. . but I guess I can't help it. Cycling is no different than other sports in that the cheaters are way ahead of the people who are supposed to monitor them. Well, maybe cycling is different. It is the DIRTIEST sport, outside of maybe the WWF. There is to much circumstantial evidence against our hero to be so naive as to think he is above what is virtually taken for granted that every one of his peers does. (See Tyler Hamilton, aka the Boy Scout) And let's not even get into his both professional and personal friendship w/ Dr Evil (Michele Ferrarra, sp?), whose sole purposein the sport was to create a medical practice devoted to enhancing cyclsts performance through creative pharmacology. And what did Dr Evil and Lance do when Lance visited him in Italy? Make spaghetti a la carbonara? Hey, I love Lance, I'm a cyclist, I wear the bracelet, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I ain't no idiot, neither. I'm sure he doped. He had to, they all do. And you have to be an idiot to get caught. I think to think otherwise is to have your head in the sand . . .

he is just stating the obvious. the culture of doping and the lack of any sense of wrong doing runs deeper in cycling than in any other sport. of course as the president of an international governing body of sport he cant just speak his mind. or can he? can he only talk about condemned frauds - or can he use the media, as lance does to perfection when he needs to?

mind you - the tests of lances urin were undeniably positive. he's not even contesting that! the only reason why he cannot be condemned by a sporting court or a civil court is because the probes were taken for scientific purposes and were not a sanctioned doping test. those are matters of judicial process.

in a sport were the greatest athlete ever in the sport is unders serious suspicion, the olympic champion (hamilton) has been found guilty, the greates one day racer of the past fifteen years git caught(museeuw), the three time vuelta champion git caught (heras - incidentally lances helper for many years), the greates rider of al times, merckx, was tesetd positive before he even won the Tour for the first time, where just now the director of one of the best and biggest teams in the sport, liberty, was caught dealing drugs - in the light of all that, how can you blame pound for speaking his mind? in fact i think he should and needs to if he believes in anything he does, if he believes that sports in which everybody cheats and willfuly ruins their health is no longer a sport watching or supporting ...

"http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/20/sports/bike.php

Cycling: Roux admits drug use and dealing
Samuel Abt International Herald Tribune

Published: June 20, 2006


PARIS In depressing and pathetic detail, Laurent Roux has confessed at a doping trial in Bordeaux - he ""emptied his bag,"" as the newspaper Sud Ouest said on Page One - about how he used and sold drugs and how they enslaved him.

The 33-year-old Roux, a professional from 1994 through 2002 mainly with French and Dutch teams, was testifying in the dismantling of a ring of 23 former riders, masseurs and hangers-on who are accused of supplying what is called ""pot Belge,"" a mixture of amphetamines, caffeine and sometimes cocaine and heroin.

Known widely in the sport, especially among amateur riders, as a powerful stimulant, the pot Belge in this case, according to court documents, involved almost 2,200 doses that were sold for €188,100, now worth $240,000.

""It allows you to forget fatigue, to be very active and to stay awake for 24 hours,"" Roux's brother, Fabien, told the court Monday.

Fabien Roux, a former top amateur near the family home in Cahors in southwestern France, and Laurent Roux are accused of having been major figures in the distribution of the drug. They are also accused of keeping for their own use about half the doses they received.

Laurent Roux denied nothing, both Sud Ouest and the sports newspaper l'Équipe reported. ""I used EPO, human growth hormone, cortisone and testosterone,"" all illegal in the sport, while a professional, he testified.

When did he learn about doping? ""When I became a professional in 1994,"" he said. ""At the start, with the Castorama team, I didn't use drugs. But I was sidelined, so then I did what everybody did.""

His major victories included a daily stage in the Giro d'Italia in 1998, three stages in the Tour de l'Avenir in 1996 and 1997, a stage in Paris-Nice in 1999 and the Classique des Alpes in 1997.

Pressed by a lawyer for the French Cycling Federation, a civil party to the case, whether he had used drugs during those triumphs, Roux said, ""Yes.""

In 1999, he was found guilty of using amphetamines and was suspended for six months. In 2002, he again failed a drug test and was suspended for four years.

""I hit the depths then,"" he told the court. ""I couldn't understand why they were excluding me from this job that was my life. I started taking antidepressants and amphetamines to forget my distress.""

But, he continued, ""nothing happened."" So he moved to pot Belge, selling it and using it, half and half. With pot Belge, ""it was a true drug.""

