Around the Web on Wheels: 26 January 2007

By Jessica | Permalink | No Comments | January 26th, 2007 | Trackback

More cycling news for you… And it’s not all about doping.

• Two ProTour teams will be watching the 2007 Giro d’Italia like the rest of us - on TV.
• Oscar Pereiro said his failed drug tests during last year’s Tour are all a “massive misunderstanding.” The UCI agrees with him, and apparently (finally) so does the French anti-doping agency (AFLD) that brought the whole thing into the open in the first place. If only all the doping cases were that simple.
• The 2008 Tour de France won’t begin with the usual prologue, but rather will start with a full stage. This is the first time the first day wasn’t a prologue or individual time trial since 1966.
• Johan Museeuw comes out of retirement long enough to admit doping toward the end of his career. The Belgian cycling federation has done the only thing it can - issued a two-year ban from the sport, which is laughable punishment for a rider who’s already retired. You can watch the words come out of his mouth in this video.
• It’s not a good week for Belgian cycling - Franck Vandenbroucke has been accused of using testosterone in 1999-2000.
• Tyler Hamilton is ready to come back from his two-year ban. He’s part of that Fuentes-tainted all-star team, Tinkoff Credit Systems. I really hope he rides as strongly as he used to, for the sake of the sport.
• Pat McQuaid tries to get around his “mafia” comments with a non-apology. I doubt the Italian cycling federation will be any happier than it was before.
• There’s a nice interview/article looking back over Giuseppe Guerini’s career as it draws to a close. I was on Alpe d’Huez the day Guerini was toppled by a fan taking a picture, one turn away from where Guerini fell. It’s a good thing he ended up still winning the day, or I don’t think that fan would have lived.
• Jan Ullrich’s case is - surprise - delayed. Patience may be a virtue, but I don’t think anyone involved with a doping investigation has got any to spare.
• Dick Pound has asked the AFLD to postpone its investigation of Floyd Landis until the American investigation is complete. AFLD is scheduled to hear the case in early February, about a month before an American hearing on the case.
• Jens Voigt, who I adore, apparently isn’t too optimistic about the future of cycling as it relates to doping. “Anyone who asks whether 2007 will be better is doing a lot of hoping,” he said in an interview. “Whoever didn’t get the wake-up call after everything that happened last year is probably not capable of being helped.“

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