I believe that the Spanish press think that the farce over Fuentes cost them dearly in the recent Olympic bid. There may be a change of attitude there, as also recently seen in the Giro with Italian riders being caught.

Is Britain now not one of the last Major European countries where doping is not a criminal offence and still left to the governing bodies?

I find it quite ironic that some posters who eagerly dismissed suspicions levelled against Wiggins and Froome as ridiculous speculation, have been quite happy to cast the same dispersions against Horner.

The Italians have been strict on doping for some time. I’m honestly not sure it needs to be a criminal offence as removing the livelihood of the doper seems like a big enough punishment (unless they’re doping with illegal substances). Arguably they’d be open to civil suits or even criminal charges for fraud if they did a Lance so not sure it needs strengthening further.

MSP – I still think the Spanish press should do a Walsh and dig up the rest of the Fuentes dirt so the cloud is at least cleared a bit. Right now pretty much every Spanish sporting success is under question.

To be honest, if he HAD been in the hotel first thing this morning the day after winning a Grand Tour, I’d feel a litle bit let down.

MSP – Wiggins and Froome aren’t over 40, and have had a fairly normal career progression (granted Froome’s raises some suspicions). Oh, and everybody was expecting them to win when they did.

Radioshack announcement that he was in his wife’s hotel and this was declared on the whereabouts form. So, just a cock up by the Spanish anti-doping folk?

Well it’ll be pretty clear – if it was on the ADAMS system as they claim (and within whatever time period they’re allowed to change it) then it just shows that Spanish AD are incompetent.

I believe that the Spanish press think that the farce over Fuentes cost them dearly in the recent Olympic bid.

MSP – I still think the Spanish press should do a Walsh and dig up the rest of the Fuentes dirt so the cloud is at least cleared a bit. Right now pretty much every Spanish sporting success is under question.

The press is talking about it, and they certainly mention that it wasn’t just cyclists that were clients of Fuentes. Legally I’m not sure where they stand, though – the decision not to publish the names and destroy the samples was taken by a judge, not a sporting federation, and any investigation could run into serious legal problems. (Whether or not the judge was put under pressure or bribed to reach this conclusion is a different matter… I’d be very unsurprised to hear about the former, the latter is bit less likely.)

These are quotes from Horner about his mate Lance ~

“Look, I’m certainly old enough and wise enough to understand the magnitude of the situation, but in the end he’s still getting prosecuted with no positive test. A lot of guys say they saw him and a lot say he did this and he did that, but I look at it and say: ‘USADA, WADA, UCI, they’re saying that the tests are worthless.’ So do you take all the tests, 500, 1000, I don’t know the number I’ve done in my own career and you basically say, that you took them for no reason?“

“Maybe USADA have found the guys who have cheated but…. for me, you won the race (if) you passed the test. Lance won seven Tours de France and that’s what I saw and the moments I enjoyed and that the way it’s going to stay.”

From that, he is basically saying, if you can cheat and nobody can catch you, then that is fine. Pretty much how LA got his wins.

And, if you missed it. The fact that Horner was injured and looking like his career could be over for most of the year!

Nibali won the Vuelta in my eyes…

Until they take it away from him, Horner won the Vuelta. Impressive riding – I really hope he is clean.

As for missing the test – if he has notified his whereabouts and the testing team have gone to the wrong hotel then so be it. They can always test him today?

lightman – That’s what we’ve all said. His comments about Lance are bullshit and he was stupid to make them. As for his knee injury, what does that prove? He had surgery, doubted before and just after the surgery if at his age he could recover but recovered. If he’s found to have doped then fair enough, Nibali won, but as a two time stage winner, wearer of the red jersey for 5 days, the white jersey for another 5 days and the winner of the race, he will have had a LOT of tests. So lets see how it pans out eh?

Bring back no tests, would be a superb smashfest!

It’d be rubbish. The EPO free-for-all era just entrenched the best time triallers in the top positions. Armstrong, fortunately, had an aggressive attacking instinct, but a certain Spanish multiple-time-winner of Le Tour showed just what doping enabled. Boredom.

as a two time stage winner, wearer of the red jersey for 5 days, the white jersey for another 5 days and the winner of the race, he will have had a LOT of tests

Just like Lance, Marion Jones etc.

he will have had a LOT of tests

Which means nothing if a rider is EPO’d to the gills before the race and nobody catches it.

EPO tests are far more accurate these days, Di Luca and Santambrogio were both busted for EPO at the Giro (but the latter is getting away with it).

aracer / ormondroyd – So how do you propose to find a doper? Maybe if someone is trending on Google or Twitter with a hashtag of #doper we ban them?

http://www.radioshackleopardtrek.com/news/anti-doping-testers-wrong

So…if Horner does test positive will the Fantasy leagues recalculate everything?

aracer / ormondroyd – So how do you propose to find a doper? Maybe if someone is trending on Google or Twitter with a hashtag of #doper we ban them?

There are many things that can be done to improve things from where they are now. e.g.:

Decouple testing from bodies with a conflict of interest.
Fund the bio passport programme properly, on a global basis, across multiple sports.

…to name but two.

Tests are fairly pointless it seems when all the experts around here have made up their minds.

We all know that tests aren’t 100% though. Regardless, testing is good as they still require an element of luck now it seems to consistently avoid them, not to mention that it limits how much benefit the cheats can get from doping which wouldn’t be the case if there wasn’t any…

Testing is pointless if it’s not properly done.

