Annnnnd the leader is gone.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/...ing/
6916698.stm
Apparently removed by his own team. Maybe they should have 2 tours, one clean, and one with whatever the riders want to pump into their bodies.
Wha ... wha ... WTF?
Rabobank caught Rasmussen lying to them! He told everyone that he missed his doping controls because he was training in Mexico -- but he really was in Italy. (No doubt sharing a glass of cord blood with Dr. Ferrari.)
There's only one plausible reason for Rasmussen to lie about his whereabouts in June.
I'm so glad they found an excuse to can the cheating bastard. It would have been awful for two flagrant cheats to win in a row.
Go Alberto and Levi and Cadel! They all seem like decent chaps. Let's hope they're clean...
Given Rasmussen's performance, I wouldn't mind finding some of those drugs for myself....
Wow, just ... wow. What a crazy Tour this is turning out to be. Good on Rasmussen's team for pulling him; it sounds like they were in a tough spot regarding him and really trying to do the right thing, but just needed the evidence to be able to do it.
I was really starting to worry that the Tour wouldn't survive if Rasmussen won, even if he ended up testing clean, given all of the questions surrounding him. I hope that this year serves as some sort of catalyst for the sport, so that we fans can feel like some sort of progress has been made regarding making the sport clean again, but I just don't know what it's going to take to get to that point. At least this is a start.
I still love following the Tour and am amazed at what these athletes are capable of, but I really wonder if the sport has the will--and the science--to eliminate cheating once and for all. I'm really looking forward to reading your article on doping, Jesse, whenever you decide to post it.
I'm really looking forward to reading your article on doping, Jesse, whenever you decide to post it.
Octavia -
Thanks. Me too. *laughs*
My doping essay titled Should You Lie? About Trust, is an opportunity to have a conversation about what opportunities lying and telling the truth open and close -- personally, in groups, and in societies.
I don't answer all of the questions in the essay. If I've written it well you'll leave with better questions than you entered with.
I do believe the Tour can survive these scandals. I think these scandals are good. One exposes problems by revealing the extend of the breakdown. There is an enormous breakdown. Tell the truth; reveal the breakdown. Only then can one hope to heal.
If one's intent is to punish, then no cure is possible. This I fear more than anything will stand in the way of a true resolution. For the truth to be told a safe space must be available or the lying will continue.
The need for a safe space in which the truth can be spoken and heard is why spiritual leaders, therapists, doctors and lawyers (and journalists in many instances) have privilege; because only when the space is truly safe from retribution and only when the person listening is authentically on their side will people tell the truth other than under threat or when all fear is gone.
More to follow, hopefully Sunday.
[tangentially]
Gee, we could use some sort of a truth commission in other places, currently, too...
[/tangentially]
Rabobank did the right thing. I think they were deathly afraid he might win and then have it stripped. I'm a Discovery fan, but I was also hoping Contador would pass him because of all the controversy surrounding Rassmussen. Another winner getting busted would be terrible for the sport.
I'm happy Rasmussen is gone from the Tour, but he never should have been allowed to start. I hope Rabobank's evidence against him is sold; if this were the U.S., I would be expecting a lawsuit.
HALOSCAN KEEPS REFUSING THIS POST. Grrr. Trying again and again...
Third attempt to post the following. Sorry if it posts three times:
--jwe
It is not at all clear to me that Floyd Landis is a doper. In the event Landis did use dope which remains unproven, I am certain the French laboratories -- especially LNDD (Laboratoire National de D
�pistage du Dopage / [the French] National Anti-doping Laboratory) which has l'Equipe on speed-dial blasts out leaks of its results, which even were its procedures not proven to be stunningly sloppy and fraudulent, leaking results to the most inflamatory press in France is an egregious violation of laboratory, doping, and medical protocols, not to mention a crime. Point being LNDD being the lab in question and the anti-doping agencies determination to get Floyd at any cost, the due process you or I would expect has long ago been trampled into the muck and then pissed on by everyone. Then tested, ruled full of drugs and blamed on Floyd. I'm only surprised he's not yet been charged with intent to distribute to young children, girls no doubt. Holding kittens. Cute baby kittens. Because obviously he hates America...
Were this an American Court in a criminal case, Floyd would for certain already had all charges dismissed with prejudice. Much much more likely (prior to the current Bush/Cheney Justice Department [and the parallel is actually pretty damn accurate now that I'm sitting here writing this, thinking about it]) a reputable U.S. Federal Prosecutor would have examined the evidence against Floyd, determined she could never make a case because the lab had failed to handle the samples to spec, therefore the case could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. As the case could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt and that's what prosecutor's do, a reputable prosecutor would a) drop the case right then, and b) not say anything to the press to smear Floyd. Not one damn thing. She'd also make certain her people including the lab (even if she had to hit them with a court order) didn't say a damn thing. Because she has an obligation which she takes very seriously to shield everyone except those whom she has a good-faith belief she can prove beyond a reasonable doubt committed a crime. Everyone else gets a pass.
I just described how the U.S. Justice Department should work (also how any U.S. State or local prosecutor's office should work.) The Bush/Cheney Justice Department -- at least in some districts and certainly at the top -- is a brutal abso-fucking-lute exception to the standard for Justice with a capital J which has been developed in the United States for over two centuries and in the United Kingdom since the 12th Century. Seriously.
So is the Floyd Landis witch hunt; an exception to justice.
Trust But Verify knows more about the Landis case than anyone. Certainly more than the UCI, more than you or I, and often even more than Floyd. An example of how telling the truth, works. Everything else... who gives a damn. *laughs*
Doc, did Lance A ride doped up all them years?
He sure SEEMED like a great hoss to look up to.
We don't have too many heroes anymore.
I saw Tim McCarver's show last weekend, and he interviewed Don Mattingly, of the Effin Efin Yanks.
Mattingly was a HOSS . . . . like the Mick. Like Yogi.
Like Pauly O'Neill was . . like Bernie. And so many before.
But, we dont' got no stinkin hosses anymore.
Not even in the Tour.
Time to look for hosses in my music, which I started doing long ago . . . sports is pretty much.
Fucked up. Like our country.
Can we get back to saving the Republic, Doc?
Now?
Huh? Can we? Please?
Cuz, Le Tour is just another business with The Man Holding Forth, and breaking the dreams of it's fans . . . and that just don't cut it any more.
The Reality Stakes are MUCH more real and important than sports, anymore . . .
Good job, though . . . Doc. Good insight, and you know your stuff about the BK Major.
But, we need ya back for The Fight.
We really, really, need ya back, Doc.
Thanks for listenin . . .
-Larue
Larue,
Suspend judgment until Doc posts his essay on lying and truthtelling. I have a hunch that he will use sports as a launch pad to explore the effects of lying in politics and other places too. Need him back for The Fight? I don't think Doc ever left.
"In the United States it is illegal to construct a national hiking trail this steep. The Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail -- by law none of these top ten percent."
What law would that be, please? I've been involved with the A.T. 28 years and know of no such law; we have a general internal standard, but parts of the trail approach 90 percent.
This is SO F#CKE$ up hahahah
hay steph
Hay im just sitting here was sup
2 Visitors Online
Commenting by HaloScan
