There is an article over at Cyclingnews that says that CBS’s 60 Minutes is going to air a segment on mechanical doping on January 29.  That is exactly a month.  Do you think that if 60 Minutes makes a valid argument, or even better yet, exposes the use of mechanical doping for the past decade, it would change the way us Americans think about it?

I’ve usually always agreed with what 60 Minutes covers.  It all seem pertinent.  It is the Sunday evening program, after the football games, that seems to try to expose unfairness throughout society.  They call themselves a “newsmagazine”, which is appropriate, I guess.   They started in 1968, so nearly 50 years ago.  That is crazy.

60 Minutes has already done a ton of stuff on Lance and his issue.  They did an exclusive segment with Tyler Hamilton that was revealing, sort of.  This is going to different.

If 60 minutes is going to air a segment on mechanical doping in the sport of cycling, then there have to be some riders that are shitting themselves right about now.  I assume they will name a rider, or multiple riders, that have had the advantage of this.  Since they “caught” Femke Van den Driessche, the only person, as far as I know, of potential trying to use mechanical doping in cyclocross, obviously it does exist.

Greg (Lemond) has been talking about it for sometime now.  He says it exists and has been used in the peloton.  I have no reason to doubt him.

I think a 60 Minutes show on it will go way more in depth that anything the cycling media has covered on the subject.  They have rarely made mistakes in their reporting and thus, hardly ever have to retract something that isn’t true.  I assume they did their research during the covering of this subject.

So, we have a month to wait.  I did a post about the revealing of mechanical doping a couple weeks ago and in that article, the “inventor” of mechanical doping, Istvan Varjas, said that a major television show was going to cover it.  I’d alway thought it would be a European television show. Never did I think it might be 60 Minutes.  This should be interesting.

Operation Puerto, does anyone understand it at all?   Yesterday an article at Velonews says that WADA had tested some of the blood bags that were released last summer and that they have 30 more names to add to the list.  20 of those are cyclists.  Is that a surprise?

I don’t get the whole thing.  It was such a big deal 10 years ago.  Jan Ulrich left the Tour and was suspended by T-Mobile.   Lots of riders were named, then their names were withdrawn.  I can’t name it exactly, but did 2 guys serve suspensions?  I can’t really name anyone other than Ivan Basso and Alejandro Valverde.  There have been other guys that were named, and they for sure, had blood bags hanging with the other 200+ bags, but I don’t remember any serving a suspension.   Jörge Jaksche?   The can’t even do anything to the doctor that drew the blood.

Now it has been over 10 years and most of the guys, most likely, have retired.  But I’d bet a few haven’t.  Maybe more than a few.   But, they don’t have anything to worry about because the 8 year statute of limitations for doping violations has passed.  What is up with that?  Why is there a statute of limitation on cheating in sports?  If it takes 10 years in courts to get the names, then the statute of limitation is way too short.

The Velonews story says that sports  governing bodies are trying to figure out whether if they actually have the legal authority to release the names.  Is that jacked up or what?    That is a joke.

The got the blood released, DNA tested the blood, and now have the identities.  Release the names.  It is simple.

Isn’t it interesting how much of thies doping stuff happens in the winter around the holidays.   It is kind of a weird way to end the year.  But, the show must go on.