This tweet was only yesterday:

Helen Wyman ?@CXHelen 22h

Try that again! After nearly 30 races finally had a dope control test on american soil, glad to see USA anti doping doing a good job

his interview with Matt Rendell (just seen it on repeat of ITV4 highlights today) depressed me, and Ive been sitting on the fence. MR asked him a pretty direct question finishing with “is this win clean?”, CH said something about having never said he’d never seen doping, then spent the rest of the answer waffling about how gee he really loves the sport and he hopes the fans do too. Way too evasive, and echoes of the “believe in miracles” speech of LA. 🙄

He’s previously insisted he never saw any doping in his time on Bruyneel teams.

*scratches chin*

The interesting thing is what he’s been up to, given the supposedly improved testing programme.
Is it still possible to fool the bio passport with some sort of specialised preparation over the season, is Spain still some sort of doping haven where the testing is unreliable, or is this some new technique?

Try googling ‘microdosing EPO’.

They can still dope if they do it carefully but it seems based on the people getting caught that you have to be lucky too to avoid being caught. The benefits available aren’t anything like they used to be when EPO use was completely uncontrolled.

Just watched the IVT4 interview.
I didn’t think he came across as that bad – certainly not as bad as the post-stage interview I posted the other day.
He mentions being in the grupetto during the bad years for example.

Are there any genetic performance enhancing things on the go yet? If so, are there tests for them?

That would be an interesting angle to it all.

You could argue Nicholas Roche has used the genetic advantage thing all his career. 🙂

Had a little chuckle to myself at the comment on the Leopard Trek page –

Fred Homburg
i can only hope that the press and all cycle fans arround the world wil remember that his vivtory in spain was the best thing that i have seen in years.

D’you know, in all the frenzy, I rather fear the press may have overlooked how much Mr Homburg enjoyed the race – I certainly haven’t seen it reported as widely as it should have been. 🙂

Doubtful he’ll get caught from a test done during the Vuelta (unless he’s been incredibly stupid) but if he’s been micro-dosing/doping hopefully the passport will pick something up.
It’s just not credible what he did given his past form and the analysis of some of the climbs, he’s not just been quicker than the best of the peloton in this year’s race, he’s been significantly better than some of the best riders going off previous year’s times. The whole well-rested thing is bullshit to, it’s not like Nibali was at the TdF and you need a certain amount of racing miles in your legs before a Grand Tour, even Sky (the masters of training over racing) do plenty of races before a Grand Tour.

Why do we have cycle races? It’s because they entertain the public, like all other sports… some sports charge entry to fund them, cycling depends on sponsors, the public watch, see the ‘advertising’ and that funds the sport, but we as the public are there to be entertained and that’s precisely what this Vuelta did, the best GT in many years as far as entertainment went. So, why not accept it as it was, it’s irrelevant who did or didn’t dope as we were entertained. Too many people can’t accept that or be satisfied with that, instead everyone and his dog have to become detectives and waste their lives delving into whether a, b or c doped. It doesn’t affect YOUR lives at all! It’s like after-match analysis in football, it’s irrelevant as the game has ended! Look forward to the next and enjoy life!

that’s precisely what this Vuelta did

There clearly are some/many who think this way. I don’t. I just can’t get excited/entertained if I’m watching something that may well not be what it appears to be or should be (IMO…).

So the legacy of cheating, for me at least, is that something I used to love just isn’t something I can get excited about in the same way at the moment.

That pisses me off.

It doesn’t affect YOUR lives at all

Your post makes no sense to me. How can something existing to entertain us have no affect on us?

To be honest, I could easily do a Junkyard and quote every part of your post in little pieces explaining why the do not don’t make sense. But I can’t be arsed so I’ll just stick with the one bit.

Why do we have cycle races? It’s because they entertain the public, like all other sports.

so its not to find out who is the best at that sport 😕

That contest may be entertaining or it may be dull See wiggo grind out a tour or LA doing the look

I think there may be something more to the contest that me being entertained

*runs away and hides from Junkyard

It doesn’t affect YOUR lives at all

Neither does us discussing it. Why does it matter to you?

his interview with Matt Rendell (just seen it on repeat of ITV4 highlights today) depressed me, and Ive been sitting on the fence. MR asked him a pretty direct question finishing with “is this win clean?”, CH said something about having never said he’d never seen doping, then spent the rest of the answer waffling about how gee he really loves the sport and he hopes the fans do too. Way too evasive, and echoes of the “believe in miracles” speech of LA.

Just what I thought. Very mealy mouthed.

Of course it’s not proof, but I’ll trust my instincts on whether he was telling the truth or not.

Contrast with how clear and even eloquent Froome was on the subject.

And I feel the same chakaping but at the same time, I’m sure that Chris Froome was well coached and they had considered in some detail what would sound best and how to phrase things. I’m not suggesting that it’s not true, just that the risk is that we get into a situation (that in some ways I think we’re already in) where there becomes a stock set of answers to doping where you have to be energetically anti-doping to be credible.

All that happens is everyone learns the same script.

It’s because they entertain the public, like all other sports

Like WWF?

there becomes a stock set of answers to doping where you have to be energetically anti-doping to be credible.

I’ve wondered why this hasn’t become the case to a greater extent already tbh.

But the same instinct that made me think Horner had something to hide also made me think Froome was speaking from personal conviction.