SB Nation User Blog: fmk

Soccerball and Golf forced to face their own doping demons

fmk — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:31:02 -0000

Seldom do cyclists get an opportunity to feel superior and lecture other sports on what they need to do to kick out the junkies in their midst. So seldom in fact that I had to go back to the 2007 Tour of Ireland to find out when last I said that. But in the schadenfreude stakes the last two weeks have been like hog heaven for cycling fans who wish the sports journos could find other sports to diss over doping.

First up there was soccerball and CSKA Moscow’s Sudafed-gate, when Sergei Ignashevich and Alexei Berezutsky were provisionally suspended after testing positive for a banned stimulant. The two were subjected to random drug tests after their team’s Nov 3rd match against Man Utd. For a brief moment, there was even talk of their team being dumped out of the Champions League, with UEFA rules applying a two-strikes-and-you’re-out policy to teams caught harbouring dopers. UEFA though were quick to pour cold water on that threat and point out the loophole that would stop that rule being applied to CSKA. Cause, like, you know, a final round of the Champions League without CSKA Moscow, well that would be like … oh, I don’t know … the World Cup without France?

More will be known on this one tomorrow, when a disciplinary hearing reviews the matter. Until then, we just have to keep our cynicism attached to a helium-filled balloon and watch it soar toward the ceiling as we tentatively accept that both players really had been using Sudafed – which, as everybody knows, contains pseudoephedrine, which used to be a banned PED, then became a monitored substance and will next year be back on the banned list – while battling man-flu and forgot to note this fact on their forms during the doping control. As you do when you’re a top-level athlete earning a shed-load of roubles and rely on your agent to do all the menial things in your life. Like fill in anti-doping forms properly.

Another substance which has been having an on-again off-again relationship with the banned list is Actovegin. Of all the drugs you’d have associated with Tiger Woods – Viagra, an excess of testosterone – it’s this calf’s blood extract which has leapt into the limelight.

This follows the disclosure that Canadian Mounties arrested Dr Anthony Galea away back in October after finding human growth hormone and Actovegin in the car of one of his assistants at a border crossing and then raiding the Institute of Sports Medicine Health and Wellness Centre near Toronto. While no longer on WADA’s banned list, using, selling or importing Actovegin is against the law in the United States. Galea’s clients have included Woods, Donovan Bailey, Dara Torres and a number of NFL players.

According to the NYT, where this story broke, Galea was treating Woods following his knee surgery last year. Galea was allegedly providing platelet-rich plasma therapy, in which blood is extracted, put through a centrifuge to separate out the protein-rich platelets from the red blood cells and then re-injected into the area of the injury. A practice which will be partly banned next year when WADA restricts its use on muscles but allows it for joints and tendons. Athletes resorting to this treatment will have to declare the fact to the relevant anti-doping authorities.(This treatment shouldn't be confused with Enrico Lazzaro's trick of sticking the extracted blood n a SodaStream and then adding a squirt of ozone to the blood before re-injecting it.)

While golf commentators and other sports journos have been busy Googling Actovegin since the NYT broke this story, cycling fans are all too familiar with it since it started to gain popularity among athletes in the run up to the Sydney Olympics in 2000, which will be remembered for the introduction of a test for EPO.

In 2000 it was Actovegin packaging – and the cloak and dagger manner in which US Postal staff disposed of it – which lead to a French investigation into doping at Lance Armstrong’s squad. Team manager Mark Gorski eventually admitted that the squad did have Actovegin but only for the use of a diabetic staff member, Julien De Vriese, and as a treatment for road-rash.

So abhorrent did US Postal find the allegations being made against them and their use of calf’s blood as a performance booster that Armstrong briefly threatened not to participate in the 2001 Tour. More helpful to the US Postal spin on the story was that Actovegin wasn’t on any banned list. It did eventually make it to the pre-WADA IOC list, where it lasted a year before it was decided that it was neither performance enhancing nor dangerous to athletes’ health and so was removed from the list.

If that decision didn’t seem a bit premature in 2002, when Actovegin was among the many products found in the car of Raimondas Rumšas’ wife following his third place finish in the Tour, then events at the 2003 Tour certainly called into question its un-banning. That was the year Jesús Manzano collapsed. In 2004, when he blew the lid on doping at Kelme, Manzano listed Actovegin as being part of a cocktail of drugs that brought about his collapse. Manzano’s allegations paved the way for 2006’s Operación Puerto where again Actovegin figured among the inventory of substances seized by the Guardia Civil when they raided Fuentes’ offices.

