There's a Time to Walk Away and Then There's a Time to Ride Away Ringing Bells

There has been much written about the use of doping products in sports, and in cycling specifically. We've read about those we followed, routed for, and believed in test positive for PEDs. In almost every case the accused has rallied the troops, fortified the defenses, and vehemently denied any and all accusations. The arguments have ranged from the classic half-truths (I've never tested positive - which isn't the same as never using drugs), to the completely asinine (vanishing twin brother).

We've seen athletes who have been caught doping come clean (only because they were caught) and attempt to use themselves as a sort of positive example for other riders (Of course not without blaming the team and those around them for their doping in the first place. Egos, what a terrible thing to break - probably what led you to dope in the first place).

On top of all those you have Phil Zajicek - a rider who not only got caught doping and lied about it, but made others lie for him as well. What a douche. If that was the end I wouldn't mind so much. But read what he wrote in an email to Velonews:

“Today, I have accepted a lifetime ban from the sport of cycling. I have had an enjoyable and successful career which has taken me to all corners of the of the globe and I’m grateful for everything cycling has given me. It’s time to walk away from the sport and begin the next chapter of my life with the tremendous support of my wife, family and friends behind me.”

Seriously douche, people walk away from things where they have the choice do do that - you were forced out. I understand that he could have kept fighting, but a lifetime ban isn't something you 'accept', it's something that is imposed on you. Hopefully he eventually 'accepts' the fact that he not only ruined his cycling career, but he did no favors for those he had lie for him (I see the parallel argument here between the Millar video and him being 'manipulated' and those that lied for Zajicek - both parties had the option to not choose what they did).

Speaking of crazy stories, as I was in the first paragraph, everyone's favorite former Alaskan Governor (or really the only one anyone outside of Alaska can name), Sarah Palin sure came up with one about the midnight ride of Paul Revere. I'm pretty sure that Paul Revere's ride on the 18th of April, 1775, wasn't to warn the British or that he used bells to do so, but then again I'm no presidential historian or history professor like this guy. Wait, what did he say there at the 40-second mark?

Did he just say Revere's ride was on April 8th? This whole time we've had it wrong. Good thing CNN got this guy to set the record straight for all of use, not just Palin:

I guess what this all proves is that it doesn't matter if you're a professional athlete, former governor, or presidential historian, you don't always get the facts correct the first time around.

The Other Shoe has Dropped, and It Appears to be Worn Out

What could be more fitting to write about in this, my 100th post, than the man who really got Americans (ok, only about seven of us) excited in the sport of cycling - Tom Boonen. Seriously, he used blow while at least some other riders in the pro peloton were turning to EPO, CERA, testosterone, Fluff, etc. When he finally takes off his lycra shorts for the last time and calls it quits, he most definitely has a spot in Hollywood. Truth be told Boonen is my favorite rider and I wish him all the best - go get 'em Tommeke, just lay off the white stuff.

Actually, the man I speak of is none other than Lance Edward Gunderson, better known to the world as Lance Armstrong. With all the allegations from former teammates, including Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis (George Hincapie is said to have given some pretty damning testimony to a grand jury about LA's, and his own, drug use), it is harder and harder for people that use reason to believe that he never used PEDs. In this article, author Renee Gough describes how her son - who is/was a huge LA fan - comes to grips with the Hamilton interview on 60 Minutes. Gough uses the metaphor of her son's favorite pair of shoes, a set of Livestrong Nikes:

I'm not sure what's worse, the fact that she uses as her subtitle, "Lance Armstrong's Livestrong apparel may be unraveling at the seams" - I fear that 'unraveling' is a bit of an understatement:

Or her son's response to the allegations made by Hamilton. In what Gough claims was an expertly reasoned response, her son's retort to the allegations was, "I’ve read Lance Armstrong’s book, the reason he did so good is because before he had cancer he didn’t realize how much he wanted it.” Sure, if will power is all it takes to get a person from a hospital bed and chemotherapy to winning the TdF, than I would have slept with so many girls as a young, 20-something roaming the streets of New York City. Bringing the story full circle, as well as tying (yeah, like laces, I'm in on it as well) together the shoe metaphor/unraveling pun, Gough says she is happy for the first time in her life to go shoe shopping to replace her son's Livestrong Nikes. This is where the story gets fishy; a woman who claims she hasn't been excited to go shoe shopping before? I'm not buying it.

