December 2, 2005

Toys R Us, riding, and DOPERS

I haven't had much to do the last few days so I decided I'd try and get some Christmas shopping done. I ended up at Toys-R-us for one reason or other and got blown away!
Wow, that place has changed alot in the last 15 years... at least as I remember it. I remember going in there with Grandma long ago wanting everything and wishing for everything else. Yesterday I went into sensory shock as everything talked, buzzed, and moved in front of me. Video games, DVDs, Star Wars this and Shrek 2 that. Then I spotted the batterey rack, it looked almost two stories tall! Ahhhh, the gifts that keep on taking!!
I left with nothing, there were too many choices.



I got up to the reservoir again because I wanted a good picture of the dam. It's a pretty cool dam and after all the rain during the week it had quiet a bit of water spilling over. The roads get pretty nice up in that area and the riding would be great if I would actually be motivated enough to ride for more than 2 hours. Good wide shoulders on the road with little traffic and great scenery. As it is, I hit my limit at about an hour and then head for home hoping that it was enough to keep my fitness from the last weekends race. I think I am going for the "fresh" aproach now instead of the "fit" aproach since the motivation is really starting to disappear. Luckily, with only 8 days left of my year I can take comfort in the fact that you don't loose very much fitess in 8 days, especially if I race twice this weekend.

Link to pictures/video of Gearworks race


And now...Doping
This from Velonews Mailbag:
Perhaps, they doth protest too loudly
Dear Editor,
It is hard to listen to the repetitive cries of honesty from our fallen champions. As a physician with experience with EPO and a prior chemist with lab experience, it almost makes you laugh at these guys' ignorance. Do they really think we believe they are innocent?
These tests are based on scientific data with strict standards and tight controls. We are not ruining Heras' career, he failed a standardized, controlled test... twice!

Tyler Hamilton had a hematocrit (blood count value) at the top 95th percentile. Was this just coincidence? And, when his blood showed foreign red cells via a very old, proven lab test used for years with medical certainty in the obstetrical field, it is wrong? No, first it was sabotage and then in court, it was possibly he was a chimeric twin, for goodness sake! This meant he had an in-utero twin that died prior to being born, but left blood cells around for Tyler to keep well into his cycling career... whew!

No, unfortunately our sport is littered with cheats. It isn't, however, their fault. They are just doing what they have to do to keep up with everyone else who is probably cheating. Heras probably used micro-doses of EPO throughout the entire Vuelta, thereby skipping by the tests. He just got too much built up in his system and finally tested positive near the final stage. He had his lead, but his positive test was the result of daily micro-dosing that finally pushed him to a positive test.

I wish we could clean up our sport, but unfortunately, as long as there is competition, there will be cheaters. It just hurts more when it involves your heroes. The majority of people really do not believe Hamilton or Heras. It is an insult to us all to keep lying about it. I am sure they realize now deep down inside they made a mistake. I guess their payback for that mistake is giving all their hard-earned money to the lawyers to try to get us to think there was some sort of mistake.

Well, save your money, boys, because I don't buy it... and neither does my chimeric twin.
Scott Michener, MD
Lawton, Oklahoma

Scott pretty much summed up what I have been thinking all along, I hope those guys spend all there money trying to prove their innocence. Their claims are rediculous, Chimeric twins, COME ON Tyler!!! Faulty test?? COME ON Heras!!! How come the only guys we here about claiming the test is faulty are the top guys that are winning and then failing the test, Hmmmmmm, lets think about that for a second. The possibility that the false negetives have only happend to the guys that are winning seems like a 1:1,000,000,000 chance to me.
You didn't hear Adam Bergmen crying "False Negetive" or "Faulty Test" when he was busted because he either A. had never heard of that. B. He new He had cheated and admitted it. C. Wasn't a Grand Tour winner so it never would have worked, because, why would a Grand Tour winner need EPO, isn't he fast enough if he's winning grand tours to need to take EPO??? D. Couldn't afford the millions of dollars these guys are paying lawyers to fight the case in the only way possible, claim faulty tests.
So, my thought - Bergman, Heras, and Hamilton. All took the same test (well, not Hamilton) , all came back positive, yet apparently only Bergman was doping because the test was faulty for the other two, or so they claim. Get real guys!
Oh yeah, forgot about Chris Sheperd. Test wasn't faulty for him, but then again, he probably only made $30K a year and never would have been able to afford fighting a "faulty test" case. So his option, admit guilt and move on. Maybe Heras and Hamilton should think about it, except they're far to committed to turn back now.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've always thought Adam was a nice guy who got caught up in the wrong side of the sport. But he did actually claim he was not guilty and there was a CAS court case to decide it. Came the same time as another bit Euro pro who's name I can't remember now. Roughly it was the same claim as Hamilton that the test was flawed though in Adam's case they changed the allowed limits after he had been tested...legally the idea of being able to go back retrospectively and change the 'rules' is a little sketchy on CAS's part. But the whole point is that you can't dope so no one argued when they claimed the test was better than originally thought and they could drop the allowed limit to bust Adam. (imagine how many people would be in trouble if they decided to make any amount of caffeine illegal but tested for it without telling anyone first?)

http://www.usantidoping.org/files/active/arbitration_rulings/cas%20decision%20-%20bergman.pdf

I miss racing him but am glad there is 1 less cheat out there. good luck this weekend.
Jim Holmes

Anonymous said...

one more cheat caught, one more roster spot to fill. keep up the good work.

-bschwalls