Earlier this year Het Nieuwsblad reported that two unnamed members of the Ukrainian national team in the Tour de l'Avenir were charged with "possession of and smuggling of products [including Actovegin] whose sale is banned in France." The father of one of the riders, along with the team’s soigneur were also arrested.

At heart, both cases here revolve around legalised doping - therapeutic use and a substance that is not considered to be a PED. In theory then, neither story should really be being reported. Despite this though, both stories seem to have caught the imagination of sports journalists. And while they have momentarily taken the heat off cycling's problems, maybe these two stories will encourage the UCI to follow up on AFLD claims that too much legalised doping is taking place within cycling.

Lance to Alberto: We left you with the dregs at Astana.

fmk — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:46:11 -0000

It's another quiet day on the Guardian's sports pages and even they can't be bothered milking any more from the will-he-won't-he Wiggins-to-Sky story. So they're back to milking that other hoary old favourite, the LA story.

This time round, the great and powerful one is telling us how Team The Shack isn't built around him. Oh no. That would be way too much ego and arrogance and stuff like that. And those una duce, una voce days, they're gone. They're history. They are soooo in the past. Disappeararing into life's rear-view mirror. Whooosh!

"Those days are gone. The days of this team being built around me are done."

These are days of mellowness and democracy. These are days of a kinder, gentler LA. And of pink fluffy kittens.

No more are the other squad members just lowly domestiques, there to break wind and pass water for the glorious leader. Instead, there's room in Team The Shack for Levi to lead. And Klöden. Cause, like, you know, that's the beauty of Team The Shack. It doesn't have an i in it. Or a me. Or as He put it:

"We have the best team in the world. If you look at the Tour this year, we had the strongest team in the race. Of the nine riders from last year's Tour de France squad from Astana, eight are now on RadioShack."

Which almost passes as an attempt to offer some kudos to Contador. Until you read the follow up bit where He makes it clear that He didn't want Contador (that Torygraph headline nothwithstanding) or any of the other dregs left behind with the Kazakhs:

"Of the nine riders from last year's Tour de France squad from Astana, eight are now on RadioShack. We took the vast majority of the riders from the team that we wanted, so it remains a strong team."

And while He acknowledges that Contador is already the 2010 pre-race favourite, that don't really matter too much. Team The Shack can take him. Easy peasy:

"We lack that super high-level favourite like Alberto, but I like the chances with the strong guys we have."

Break out the Marmite Alberto. You're toast.

All The Lies That You Told Me

fmk — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:43:20 -0000

Recently, someone asked why it is that there’s so many junkies who protest and protest and protest their innocence. The implication of the question was that if a lie lasts forever it’s probably true and we should just believe the lying cheating bastards and assume that the tests really don’t work. But what if the lying cheating bastards really are just lying after all? How many times would they have to fool us before we’d say shame on us and not just shame on them?

"It must be a mistake."

"A magical twin did it and vanished."

"Someone must have spiked my drink."

"It’s a false positive – the tests don’t work."

"I drank too much whiskey the night before."

"I didn’t inject – I only enquired about injections."

"I have naturally high testosterone / cocaine levels."

"It’s not doping cause it’s only banned by the IOC, not the UCI."

"I’ve done nothing wrong. If I had I’d have lied about my address."

"The drugs found in my car / kitchen / garage were for my wife / mother-in-law / dog."

"It's not in my job description to ask the team doctor what was in the injections he gave me."

"Sure it’s a banned substance, but I have a back-dated prescription saying it’s ok for me to take it."

"Of course it’s a lot of money to pay for a training programme I never received. But the guy came highly recommended."

Today’s revelation that Andrei Agassi – the stubble-headed stud-muffin and tennis superstar – junked up on crystal meth and lied about having done so is an apt example of a junkie who got caught and then decided to brazen it out by telling porkies and professing his innocence. Until finally – a mere dozen or so years after the fact – he realised that confession was good for the soul. Or the bank balance, if you're Monty and want to be cynical about it.

In 1997 Agassi was in the midst of a dip in form and having doubts about his looming marriage to Brooke Shields. (Who wouldn't have doubts about marrying Brooke Shields?) So when an assistant suggested getting high on crystal meth, Agassi decided to give it a go. As you do when offered some gack. It'd be impolite to refuse. Funnily, while drugs have opened the doors of perception for many an artist down through the years, their effect on Agassi was to turn him into a mucho macho version of Kim ‘n’ Aggie:

"I’ve never felt so alive, so hopeful — and I’ve never felt such energy. I’m seized by a desperate desire to clean. I go tearing around my house, cleaning it from top to bottom. I dust the furniture. I scour the tub. I make the beds."

