Tomorrow is going to be something that was going to happen eventually. I’m sure that many are going to be completely shocked after 60 minutes airs tomorrow. And it is going to continue for a long time. More and more unbelievable information is going to emerge the next few months. It makes me sad even though it is something that needs to occur to get back to a place good for the sport. The subject is so important, way beyond the sport of cycling, that it has become divisive in the sport itself. We need to let the investigation conclude and give it some time before we throw each and every one of the riders to the wolves.
For me, I’m loading up the van and go up to Nebraska and race my bike some. That is what I like to do and it is the easiest way for me to try to avoid all this chaos.
It ultimately all seems so meaningless to catch these guys out years and years later. It certainly makes the drug testers look like a bunch of incompetents.
Daniel, I don’t think the *many* people that have been waiting a very long time for the myth to come apart would call it meaningless.
An informed opinion would be that this is the first step. The next step is to address the federations enabling the doping by eliminating their prominent role in testing.
The testers are not incompetent. They are at least 2 years behind the latest doping tech with both the federation and in some cases it appears even the event organizer has a say in what does/does not get tested. In all that, they still have positives. Some of which the UCI prosecutes. That’s pretty good.
Steve,
USAC needs people like you and the Andreau’s (sp??) running the organization. Ideally, Tailwind principals who ‘own’ USAC will be forced to leave. I think there’s plenty to clean up. Pat McQuaid won’t like it but, screw him.
It has been said that Lance’s comeback with his 3rd place in the TDF in 2009, has been the most successful comeback of all time. However, I bet he is starting to deeply regret his comeback. The investigation would probably never been initiated without his comeback…
Another thing I have always wondered about are the circumstances around the TDF the year Landis got caught. If you were Oscar Pereiro, what would you do after Landis tested positive? How much fame did you loose out on? What are the economic implications of being 2nd instead of 1st? Why wouldn’t you try to sue Landis for the economic loss? Is it because you would have to tell the truth in court? What about all those guys that came 2nd to Ricco, Vino, Piepoli, De Luca, Valverde, the list goes on and on… Is it because you can’t be 2nd and clean at the same time?
The use of performance enhancing drugs is just a side note in this investigation led by Jeff Novitzky of the FDA – the primary focus is fraud – as in defrauding a government agency – the USPS – by using peds to obtain results that would not be normally possible – and selling sponsor’s equipment (Trek bikes) to purchase EPO.
This will make Bonds and Jones look like kindergarden cases.
Ted,
Don’t forget the likely international distribution and use of controlled substances. And then there’s the experimental drug distribution and use hinted at by the Sports Illustrated article.
Some wonder about the slippery relationship between a certain .com and .org that is woefully unclear. The tax and corporate regulatory penalty fees there would be of great interest to a strapped Federal government.
Many, many types of fraud.
The USPS was ruled by the Supreme Court as NOT being a government-owned corporation although they still have a legal monopoly to letter carrying to mail boxes.
So, if they are not a government-owned corporation how can it be defrauding the government?
Reference: see the “Governance and Organization” section
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service
Who then owns it and chose to invest some of it’s profits into a cycling team that may have breached their contract through doping?
Without getting into a lengthy discourse while leaving a comment here is the definition of the US Postal Service…
Until adoption of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, the U.S. Postal Service functioned as a regular, tax-supported, agency of the federal government.
According to the laws under which it now operates, the U.S. Postal Service is a semi-independent federal agency, mandated to be revenue-neutral.
So technically it is still a federal agency.
At one point it was spending close to $20 MILLION PER YEAR on the team – not sure who authorized that.
The last point is that peds created false results – results that otherwise would not be possible without peds – and actual equipment was sold to purchase EPO – so that is where fraud comes in.
SOURCE:
The Brain Cramp part of all this is that they were paying the riders to get results to enhance publicity, favorable publicity for the Postal Service. That part worked out pretty well . . . Great results, no positive tests.
So, at this point, the only way the results become tainted is if the investigation turns up evidence of doping . . . Sorry, I have to stop here, bits of my brain are leaking on to the keyboard.
so, Steve, do you have any stories of doping or temptations to dope? it seems everyone at one point was tempted or felt it was a necessity. i’d love to know your experiences with it, if there were any.
Good luck,they all lived in gerinoa,spain at the time-there were no laws against using any drugs for performance enhancement.So no laws were broken!!!he was not the owner of the team so good luck with proving the bikes were sold he got the money.He was no fool
If you have cancer, you use EPO to counter the effects of chemotherapy. If you lose a testicle, you can have testosterone injections off season with a TUE. If you are a prick HGH can fix that. Signed, Ted MD