Photographs of Roux in Sud Ouest showed that he had not changed much since he left the sport: his dark hair is still frosted and a small ring seems to remain in his left earlobe.

His smile is gone, though, at least in the photographs. That smile, that infectious smile.

In 1996, the Tour de France passed near his hometown, and his fan club, the 262 members of the Association of the Supporters of Laurent Roux, decided to throw a party in his honor during the stage.

The day before the shindig, all the desks in the pressroom were covered with invitations for reporters to attend. ""Thanks in advance for coming by,"" the club wrote on the invitations. ""Friendship and thanks for your encouragement,"" Roux himself wrote.

Who could say no? It was a swell time, offering free foie gras and the wine of Cahors as a seven-person band, including three on accordion, played in what obviously was a cow pasture the rest of the year.

Their tunes included ""Go Laurent, He Can Win,"" and the signs in the pasture said ""Vive Laurent Roux."" A picture postcard that the club sold to meet expenses noted that, barely 23 years old, he had already been selected twice to represent France in the world championships.

The main person who missed the party was, of course"

It seems to me the big loser in this latest controversy about Lance and the 1999 TdF is the integrity of UCI and WADA. I agree with everyone else that the evidence of widespread doping in the professional peleton is overwhelming. But we have no way of knowing if Lance specifically was doping in the 1999 TdF. The release of the lab's findings violates the rules for the handling of such information, which by itself destroys any confidence in the integrity of the testing process. Even worse, the investigation by the Belgian lawyer hired by UCI alleges that the testing process was badly tainted: chain-of-custody procedures were not observed; some samples were spiked as part of the experiment (presumably to ensure that some samples would be tainted to see if the testing procedure would pick up the residues); and accusations from the lab that WADA directed the process and pressured them to break protocols. And we have no way of evaluating whether that UCI investigation was well done. The investigation recieved little or know cooperation from WADA or the directors of the lab.

UCI and WADA have simply hurled accusations at each other instead of cooperating in cleaning up the mess and making sure it doesn't happen again. The only way to reassure people of the integrity of a system or process is transparency, but UCI and WADA are doing everything possible to muddy the waters.

In the face of that kind of behavior it is difficult to believe that Dick Pound has any standing to use his position to speak out against doping, or that the UCI is any better.

Now we have Lance demanding that the IOC step in and clean up the mess. It is understandable that he would look for an outside party to intervene and knock heads together, but the IOC is hardly an organization that inspires this kind of confidence. (Velonews is doing a pretty good job of reporting on this story for those looking for information.)

It all comes down to integrity. As we are seeing, the organizations charged with maintaining integrity largely act without it themselves. I would argue that the best, and probably the only, force that can restore integrity is the professional peleton itself. Yes, the pressures to dope are enormous and it is widespread, but there are many riders, (and athletes in other sports), who are thoroughly fed up with it. They are the ones with the standing and position to organize and speak out effectively. If we want to help, then we need to encourage and support them in that effort, and let them know that we value their integrity more highly than we value a podium position. And we have to mean it.

you're absolutely right. pound spoke up because he distrusted the UCI - as he diestrusts all sprots federation of cleaining up their own sport. understandably, because the officials have a vested interest in not uncovering anything. but WADA doesnt seem to be able to do better either. Maybe the only thing that really helps is - like in France or Italy - for the state to come in. The prospect to go to jail really scares the athletes. Or to be put through a congressional hearing, like our baseball players ..

"I just read a really good article in the current issue of Sports Illustrated about the inventor of human growth hormone (THG). Lots of political, social and economic underpinnings can be inferred from the article.

Forutnatley, the article is also available online here:

http://premium.si.cnn.com/pr/subs2/siexclusive/2006/pr/subs/siexclusive/10/02/chemist1009/index.html

with an extra, web only column available here:

"" target=""_new"">http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/baseball/mlb/10/03/balco/index.html

""There is a future beyond steroids and its gene doping,"" he said. ""It's the next step. The only way it can be detected now is through a muscle biopsy, though they may be looking for blood markers. They are making great advances and how they keep that out of the hands of people with healthy muscles who use it for performance-enhancing reasons I don't know.

""As drug and performance-enhancing science becomes more and more complicated, it is going to get to a point where you can't police it anymore. People might just have to stop taking sports so seriously.""

Hmmm, that sounds awfully familiar to comments made in the past on this msg brd. ;-)"