Alas and alack and ochone agus ochone oh, but the come down wasn’t so hot for Agassi. Subjected to a dope test, he failed. Advised that his failure could result in a three-month suspension, Agassi did what so many others before and since have done – he lied:

"My name, my career, everything is now on the line. Whatever I’ve achieved, whatever I’ve worked for, might soon mean nothing. Days later I sit in a hard-backed chair, a legal pad in my lap, and write a letter to the ATP. It’s filled with lies interwoven with bits of truth. I say Slim, whom I’ve since fired, is a known drug user, and that he often spikes his sodas with meth — which is true. Then I come to the central lie of the letter. I say that recently I drank accidentally from one of Slim’s spiked sodas, unwittingly ingesting his drugs. I ask for understanding and leniency and hastily sign it: Sincerely."

The ATP — determined to stamp out doping within their sport — examined all the evidence available to them, considered Agassi's heart-felt confession that it was all just a silly little mistake and decided to dismiss the case without even slapping him on the wrist and telling him not to let it happen again. Ah for those innocent days before those jack-booted fascists in WADA came along and decided to pick on the poor and the defenceless.

So remember, the next time you hear a cyclist who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar come up with ever more inventive excuses to explain his positive test, the presumption of innocence has been shat upon by so many before him that you really should just take his protestations of innocence with a pinch of sodium chloride. Which you can conveniently find in the crocodile tears the lying cheating bastard is probably shedding.

Community Bicycle Rental Schemes

fmk — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:27:26 -0000

DublinBikes, Dublin’s communal bike rental scheme, launched last month and is already claiming to be a success, with more than 10,000 of the city’s citizens signing up for annual membership of the scheme.

Modeled on Paris' popular public bike rental scheme Vélib' (short for Vélo liberté), DublinBikes - like Vélib' in Paris and Vélo'v (Vélo love) in Lyon - is run by the outdoor advertising conglomerate JCDecaux, in conjunction with the city council. In return for allowing the marketing maestros to litter the city’s streets with new advertising signage the city gets a community bike rental scheme. Unsurprisingly, not everyone thinks this is a bargain worth bragging about.

Though sometimes billed as a free bike scheme, there are, of course, costs attached to using the bikes. First off, to access the scheme, you need to buy either an annual ticket (€10) or a three-day ticket (€2). The annual ticket you can apply for online or, like the three-day ticket, you can buy it from one of the 14 credit-card enabled kiosks spread around the city. Once you’ve got your ticket and picked up your bike, you get the first half-hour’s use for free. After that the pricing structure is designed to encourage you to get your bike back as soon as possible: an hour’s use will only cost you €0.50 but four hours will set you back €6.50, with another €2 being added to your bill every half-hour after that. And if you haven’t returned the bike within 24 hours then it’s reported stolen and you’ll get billed another €150. So that’s a bill of €238.50 you’ll be faced with if you fancy making off with one of the stylishly-liveried bikes.

Parisians could choose from more than 10,000 bikes located at 750 stations around the city when their scheme launched in 2007 and have seen the scheme double in size since then. London’s eccentric cycling Lord Mayor, BoJo, has promised that his version of the scheme – due to go live next year – will see Londoners having access to more than 6,000 bicycles located at 400 stations. DublinBikes though currently stretches to just 450 bikes and 40 stations – and all of those stations are within the boundary of the city’s two canals, north to south a distance of about three and a half kilometers. With barely 300m between stations in Paris and the scheme covering the whole city it's easy to see how it became so popular over there. Given the smaller scale and density of the scheme in Dublin it'll be interesting to see how the city's citizens take to it in the longterm.

Race Fixing – Two Wheels Good, Four Wheels Bad

fmk — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:08:16 -0000

One of the weird things about being a cycling geek is how you have to get used to your sport being used as a whipping boy by other sports. I know we sometimes bring it on ourselves, by actually discussing the needle and the damage done but even so, it does rather grate a bit when you’re hearing the criticism being used simply as a distraction from another sport’s problem.