While I understand her desire to replace the shoes, a physical reminder of LA, she falls in the same trap as just about every other person who discusses the issue of LA doping - that the Livestrong Foundation has cheated the same way LA (possibly) has. Hitting close to home, KC's soccer team - Sporting KC - has a new stadium that the writer of this article seems to believe links them directly to LA. I don't know if Livestrong has ever done anything illegal or if LA was involved, but what I do know is that no matter how horrible a person LA may turn out to be, the foundation he started is one that has an honorable cause. LA and Livestrong will always be linked, but transferring the negative aspects of the person onto the foundation is ridiculous.

No matter what happens with LA, Livestrong will most likely take a hit, but in the end people will realize when they pledge money to Livestrong or purchase Livestrong themed articles of clothing, they will be helping those with cancer (as well as hurting those children who work in Chinese sweatshops). In the end this all would be much easier to sort out and result in a much neater clean up if LA had just joined Boonen for an eight ball instead of (possibly) injecting himself with drugs. It's not as if he couldn't afford to waste a few hundred dollar bills to make straws.

Doubling Up over the Weekend

Today's rest day at the Giro d'Italia was a welcome respite for everyone not named Alberto Contador or wearing an orange jersey. With the last week of the Giro presenting the riders with only more mountains to climb (save for the final time trial in Milan), it is unlikely that we'll see many other names or colored jerseys on the stage podiums from here on out.

On Saturday, Igor Anton of Euskatel-Euskadi was able to power away from Alberto (the first rider able to do that all race) and take the stage on top of the Zoncolan:

Igor was visibly excited about his win. I'm not sure what gearing he was using heading up this most ridiculous of mountains that maxes out at 22 or 23% on all three routes, but word on the street is that AC had a 34x32. It would seem that with a gear that low, professional riders would be able to ride up the side of a building.

Sunday brought a repeat of Saturday in that the team from the Basque Country was again victorious, this time with Mikel Nieve:

Slumped over his handlebars at the stages finish, Nieve was clearly worn out after the 229 kilometer, seven and a half hour "epic." It would have taken him over eight hours, but anyone would ride fast if they were being chased by this guy:

The big loser on the day was Italian rider Vincenzo Nibali who took a flyer and paid for it in the end. His compatriot, Michele Scarponi leap-frogged him in the GC. Heading into the final week AC has a solid lead of 4:20, and if he continues to ride anywhere near as well as he has been, this race was over after he first donned the maglia rosa.

Of course, the big news from the weekend was Tyler Hamilton's interview on 60 Minutes. Naturally Armstrong's camp categorically denied all of the accusations leveled at him in the interview by stating that Hamilton has no credibility. It even created a horrible website that is the equivalent of a school-aged child responding to his classmates poking fun at him by saying, "na ah!" What I noticed was how whenever Hamilton accused LA of doping, he always turned the gun on himself and expressed how it wasn't simply an interview to inform the world of what LA did, but also what Hamilton and a bunch of other riders in the peloton did.

This interview is huge news, as it is another of Lance's former teammates, and this time one of his former top domestiques, coming out and telling the world what they saw. How will this all unfold? I'm not sure. Will the truth ever be revealed? I hope so, if not for the sport of cycling, at least for the fans. Will Livestrong feel any negative repercussions? Perhaps, but only because the LA supporters who also support Livestrong can't seem to differentiate between fighting cancer and cheating. Will I ever stop asking questions of myself and answering them poorly? Yes, you can't count on that happening - now.

The Grossglockner is Etna; Etna is the Grossglockner; LA used PEDs?!

