Old time dopers - that's what we want more of.

Frankie with another whopper.


That nice Mr Andy Schleck fears that suggestions that he may well have a damaged reputation following his brothers 'charitable donation' may not have been all it seems. Maybe he should have a quiet word in Frankies ear, 'next time you feel the desire to give away some cash, how about your poor old brother'.

Ah doping, it's a wonderful thing, whilst Frankie waits for the result and his bosses Mr 60% and Mr 'only failed twice' Andersen continue to believe in his innocence, Jan 'Burgermeister' Ullrich is still waiting on the result to come in from his 2 year ban. You'll remember the 2 year ban, it was the one burger boy got for passing Dr Eufemiano Fuentes in the street, investigators have issued a statement saying that they hope to finalise results of the investigation by 2020.

The little blue tablet

Now I don't pay much attention to doping cases, it's not good for the bloody pressure is it? I find if I read too many stories about dope busts I spend the next few hours riding round the lanes muttering to myself 'bastards, bastards, bastards....'
Still good to hear that Andrea Moletta has been cleared, although the poor fella no longer has a team to ride for following the departure from the peloton of the German waterboys.
According to CN (other cycling news web sites are available....) he was suspended when his father was questioned about Viagra tablets and other substances. Now call me old fashioned,
but I don't quite get how Viagra is gonna improve you cycling performance, I mean spending 6 hours in the saddle is tough enough without having an erection that lasts for that long. Surely a six hour erection would be detrimental to your riding performance, sorry a 6 hour erection would be detrimental to your cycling performance, you're gonna need all the blood you can to carry oxygen round your body, if it's all pumping percy there's gonna be less for the leg.

Old time dopers, they were the best.

Nowadays it's all this EPO, CERA, the carbon and titanium of the doping world. But go back a few years and we had proper dopers, riders stacking up on amphetamines before a 400 km stage. And the king of them all was Mr Djamolidine Abdoujaparov. Since he threw in the Lycra, Adbou spotting has been a popular pastime amongst cycling jurnos. Getting an interview would be something of a coup. So Cycle Sports joy must have been unbounded when their man on the spot bumped into Abdou out in Italy. What followed was more of a passing brief conversation rather than an in depth interview, still, the road season is winding down and we all know the monthly's abhorrence of track and cross, so getting a few words from Abdou would certainly fill a few pages, I mean what else is there?

What came across is that, well, what we thought about Abdou when he was racing was true, that is HE'S BARKING MAD. Not just a little crazy, maybe slightly eccentric, oh no, totally and utterly off the scale. - Brilliant.

Now Abdou of course holds a world record that I suspect we will never seen beaten, he managed to fail 6 dope tests, bloody hell at this rate I'm surprised that he isn't working for CSC/Saxo bank.

6 test failures is an impressive performance, just think back to the time when Adbou was riding, dope testing was about as reliable as Adbou sprinting in a straight line. So if you reckon that he was going to tested dozens of times by tests that were totally useless failing 6 is an impressive performance.
In order to fail that many the laws of probability mean that he must have spent most of his life out of his box. And you know what, the interview proved that was the case, he must have loved life out of his box so much he decide to stay out of it for good.
I think Cycle Sport should start a regular feature 'Interviews with barking mad dopers.', mind you, that would pretty much fill up every issue from now until 2012.