Which, I guess, is why I wasn’t really all that surprised during the recent F1 race fixing brouhaha to see that cyclists were once again being co-opted to distract from motor racing’s problems. The bit that caught my attention was where Max Mosley tried to explain how the Renault case was worser than cheating – and to oil the wheels of his argument, Mosley turned to cycling.

“Fixing is one degree worse than cheating,” explained Mosley. “If you’re a cyclist and you take dope, that’s cheating,” he told us. “If you bribe the other cyclists,” he continued, “or you get somebody to have a crash in the peloton so the yellow jersey guy crashes, that's more serious.”

It was one of those lame-brained arguments that just made me go ‘WTF?!?’ Was Mosley really trying to suggest that, say, Steve Bauer’s contratemps with Claude Criquielion at the World’s in 1988 (it being World’s Week I’m trying to be topical with my reference but can’t think of something more recent – I’m sure someone will remind me of a less aged incident in the comments thingies below) is worser than oh, I don’t know, Davide Rebellin being busted for CERA?

Or, using a name Mosley might actually recognise, that Stefan Schumacher taking out George Hincapie in the 2006 Eneco Tour in order to secure his overall victory was somehow worser that Stefan Schumacher being busted for being a junkie? I. Don't. Think. So. Max.

Having thrown the book I was reading at the radio (Colum McCann’s Let The Great World Spin, as you asked) I decided to build a bridge and get over this silly little story. Until something happened that made me recall Mosley’s comments and approach them from a slightly different angle.

That something was Philip Deignan finally breaking the Irish hoodoo at Grand Tours and bagging a stage win in the Vuelta, our first since Roche Snr bagged a Giro stage in ’93. Interviewed on radio after the stage (Irish radio, having previously said that cycling was a drug-addled corrupt non-sport in explanation for their non-coverage of it, suddenly rediscovered a passion for Irish victories and cleared the schedule in order to bring news of our new hero to us), Deignan for some reason decided to tell the reporter how he turned down an offer of dosh from Roman Kreuziger in the closing klicks of the stage and decided he wanted to win the thing himself.

“He [Kreuziger] turned to me with three kilometres to go and said ‘How much?’. I just shook my head and said no there was no way I was going to consider giving away a stage no matter how much he was willing to pay me and there was no more talking about it. That was it.”

It’s not that I was heretofore ignorant of the way money changes hands in the pro peloton. Laurent Fignon's claim during the summer that he sold the '87 Vuelta to Luís Herrera hardly raised an eye-brow. Or there's the story, resurrected in Wilcockson's recent hagiography of the world's most controversial cyclist, about the '93 Thrift Drug Triple Crown. Go back to the '60s and you have the likes of Anquetil, Elliot and Simpson all discussing how money changed hands. It's one of those facts of cycling that we just get used to, isn't it? For us, no matter what Max Mosley thinks, fixing isn't even nearly as bad as the fix so many cyclists seem to need.

(Of course, maybe when spread-betting finally gets its claws into cycling, our attitude will have to change.)

LiveStrong Global Cancer Summit

fmk — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:11:25 -0000

Some of you may remember some of the promises made by The Most Controversial Cyclist In the Whole History Of The Ever Ever when He returned to the pro peloton last year. One of them, you may recall, was to host a Global Cancer Summit in Paris immediately after the Tour de France ended. Indeed, this Global Cancer Summit seemed at the time to the be the favoured reason-of-the-day as to why He was throwing his leg over a pushbike once more and gracing us again with His luminous presence. But, as with the Most Rigorous And Transparent Testing Progranmme Ever, things didn't quite work out as planned. And His Global Cancer Summit yesterday kicked off in the main hall of the RDS in Dublin, which the previous week played host to some wedding fair or other.

Here's where you can help me - how global is a Global Cancer Summit? While the Irish media are paying attention to events in the RDS - the Irish minister for health, Mata Harney, has promised to ban all use of sunbeds as a cure for cancer - just how much coverage is this summit generating in your neck of the woods? Primetime? Or relegated to page 92, beneath the fold? Answers in the comment box thingey below. And TIA for em, whatever they are.

Anything UK can do Oz can do better, anything UK can do Oz can do too ...

fmk — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:43:35 -0000

As everybody knows by know, the Team GB Reach For The Sky+ Box road team will be winning the Tour de France within a few years. Dave Brailsford has promised it so it must be true. But it seems that the Brits could face competition from an unexpected quarter ... or rather hemisphere. The Aussies want their own Tour team too. And Cadel Evans could be leading them, especially with it already looking likely that Silence-Lotto will fail to support his Grand Tour ambitions. Again.

