks have been involved in distributing the drugs to athletes and support staff, including doctors and coaches.

In at least one case an entire team is believed to have been doped.

A former head of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority says today is the "blackest day in Australian sport."

1:17pm: The boss of Cricket Australia, James Sutherland, says he was shocked when briefed about the Crime Commission's findings earlier this week.

He said there was "no specific evidence or links" between criminal figures and Australia's cricketers.

"No sport can afford anything other than constant vigilance," he said.

He said Cricket Australia would immediately carry out a review of its integrity systems, controls and processes...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-07/4505884?WT.svl=news0

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Gus: The boss then added, "IPO? I don't believe any cricketer used this stuff, Valium, of course, is the name of the game..."

Meanwhile the grass in constantly sprayed with roundup to stop the weeds growing under foot during games...

 

Apparently Lance Armstrong has told Le Monde in an exclusive interview: "The Tour de France cannot be won without doping"...

http://www.lemonde.fr/sport/article/2013/06/28/lance-armstrong-le-tour-de-france-impossible-de-gagner-sans-dopage_3438046_3242.html

 

see toon at top...

What Armstrong says is a lot of bull... If no-one uses doping, someone has to win the circus anyhow at the end... Thus someone can win the "Tour de France" without doping... 

 

Interesting to note too that the Huffington Post has the story as well...................

IN FRENCH.... http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/ While the English edition does not have the story yet...

Australia's Cadel Evans has added his voice to those riders rubbishing shamed US cyclist Lance Armstrong's claims that it is "impossible" to win the Tour de France without doping.

Armstrong was asked in an interview with French daily Le Monde whether it was possible to win without taking performance-enhancing drugs when he was riding.

He responded: "That depends on the races that you wanted to win.

"The Tour de France? No. Impossible to win without doping because the Tour is an endurance event where oxygen is decisive.

"To take one example, EPO (erythropoetin) will not help a sprinter to win a 100m but it will be decisive for a 10,000m runner. It's obvious."

Following the publication of the interview, riders have dismissed Armstrong's claims saying they hit at their credibility as athletes.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-29/evans-rubbishes-armstrong27s-doping-claims/4789272

The story of "the Tour" was on SBS last night. It must have been a repeat as it did not go up to Cadel's win in 2011...

Doping experts have yet to find an effective test for athletes using xenon and argon, despite introducing a ban on the gases' use by sports stars.

The new ban has been ordered by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), which runs drug testing across many sports.

It follows concerns that athletes were breathing these so-called noble gases to encourage the growth of red blood cells that boost stamina.

But despite being piloted, a valid test is not yet ready, the agency says.

Ignoble prize

The idea of doping with gases more usually associated with arc welding, neon light bulbs and anaesthesia may seem bizarre, but Wada believes there is enough evidence of their enhancement potential to ban them.

Media reports earlier this year indicated that athletes in Russia have been using the gases for years as a means of boosting their stamina ahead of international competitions.

Indeed the company that developed techniques to help athletes prepare using xenon, has a "badge of honour" on its website from the Russian Olympic Committee for "the organisation and conduct of inhalation remediation".

How xenon gas may boost performance

Inhaling xenon, mixed with oxygen, is believed to improve stamina because it increases the body's production of a protein known as hypoxia inducible factor 1, or HIF1.

In turn this stimulates the production of natural erythropoietin (EPO) which regulates the number of red blood cells. The more of these cells, the more oxygen you can carry, and the greater your athletic stamina.

Doping with artificial EPO has been one of the biggest threats to the integrity of sport over the past 20 years. The clampdown on using the drug has seen sports scientists develop other methods including the use of xenon and argon.

Earlier this year Wada's executive committee decided to ban these two named gases by adding them to the prohibited list from this month.

"We had serious information that xenon was being used," Wada's science director Dr Olivier Rabin told BBC News.

"We believe it has been used in the preparation for some major events."

