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Caught this one over at velonews.com:
With the Tour de France just weeks away, there’s a high stakes game of cat and mouse between a half-dozen so-called suspect riders identified by the UCI and anti-doping testers.
“We have targeted six, seven riders considered a high risk because of their suspicious behavior and because they could perform very well in the Tour de France,” Anne Gripper, director of the UCI’s anti-doping program, told AFP. “Some have already had three or four surprise controls. We are receiving the results and not all of them are negative,” she continued. “It will take time to know the complete results. We have to respect the process and wait for the ‘B’ samples before we can announce anything.”
Gripper said the UCI controllers have dubbed three of these riders as the “men in black” because they “train in anonymous jerseys rather than in team kits so that they can avoid the UCI controllers trying to make the surprise controls.”
And who feels the need to proclaim their innocence in a press release?
The story prompted a press release from officials from the Astana team Thursday, which took offense at some insinuations in the European media.
The statement said if riders sometimes train in regular jerseys it’s because they don’t want to be bothered by cyclo-tourists, especially along France’s Cote d’Azur, and said that the team is conducting a training camp in the Pyrénées riding in Kazakh national jerseys.
If this plays out the way I fear it will, those boys are going to have a lot more to worry about than a couple of cyclo-tourists.
In fact, they may soon be cyclo-tourists like Raimondas RumÅ¡as beating up people in gran mondo’s around Italy. Hey, third in the Tour to charity ride champion happens all the time.
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I love the line “We have to respect the process and wait for the ‘B’ samples before we can announce anything.” I think they just announced something, or I may just be that dumb. Dopers or not, does it seem as though the folks running pro cycling are bound and determined to kill it? Aren’t they still short on sponsors for this year’s le Tour? Is this just a move to get these guys to sign the apparently popular new agreement on doping (not a lot of names on the UCI website, yet)?
To hide a pro team from doping control, a change of kit is all that’s needed? Surely those nine superfit men out in the mid-day sun in black jerseys on matching 10,000$ fifteen kilo ‘team replica’ bikes followed by a car full of wheels are simply a well organized club ride so surely we don’t need more drug testing in the pro ranks. Got it.
my take:
http://www.humanpoweredtransport.net/hpt/2007/06/men-in-black.html
also includes exciting factual information that was too difficult for the ‘real’ journo’s to Google about the drug that turned up in the ‘non negatives’ at the Giro. Ale Jet and asthma, like flies on shit. Onward.
I agree with Jeremy on this. The UCI needs to keep their fucking mouths SHUT until all results are in. However, based on some reading I did yesterday (Landis’ book, which I bought at 5pm, picked it up at 7pm and did not put it down until I finished it at 11pm), who can even trust their lab monkeys to get shit right
I could care less about the gag order “in direct violation of his legal team” that was imposed on Landis, which is referred to in the link provides by sumadis.
I’m glad the book came out. If you read the FACTUAL part of that book based on the examination of the DATA that Landis’ team reviewed, there is IMCOMPETENCE on the part of the WADA, USADA, and UCI. What is supposed to be determined is not whether or not Landis is a doper, but if the EVIDENCE and PROCESS that was available is complete and free enough of errors so that it can be determined if he doped to win Stage 17 and the Tour. My answer to that is NO. What a massive fuck up by all those involved who bear the burden of proof to show their methods and materials were in order to prove such.
Bikescag hit the nail on the head.
When you have the TECHNICAL DIRECTOR of the company that MADE the machines the French Lab used, TESTIFY that the French lab techs had NO IDEA how the machines worked, or how to use them properly, then there is no justice.
Then USADA brings in “character” witness who have nothing relevant to say about the case; namely Joe Papp and Greg Lemond. Lemond’s testimony that Landis admitted doping, was dubious and semantically unclear.
USADA’s closing argument was not on the science, which is the only thing it should of been on, but was on character.
All USADA officials should be fired and replaced.
The process by which Landis has been tried, is completely broken. Until that process is, as Bikescag says, free of glaring errors, it can’t be used.
Back to the Astana boys… They have to escape cyclo-tourists, eh? What average, middle-aged, beer swilling cyclo tourist (or even CAT 2 racer, for that matter) could even keep up with the Astana team long enough to be a nuisance?
I’ve been passed by a pro squad out training before. They pass even a fit rider like fucking greased lightning. You don’t exactly have time to ask them for autographs and swap training tips.
And I’ve never heard of any other team having trouble with those pesky tourists. Is Astana so popular it’s like the press following Paris Hilton every time they try to ride but nobody gives a shit when CSC or Discovery passes by?
The claim that they’re avoiding tourists is so preposterous for so many reasons.
point taken on the landis tome – looking forward to reading it.
as for the black kit – I still can’t understand how that’s enough to confuse the UCI. oh wait. yeah, maybe I can.
Read cyclingnews this morning. Now they are questioning some riders who posted LOW VALUES during the Giro! WTF? Low must be the new high…
The are worried that the low values are an indication of the use of masking agents. Or it could be the fact that riding at the sharp end mmakes you fucking tired and wears you down physically.
The UCI and WADA should STFU until they have a grasp…
I’m just gonna suck on my asthma inhaler and go ride now. zoom zoom.