The story comes courtesy of the Herald Sun newspaper. It reports that a Melbourne-based consortium - Australian Road Cycling - has been working for more than a year on the Tour de France project and wants to put a team on the road in 2010. And ARC consultant Paul McNamee says he wants Evans to lead it:

"Cadel has been very supportive. If the opportunity arises, he would be our No. 1 target. We would love to think he could ride in our team eventually."

Evans is reported to be very interested in the project:

"Getting an Australian team up is what I am keeping busy doing. I had a meeting this week and that is something we are really working towards. It has become a real interest for me. We are well placed on the talent side of riders, team staff and even equipment manufacturers. We have all the experts in that regard. And now the interest is coming from the corporate side. You obviously need a lot of money to run a team. It's certainly a possibility. When, I am not exactly sure, but I am working on it as well. I hope it is while I am still competing but time is running out a bit for me. To build a really good team takes a couple of years, but I hope so. My ultimate dream would be to finish my last couple of years riding on an Australian team."

A 'significant announcement' is expected at next month's Tour Down Under. Says McNamee:

"I think there is momentum, but we'll be in a better position to say more at the Tour Down Under, which will be a massive fillip for the sport with cycling front and centre for a week."

Columbia & Garmin Choose Catlin For Independent Testing Programme

fmk — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:29:16 -0000

According to CN, Don Catlin has secured the contract to carry out Columbia and Garmin's independent testing programmes. Testing has already commenced. Catlin had been Columbia's original choice for their testing programme but ACE ended up getting the gig.

According to Bob Stapleton, the new programme will be a step forward from the ACE programme and will take account of the ACE database of testing as well as the UCI's biological programme:

"We will be working with Garmin to bring the programme together. The direction is quite different to ACE as the UCI now have the biological passport in place, and we've already done a lot of baseline testing. We have a complete database on our athletes. That's a pretty powerful tool with a year or more of history."

Jonathan Vaughters added that Catlin's testing would differ from the UCI's testing in several ways:

"Don Catlin isn't restrained by so much protocol when it comes to testing, he can look at results and test for drugs that aren't even on the market and can then come to us and say 'the results for this guy are very strange' and from there we can act."

As well as having access to the UCI's bilogical passport data, Catlin's programme will also have access to WADA's comprehensive ADAMS whereabouts system. This brings to mind a recent comment from Lance Armstrong when faced with questions about the apparent foot-dragging in implementing his own much vaunted independent testing programme. Interviewed by Rupert Guinness, Armstrong offered this explanation:

"That is complicated to organise. You have the idea of Don Catlin. You have the reality of Damsgaard at Astana. You have the reality of WADA, USADA and the UCI. Then you have the reality that none of these people communicate. I think the idea that you have a comprehensive independent testing program is a great idea. [But] it is another step to post those results online. Keep in mind WADA does not support Catlin and Damsgaard. For them, an independent testing program is their worst nightmare."

Keeping in mind Armstrong's contention that WADA does not support Catlin or Damsgaard, that such programmes are supposedly their worst nightmare, one has to ask the obvious question: how come Columbia and Garmin have secured access to the UCI's passport data and WADA's ADAMS whereabouts system? Could someone be telling porkies here?

Cooke, Cavendish and British Cycling

fmk — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:56:40 -0000

It's cycling Sunday in the UK today, with the Absurder giving-over seven and a half thousand words, give or take, to Nicole Cooke, Mark Cavendish and British Cycling's management team. Three different journalists – Anna Kessel, Tim Lewis and William Fotheringham – looking at three different aspects of the sport in the UK. Not bad for a wet and miserable Sunday in November.

The Fotheringham piece is the easiest to get out of the way. Nine hundred words and nothing very interesting said. But when secret squirrels, odd shaped nuts and the amazing properties of cherry oil get more credit for the Beijing bauble haul than the actual cyclists did, it's the sort of piece you can expect. It's mostly about the fantabulous management structure of British Cycling and the brilliance of British Cycling's very own Peters Principle.

There's no real news in the piece. British Cycling's road squad – ANC Halfords-Linda McCartney Mk III – is targeting the Tour in 2010. Or 2011. Germany's Heiko Salzwedel – recently of Team Denmark – will be returning to British Cycling in January and ... well, actually, that's pretty much it. No mention of Roger Legeay. No mention of Scott Sunderland. No mention of riders to watch. A light and slight puff piece for the men behind the medals.