Now that xenon and argon are banned, the agency needs to have an effective test for the gases. 

read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28970855#

 

Recent positive drug tests by two cyclists suggest there is a new, cutting-edge substance making its way to athletes looking for performance-enhancement: FG-4592, an experimental drug that increases production of red blood cells but has not yet been approved for human consumption.

Athletes have long found surreptitious means of obtaining banned performance-enhancing drugs, but with FG-4592, there actually may be a far more straightforward way — simply by ordering it from chemical-supply companies online.

And that, said Don Catlin, an expert on testing for banned substances, is something new to him. Athletes have gotten banned drugs from websites in China, he said, but what they receive is not always what they tried to order. The companies selling FG-4592 are not marketing it to athletes or individuals who want to take it; they emphasize that what they are selling is a chemical that is intended only for researchers.

red more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/sports/cycling/fabio-taborre-and-carlos-oyarzun-drug-tests-suggest-use-of-chemical-meant-for-research.html?_r=0

 

See toon at top...

 

 

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has upheld its ban of Russia's track and field team over allegations of doping. This means the team will be excluded from this summer's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

"Although good progress has been made, the IAAF council was unanimous that RUSAF (Russian Athletic Federation) had not met the reinstatement conditions," IAAF head Sebastian Coe said at a press conference in Vienna. "And the Russian athletes could not credibly return to international competition without undermining the confidence of their competitors and the public. As a result, RUSAF has not been reinstated to membership of the IAAF at this stage."

https://www.rt.com/sport/347108-russian-athletes-olympics-ban/

 

I guess that  ALL AMERICAN  and UK athletes are clean and NEVER used banned substances. According to the chart, ALL COUNTRIES (apart from Zanzibar) on the planet should be banned from participating in the 2016 Olympics: 

see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_athletics

 

At least the Russian Athletes won't catch the zika virus... But the motivation of the IAAF is entirely POLITICAL. 

There is only one stumbling block in the way of NATO's "triumphant march": travel restrictions on the movement of US-NATO troops and equipment in Europe.

 

"We need a Schengen area for American tanks," former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski said back in October 2015.

The idea was echoed by Elisabeth Braw of the Atlantic Council in her June opinion piece for Foreign Affairs.

"NATO's member states are willing to defend one another, and they have the troops and the equipment to do so. But quickly getting those troops and equipment to their destination is a different matter altogether. In some new NATO member states, bridges and railroads are simply not suitable for large troop movements. But one thing frustrates commanders even more: the arduous process of getting permission to move troops across borders," she wrote.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160617/1041527653/nato-europe-military-schengen.html#ixzz4BsHIoRty
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Cycling teams and French media said police used tear gas to disperse the protesters but it ended up blowing in the face of the riders, which led to the race being stopped with 187 kilometres to go.

Police also had to remove bales of hay blocking the road 30 kilometres into the 218km leg from Carcassonne to Bagneres De-Luchon.

According to French media, the small group of farmers from the local Ariege department protested against the reduction of European Union funding.

An Associated Press photographer at the scene said Froome and other riders had eye drops applied while stopped for several minutes.

This Tour has been marred by incidents as race organisers also struggle to deal with angry fans protesting against Froome's participation.

 

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-24/tour-de-france-riders-sprayed-by-p...

 

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Eliud Kipchoge's feat in breaking marathon's mythical two-hour barrier has sparked calls for a difficult new conversation — did the shoes he wore provide an unfair advantage?

Key points:

• Olympian Ryan Hall said Eliud Kipchoge's shoe contained a "spring-like mechanism" that may disadvantage athletes who did not have access to it
• Some of the fastest men's marathon times in history have been run in 2019, while the women's world record was beaten after 16 years
• All runners involved in these times have been wearing versions of Kipchoge's Nike shoe, which contains carbon fibre plates

 

Kipchoge's ground-breaking time of one hour, 59 minutes and 40.2 seconds captivated the world, but it was conducted in a carefully stage-managed event in ideal conditions on a "pancake-flat" course in Vienna.

Already the world record holder and Olympic champion, Kipchoge benefitted from a team of 41 elite pacemakers who ran in a V formation and were guided by a laser to identify the ideal position in which to run. 

