SB Nation User Blog: guidemd

"Chris Horner heals and hopes for call to Tour de France" - article from OregonLive

guidemd — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:03:04 -0000

"Chris Horner heals and hopes for call to Tour de France" - article from OregonLive

cool tidbits about Horner's life in Bend including stuff about his kids... oh, and cycling of course!

Cdn Cyclist Interview with Svein Tuft

guidemd — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:17:10 -0000

Cdn Cyclist Interview with Svein Tuft

good to hear that Tuft is finally getting back to normal, I'd thought his crash at De Panne didn't sound so horrible and wondered why he didn't seem to have raced since (and was pulled from Garmin's Giro team) but it sounds like he'd been having post-concussion effects from his ToC crash even until just recently.

Misc. Giro Roster news - McEwen out, Astana's last race?

guidemd — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:24:30 -0000

Robbie just tweeted an hour or so ago that he will not be riding the Giro - more at his website.

And, there's apparently an article at a Kazahk site (google translation here) which claims that Astana's financial difficulties continue and that if they finish the Giro it might be the team's last race. (found via DPF). That adds some intrigue to the whole question of "who will Astana's leader be at the Tour?" - guess the question shifts to "will Contador and Armstrong be able to ride the Tour at all?".

SBS "Bike Shorts" with Matt Keenan - analysis of recent crashes

guidemd — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 04:47:23 -0000

SBS "Bike Shorts" with Matt Keenan - analysis of recent crashes

Keenan (sometime CTV commentator) comments on a number of recent crashes with some good analysis - including Armstrong, O'Grady, Schleck/Lloyd, McEwen, and the Bos/Impey incident (someone quoted Keenan in one of the Bos threads, not sure if they'd seen this video or whether it was transcribed somewhere) - also some pics (somewhat graphic) of Keenan directly after his own crash 3 weeks ago, glad to see he's recovering.

English Interview with Cadel Evans at sporza

guidemd — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:49:33 -0000

English Interview with Cadel Evans at sporza

click on "reactie Evans (Engels)" under audio for the interview, the accompanying article has just a brief summary but not really all of it.

Mike Barry's pre-Roubaix report ... good omen for George?

guidemd — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:50:24 -0000

Mike Barry's pre-Roubaix report ... good omen for George?

In reading this article by Barry over at Pedal, I thought it was interesting that the last time Barry rode Paris-Roubaix was the year of Hincapie's best finish (2nd in 2005) ... coincidence? ;-)

L'equipe article about one of Armstrong's doping tests...

guidemd — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:19:32 -0000

I really hate to be the one to mention this, because it could all just be the supposed witch-hunt /out-to-get-Lance, but there's an article showing up at L'equipe for which I'd appreciate some better translation ... with the limited time I have on my lunch break i'm resorting to Google, it seems as though the controller for March 17 test reported Lance to the UCI and WADA because of his attitude during a doping control? and then L'Equipe goes on to speculate (without any information about what actually happened) that this could be an infringement of the World Anti-doping code? I thought April Fool's was last week ...

Gav here, with the translation:
Will the 24th antidoping control given by Lance Armstrong since his return to competition was on the 17th of March mark a turning point in the season of the American? According to the AFLD, the Astana rider had inappropriate behavior during the surprise control to the point that the supervising doctor prepared a report which was transmitted to the UCI and WADA on the 30th of March. The AFLD has nevetheless refused to detail the behavior under discussion.

During the anti-doping control at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, the representative of the AFLD collected samples of urine, blood, and hair. "The UCI is not competent to judge this case. When there is an out-of-competition control carried out by a national agency, the agency is competent," declared the press chief of the UCI, Enrico Carpani. The AFLD awaits a response from the UCI, before examining whehter the attitude of the rider consitutes an infraction in the anti-doping code.

So, basically, in the view of the doctor who supervised the out of competition test, Armstrong acted inappropriately, though the AFLD has so far declined to detail what exactly happened. The AFLD has forwarded a report to WADA and the UCI both to inform them of what occured and also, as I understand it, to receive clarification. Did Armstrong's behavior - whatever it was - constitute a rules violation? This remains an open question, according to the report here.

Update. According to this report, Armstrong closed the door on the testers, and made them wait 30 minutes before providing the samples. According to WADA rules, the athlete must remain in sight of the representatives for the duration of the test. So, this 30 minute delay, if it indeed occured, is likely the "inappropriate behavior" in question.

Info on William Walker? anyone?

guidemd — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:44:55 -0000

He had a bad year last year with injury/illness, and it sounds like this year isn't any better - the article from CN yesterday mentioning Fuji-Servetto signing Bailetti because of injuries/illness/retirement of Nardello listed that Walker is recovering from some sort of heart problems, supposedly diagnosed during the "recent" Tour Down Under. Now, to me, TDU isn't exactly "recent" anymore (over 2 months ago) - yet I hadn't heard anything about Walker having problems (in fact, Pez recently had an interview with Hilton Clarke which mentioned Walker without any hint of problems this year; SBS had an article about Australia being the top country on the ProTour and listing Walker, again not mentioning him having any health issues).

I went news googling, a Spanish Eurosport article from yesterday has "William Walker, who has switched sports to settle the heart problems that began in Tour Down Under the past and it has prevented full competition since then, so the Australian rider is removed from the roads for an indefinite time". A French Reuters article from today has that he "is obliged to put his career in parentheses. At 23, he suffers from heart defects and must undergo a series of reviews over several weeks." There are a couple of other articles that pick up the same basic info - Fuji signing Bailetti and Walker listed as among those Fuji riders currently out of commission.

Has anyone heard anything more about this? Hopefully it's something he can recover from and continue on with his cycling career ... (but it also makes me think of Hayden Roulston, for whom if his initial diagnosis was truly correct, reflexology or whatever he did probably didn't treat the root cause from a medical perspective, and I keep wondering if he's going to collapse while he's racing ...)

Tour of California experience - better late than never

guidemd — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 04:13:57 -0000

So, I finally got around to posting some photos and comments about our (brief) Tour of California experience last month, on my not-very-active blog ... you'll find it here. As you can see above, publicity certainly centered entirely around Lance Armstrong. We didn't experience the clouds of yellow chalk dust others have commented on, but we did use ours for non-Livestrong purposes (ie. promotion of PdC ;-) ). For actual rider pics you'll have to check out the blog link.

this is just a neat pic, the Lotto-sponsored Junior team (Lotto - Predictor - VC Ardennes) takes...

guidemd — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 18:05:54 -0000

this is just a neat pic, the Lotto-sponsored Junior team (Lotto - Predictor - VC Ardennes) takes places 1 through 5 in a recent race.