Now is the time

for all good people to come to the aid of their sport.......

Someone at the IOC has suggested that cycling get the heave ho out of the Olympics, and you know what, I see his point. I mean cycling obviously has a doping problem, any fool can see that. But what of other sports? Do other sports monitor blood levels as strictly as we do and then use that data to target possible cheats? er no, they don't. Once again the fact that there is a comprehensive programme that catches cheats is used as a stick to do the beating with. How about the IOC insist on standardised testing procedures across all sports, across all nations and then see who's taking the piss and who's clean? Oh no, can't do that, some nations don't have the resources to monitor and test their athletes as fully as those in the developed world do they, so it could be seen as unfair, couldn't it? Well guess what, the IOC has a few quid (Dollars, Euros, Francs, whatever) in the bank, how about they use some of the megga money they are given every two years to finance comprehensive monitoring programmes across all sports, across all nations?
How many athletes were tested at the Olympics? You mean to tell me that they were all clean? Ha, ha, ha

Loss of Olympic status would effectively kill the sport at the top end in this and indeed many other countries, Aus, NZ, etc, countries with no big professional scene to support riders, countries where the Olympics are seen as the major event and are funded accordingly.

Uncle Pat - Attack dog of the UCI

In a weird twist of history Uncle Pat has gone on the attack, perhaps the first time a UCI pres has done this, he is reported to have said....

"It is completely unacceptable for Thomas Bach to be saying this. I don't like talking about other sports, but there are other sports with persistent problems. Instead of firing guns at cycling he should fire guns equally at them as well."

Well, good on ya Uncle Pat, at last someone with the balls to say something that might ruffle a few feathers. He's probably had to go and have a lie down after that, but still I'm impressed.
I still think the UCI should press for life bans and top that up with sanctions for national associations of countries where doping still takes place, it should be the UCI, WADA that decide how long bans are and who they are applied to, the current situation with some national associations having different perspectives from others is a face. Removing national teams from a years worth of World Championships might wake a few people up.

CN has an interesting quote from Sebastian Lang, I'll drop the quote in full (apologies to CN) cos I think it's important

"When it was announced that there was a new test for CERA, we were all happy. We sat on the bus and really celebrated, The whole team... except Stefan. He was suddenly very quiet and withdrawn. So we, other riders got together and discussed it. Finally we and the team management openly asked him whether there was something we should worry about." The response? "He just openly lied in our faces and said that everything was OK. Cheats must be caught and punished. All of them. Even when it is another heavy blow for cycling."

He joins a long list of those that will speak out, often with considerable anger against dopers. Time to move on? My arse it is.

I've just looked back at the last few entries, huuummmhh, hopefully in the next few days I'll actually have some bike racing to write about.

Once a crit always a crit

And so, stage one of Le Tour de Britain. How was it for you? From the comfort of my front room it was, well er... a crit. Now we all know that crits can be very exciting, full of attacking riding, intermediate sprints, desperate breaks doomed to fail and desperate breaks doomed to success. So dispite all of this ITV 4 managed to make the whole procedure deathly dull, did you see any intermediate sprints? any KoM points being fought over? Did you see any breaks being caught or the effort to being them back? er, neither did I. There must have been at least an attempt at the three KoM sprints cos House won the jersey for the men in black (that's the men in black as opposed to the men in black), but you'd never have known from watching the thing on TV. I just hope this isn't a foretaste of the next week.
On the bright side no mentions that the stage winner had just come back from a drugs ban, we'll have to wait until the papers tomorrow for that I expect.
But hey, why watch the bike race when you can watch some fans being interviewed, the poor guys had the microphone stuck under their noses just as the race was coming through and you could tell they were all thinking 'piss off the race is about to arrive'

Lets hope for better coverage tomorrow eh?

A great result for the Brits Rob Hayles in 2nd, Russ Downing in 4th and Roger Hammond in 6th, infact even better when you count Maggs in 3rd.
Did my eyes decieve me? I thought the Hamilton twins had won the US pro champs, and therefor had to wear the US national chcmps jersey, I thought that was a UCI rule (not that UCI rules ever impnged into the lives of cyclings favourite twins), so what do they seem to be wearing? yep a Union flag monstrosity, with a different sponsor to the rest of the squad, who all seem to have had a little help from Harrods (happy memories eh?)

Meanwhile, back in Bejing it's Gold, Gold, Gold as GB cyclists continue to rack up the shiney stuff - brilliant performances, two world records - more to come as well.

I keep hearing cycling is now everones favourite sport, oh God, now after years of neglect and poor media coverage we now have to put up with every politician in the country jumping on the bandwagon. Sir Chris seemed a tad unhappy about this, as did Brad Wiggo when he spoke to the 2012 party goers. But they are both right, 'we' have been doing this for years and no one was interested, suddenly..... Would there be calls for Scotland to have a separate O's team in Sir Chris had been injured (God forbid) the week before the O's and not won his 3 Golds? Are thses calls and statements made with any idea as to what goes on to deliver a successful cycling team in peak condition at the height of their form to a series of races? Of course not, there's a band waggon out there so lets all jump on and ride it until the next big thing comes along.

On the plus side of all these flowers being thrown before us as we ride the roads of the UK, we had some new kids turn up at coaching on Saturday, they'd seen cycling on the box and wanted to have a go, so we had 'em doing the rounds of Go-Ride activities and they seemed to enjoy it and only one crash, but luckily no blood. Hopefully they'll stick with it.