A support team also fed him drinks and nutrition from bikes.

And he wore a specially designed pair of shoes, which critics have said feature a "spring-like mechanism" that aids performance.

The unveiling of Kipchoge's bespoke Nike shoes in the lead-up to the Vienna event almost attracted as much media exposure as his run itself.

They are a special version of the Nike Vaporfly Next%, which the shoemaker released this year.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-19/outrage-over-kipchoges-mechanical...

 

 

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The shoe that Nike developed to help Eliud Kipchoge break the mythical two-hour barrier for the marathon in Vienna last year should be banned, Australian marathon legend Rob de Castella says.

Key points:

• Rob de Castella says running in Nike's Vaporfly shoes is akin to 'running with springs on your feet'
• Eliud Kipchoge broke the two-hour marathon barrier wearing the shoes in Vienna
• Athletes say they will be 'shocked' if the shoes are banned, despite reports suggesting they will be

 

The 62-year-old former world champion told the Sydney Morning Herald Nike's high-tech Vaporfly shoe goes against the "spirit" of athletics.

"The concept of running with springs on your feet is just ludicrous," de Castella said. 

"It definitely needs to be addressed. "I'm not for technology where it is providing an unfair or unnatural advantage."

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-17/nike-vaporfly-marathon-shoes-shou...

 

Like taking drugs...

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US has a doping problem – WADA
American anti-doping authorities are trying to police foreign sporting events instead of their own, the agency’s chief Witold Banka has claimed

 

The US should make sure its own sporting organizations follow international doping codes before accusing other countries of illegally enhancing their athletes, World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) President Witold Banka has said.

Speaking at a meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Paris on Wednesday, Banka defended his agency’s decision to clear 23 Chinese swimmers to compete in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 months after testing positive for trace elements of performance-enhancing drugs.

With 11 of these swimmers set to compete at the Paris games this month, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has accused WADA of sweeping the scandal “under the carpet,” while the US Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into the agency’s handling of the case.

USADA’s accusations are “politically motivated” and grounded in an anti-China bias, Witold told the IOC.

 

“If the US authorities assert jurisdiction over cases that have nothing to do with them then it risks putting the United States outside the global anti-doping system,” he added, pointing out that the US has already attempted to give itself this jurisdiction with the passage of the Rodchenkov Act in 2020. This legislation allows the US to prosecute citizens of other countries suspected of doping, provided that they compete alongside Americans or in sporting events with financial ties to the US.

“USADA seeks to put itself above the rest of the world, perhaps even to replace WADA,” Banka declared, adding that “this cannot be allowed.”

“The uncomfortable truth for USADA is that it is failing to address a significant problem, which is that 90% of American athletes compete outside the protection of the [WADA] code,” Banka continued. 

Professional and collegiate sports organizations in the US set their own doping standards, with athletes’ unions allowed to negotiate testing protocols and penalties for drug use. This has resulted in vastly different doping rules between organizations, with the National Football League (NFL) handing out six-game suspensions for anabolic steroid use, and Major League Baseball (MLB) suspending first-time rulebreakers for 25 games.

USADA does not generally test athletes in professional or collegiate leagues, but tests amateur US athletes hoping to compete in the Olympic Games. According to Banka, three quarters of these athletes begin their careers in the collegiate system, meaning that “the majority of elite US athletes initially come from a system that operates outside of the globally recognized clean sports standard. Nothing is being done by USADA to address this serious issue.”

Banka did not outright accuse US athletes of doping. However, he claimed that law enforcement agencies around the world have told WADA that “the US is a huge market for the sale and distribution of performance-enhancing drugs.” 

“If the US continues to threaten” the harmonization of anti-doping rules, “it will isolate itself from the global sporting community and carry significant consequences for American sport,” Banka warned. Former WADA chief Dick Pound has already cautioned that the Rodchenkov Act could be found incompatible with the WADA code, a development that could see Los Angeles lose the right to host the 2028 Summer Olympics.

 

https://www.rt.com/news/601602-wada-us-doping-problem/

 

 

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