How about a woman with a medal then - what's Nicole Cooke got to say for herself? Well you can usually count on Cooke to say something about drugs in sport. Here's what she tells Kessel:

"There's awful problems in men's cycling now. I really can't understand the mentality they have. It's almost like they know they're going to get caught now because the testing is so good and yet they still do it. It's an historical problem. I think women compete because they love the sport, not for the financial gains or status there is in men's cycling."

Me, try as I might, I just can't get myself inside the heads of people like Tammy Thomas, Marta Bastianelli or Maria Isabel Moreno, all of whom have helped drag this sport through the mud this year.

On other controversial issues, Cooke's been there, done that and worn the t-shirt. While Dave Brailsford is a relatively new recruit to the fight for equality between men and women at the Olympics – men: eleven events; women: seven, with all the disparity happening on the track, where the men get to race seven events and the women only have three – Cooke's already fought the good fight, having served on the Women's Commission at the UCI. But as she tells Kessel, that episode proved to be a bit of a waste of time and energy. The other women on the commission simply didn't feel the disparity was a problem.

But how about the disparity between track and road within British Cycling? There Cooke clams up a bit: "I don't want to make enemies." Pressed on the issue by Kessel Cooke does acknowledge a gap exists between the two disciplines: "It is true but then Dave Brailsford would admit that. Because they thought that medals were easier, or more likely to get on the track, and so they invested on the track." Which prompts Kessel to ask Cooke if that means track cycling is less competitive than road cycling: "You might have to be careful how you write that. Do some research, find out how many riders were on the start list for the women's sprint and then find out how many riders were on the start list for the Olympic road race." According to Kessel's research, that means there's more competition on the road, by sixty-six to twelve.

That's about as far as Cooke is willing to take that issue though. Mark Cavendish on the other hand, isn't pulling his punches and British Cycling comes out of his interview looking a little bruised and battered.

"At first after the Olympics, I was pissed at Brad," he tells Lewis. "But if he's made to train for 4k, for sure he's not going to be good at 50k. And they [British Cycling] were all about the team pursuit and he just had to train at 4k. In training, they would just ignore me while they timed the team pursuiters going round. They trained so much for that that they forgot the Madison - well, they didn't forget the Madison, they didn't give a shit. That's not fair when I've given that much commitment to it. I left the Tour de France - the biggest bike race in the world - when I was fighting for the green jersey and I could have potentially won on the Champs Elysées, and it makes me bitter that they didn't give back what I'd given to them."

Not that British Cycling are just going to stand there and be a punching-bag for the Manxman. Chris Boardman seems only too happy to jab back at one of the stars of British cycling, dissing Cav's post-race interview style – "he can be a bit of a dick sometimes" – and trying to blame the Manxman for his own Madison miseries: "Mark's goal for the year had to be the Tour de France and that meant that we had to take whatever was left. Afterwards, he had to take a break for a week when the other guys were on a training camp. Then he wanted to capitalise on it and ride some Criteriums around the world and then he just wanted to do some training on his own in Manchester. And all this time the other guys were on an Olympic camp, doing specific preparation for the Games. So I don't think that helped massively."

Across the three pieces, you get an interesting picture of British Cycling, I think. Cav can afford to criticise them, Bob Stapleton pays his salary, not Dave Brailsford. And come the worlds, come the Olympics, come the launch of Team GB Reach For The Sky+ Box (or whatever it'll be called), British Cycling will come calling on Cav's services regardless of his criticisms. British Cycling need Cav more than he needs them. Cooke, it's the wins she'll get in a Team GB jersey that matter more than the ones in her new Vision1 colours. Cooke needs British Cycling at least as much as they need her. And British Cycling? They'll just go on and on an on and on, slapping one another on the backs and taking as large a share of the credit for their cyclists' successes as they can.

Oodles of strudels for Ullrich as Coast coughs up €340k

fmk — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:36:28 -0000

Seven-time Tour de France loser Jan Ullrich has today won a court battle to secure €340,000 in salary owed to him since his 2003 sojourn with the ill-fated Team Coast.

Team Coast manager Günther Dahms had hoped he could avoid paying Ullrich by claiming that he had used drugs while employed by the team. The only flaw to Dahms' plan was that he didn't actually have any evidence of Ullrich's alleged drug use during this period. Ullrich flatly denied Dahms' claims, saying:

"I did not use any forbidden doping materials or methods banned under regulations during that period [January - March 2003]."

(AP)