What do you do as a sprinter knowing the stage you are racing will be your last in this year's Giro (because the road tips up and it isn't worth the effort if there aren't any sprint stages left)? You tell your teammates to go to the front and destroy the field for you:

If all goes your way you win, like Cavendish did for the second time this Giro:

In his excitement, Cav decided to use his fingers to create a visual representation of the number of stages he has won. Either that or he has jumped on the hippie bandwagon and is asking for peace. I only say that because his visual sign this year is a bit different from last year's.

In what seemed to be a replay of stage 9's climb of Etna (except today's stage was in Austria, was rainy, and was an entirely different stage), AC and the little Venezuelan (no not Hugo Chávez) José Rujano broke from the pack on the last climb. Unlike stage 9, Rujano won the stage - though it would probably be fairer to say that he was gifted it by AC:

Why do I say that it was a gift? For one, Rujano looked back at AC three times in the last 50 meters to see if he was going to pass him. For another, look at how short this guy is, there's no way he could have held off AC if he had wanted to accelerate and take the stage:

Fun fact - Rujano has won more races as a jockey than a bike rider.

The next question one would ask is why would AC let him win? Rujano has been the only person who can stay with AC on the climbs and is almost six minutes back in the GC so he posses no threat. The other riders who everyone thought could pose a threat? Look at these gaps (and add that to the 50+ seconds he took on Etna) and you'll see that as of right now they pose about as much threat as Donald Trump does to President Obama's chances of being reelected in 2014:

With today's effort AC is now leading in the GC, mountains classification, and points competition. You'd think the way AC has been riding despite his case being decided by CAS would be the big news in the world of cycling, but it's not.

In a 60 Minutes interview, disgraced Olympic Champion and former teammate of Lance Armstrong, Tyler Hamilton admitted he took performance enhancing drugs as well as saying the he saw LA use EPO. The response from LA's camp is the same one we heard when Landis made his claims of LA's drug use; "he has no credibility." So how did team LA respond to the news that his most trusted lieutenant and friend, George Hincapie, testified that he used EPO and testosterone with LA while with the Postal Service Team? They insinuated that since the reports are anonymous they are false - I guess that means that Hincapie still has some credibility. Another former USPS rider, though he left the team before LA arrived, has come forward and stated that he was offered PEDs while a team rider. The next, and probably last, big piece of the puzzle is Levi Leipheimer, another of LA's "inner circle" crew.

So what do you do when you are the greatest TdF rider in the history of the sport and it looks like this just may be your last race? You send your team to the front and hope you can pull out a victory.

The Freedom in the Freedom of Speech

Last Wednesday I wrote about athletes threatening to retire. It seems that every week another athlete, and by athlete I'm specifically referring to cyclists, joins the Facebook fanpage (as a non-Facebooker I'm not sure if fanpage is the correct term or of they even exist) of "I'm going to retire because I'm being treated (according to me) unfairly." The newest member of the gang is Riccardo Riccò, who has been taking English lessons from Fränk:

"I don’t want to race anymore, no chance. I’ve turned the page, I’m fed up with the cycling world, it makes me want to vomit. I’m fed up with everyone in cycling. They already wanted me to stop when I came back but now enough’s enough, Riccò is no more."

Riccardo clearly has mastered the third person reference. What he hasn't mastered is admitting when he has broken the rules. It also seems that he falls a bit short in the financial knowledge it takes to make a living. Maybe his tournament bracket will pan out.

In the end, RR has the right to pronounce his retirement, just like fellow positive-testing cyclist Toni Colom, has to use the phrase "positive test" to refer to what turned his life upside down. I'm sure that getting caught with EPO in his system did turn his life upside down, but I'm also sure that his positive test was only made possible with an earlier decision to dope.

Enough of the retiring; let's move on the news from the professional racing scene. With what must have been one of the strongest lead-out trains ever,

Former World Champion Cadel Evans won the fifth and penultimate stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico, or the Race of the Two Seas:

After crossing the finish line, Cadel salutes the crowd in recognition of his perfectly timed attack on the last climb. Shortly after the effort was clearly seen on his face:

Cadel postponed the start of his 2011 season in order to be more fresh for the TdF, and so far it seems that he has some pretty fresh legs. We'll just have to wait and see if his plan works out and he performs well during the Tour. If not I guess he can always retire.