Tim Sprinkle

Contador’s Career Could Be Over

I'm divided on this one. Given the excitement over Alberto Contador's positive Tour de France dope test, the three-time TDF winner is now talking about retiring from professional cycling if the controversy ends up in a two-year ban.

Via VeloNews:

Alberto Contador says he may retire from cycling if he’s handed down a racing ban and disqualified from the 2010 Tour de France after he tested positive for traces of clenbuterol en route to winning July’s Tour.

Speaking to Spanish television TeleCinco on primetime over the weekend, the beleaguered Contador hinted he may walk away for good from cycling if anti-doping officials deliver a racing ban and take away his 2010 Tour victory.

“If this is not resolved favorably and in a just fashion, then I would have to reconsider or not I would ever come back to the bike,” Contador said on La Noria. “I am very optimistic and I think things will be resolved favorably.”

Contador tested positive for clenbuterol on a rest-day control a day ahead of the decisive Tourmalet climbing stage en route to his narrow, hard-fought third Tour victory just ahead of Andy Schleck.

Not that this really means anything, but I never really thought that Contador rode like a doper. Landis made sense, with that miracle ride in the 2006 tour, but Contador had all the usual ups and downs of a clean racer and never looked to be summoning extra strength. Who knows? Maybe that just means I can't spot a cheater.

When Milliseconds Count

Interesting story from Tuesday's Wall Street Journal about the lengths that professional cyclists will go to to gain an edge in the post-doping (or so they say) world. New beds, more advanced tires, algae-based diets -- it's all up for grabs.

Last year, riders on the Omega Pharma-Lotto team complained about excessive vibration in their back wheels. Mechanic Dirk Tyteca said he spent the winter experimenting and finally solved the problem by ordering thicker carbon on the bottom part of the frame. Their star rider, Jurgen Van Den Broeck, finished an unexpected fifth overall this year.

Last year, Bbox Bouygues Telecom suffered too many punctures. Team director Ismael Mottier said he asked Hutchinson Tires to change their formula. This year, the team had only three punctures, far below the seven to 12 punctures they expect to have in the average Tour. Each puncture wastes around a minute of time.

On Saturday in Bordeaux, Mr. Mottier watched Matthieu Sprick, a French rider, warm up for the time trial wearing an ice vest, a recent development that keeps the rider's upper body cool and relaxed. Because the time trial—a solo race against the clock—is so short, riders warm up extensively to be in peak form when they start. Over his nose, Mr. Sprick wore a mask soaked in a natural alcohol that cleans the sinuses.

Time-trial bicycles now use electric gears, with buttons on each of the four handlebars, so riders can change gears when they're hunched over aerodynamically and when they're standing up in the saddle. "There are always new things to do," said Lars Teutenberg, a mechanic for HTC-Columbia, showing off how his team's time-trial bikes now have their back-wheel brakes next to the pedals instead of up near the seat.

In long road races like the Tour, a lot of energy must go to keeping riders' bodies in proper working order. Dr. Van Bommel, the team doctor for Rabobank, said he likes to invest his time writing up new diets. "We're working on how different kinds of riders need different foods and supplements," he said. "A sprinter and a climber have different metabolisms."

Dr. Van Bommel said he sends any new product to a lab first, "to check that it's legal, of course." His favorite new idea: an algae-based product that triggers the release of more stem cells from the bone barrow into the blood stream.

Cyclists do cry

Turns out, there is crying in cycling after all. (Still a big "no" in baseball, though.)

From the AP:

MONTARGIS, France - Britain's Mark Cavendish broke down in tears after winning the fifth stage of the Tour de France Thursday for his first victory in this year's race.

The 25-year-old Cavendish thrust his arms skyward and hugged teammates in the winner's circle after beating Gerald Ciolek of Germany and Edvald Boasson Hagen of Norway. Cavendish had faded in a sprint finish in Wednesday's stage won by Italy's Alessandro Petacchi, and bared his frustration by hurling his bike after the fourth stage.

"It's incredible, it's been a long time," said Cavendish of his stage win. "Yesterday wasn't that great for us. I let the guys down."

Cavendish has developed a reputation among some as a "bad boy" of cycling. He was fined by international cycling's governing body, UCI, this spring for making a hand gesture that was deemed unsuitable after he won a sprint finish in a Tour de Romandie stage.

...

France's sports minister, Roselyne Bachelot, who was on hand for the stage, was beaming about Cavendish's display of emotion.

"Only sport can give us scenarios like this," she said. "The one who was called 'the bad boy' for several days became not only the good boy but the absolutely superb boy.

"The tears of Cavendish on the podium, I'm going to remember that. It was really hot weather-wise, but that also warms my heart."

Soccer vs. America

Is football un-American?

Do Americans hate soccer? Well, some of us dislike it immoderately—not so much the game itself as what it is taken to represent. This spring, anti-soccer grumbling on the political right spiked as sharply as the sale of those great big TVs. Back in 1986, Jack Kemp, the former Buffalo Bills quarterback turned Republican congressman, took the House floor to oppose a resolution supporting America’s (ultimately successful) bid to host the 1994 World Cup. Our football, he declared, embodies “democratic capitalism”; their football is “European socialist.” Kemp, though, was kidding; he was sending himself up. Today’s conservative soccer scolds are not so good-natured. Their complaints are variations on the theme of un-Americanness. “I hate it so much, probably because the rest of the world likes it so much,” Glenn Beck, the Fox News star, proclaimed. (Also, “Barack Obama’s policies are the World Cup.”) What really bugs “silly leftist critics,” the Washington Times editorialized, is that “the most popular sports in America—football, baseball, and basketball—originated here in the Land of the Free.” At the Web site of the American Enterprise Institute, the Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, formerly a speechwriter for George W. Bush, wrote, “Soccer is a socialist sport.” Also, “Soccer is collectivist.” Also, “Perhaps in the age of President Obama, soccer will finally catch on in America. But I suspect that socializing Americans’ taste in sports may be a tougher task than socializing our healthcare system.”

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/07/12/100712taco_talk_hertzberg#ixzz0svb5bOOD

World Cup Weirdos

Funny take on international soccer managers via Slate:

You've seen them on the sidelines during the World Cup, prowling with their hands in their pockets, baying after every bad call. There's Joachim Löw, the reed-thin coach of Germany, whose papery cheeks and limp mane of jet-black hair make him look like an early sketch from Coraline. There's Diego Maradona, Argentina's sagging ex-superstar, whom age and stomach-stapling surgery have lent the aspect of a sorrowing, dignified (albeit recently bearded) grandmother. There's Bob Bradley, of these United States, with his accountant's domed forehead and his cold lieutenant's eyes. They are international managers, and along with their counterparts from England, Brazil, and the rest, they are among the strangest men in sports.

All soccer coaches do a strange job, of course. Compared with the men who preside over, say, NBA teams, the soccer manager is a passive, theatrical figure. His power to change the course of a match is limited, partly because there are no timeouts, partly because he can make so few substitutions. His pre-match planning may be heroic, but once the whistle blows, he's reduced to shouting from the sideline and performing broad emotional pantomime. On television, especially, the manager seems to spend much of each game in the uneasy zone between tennis coach, unable to impart any wisdom to his harried charges, and unhinged Little League parent, reduced to screaming at nobody in particular.

Doping Back in the News

Remember last week when I suggested that there would be more fallout from Floyd Landis' doping allegations? Turns out I was right.

This from the New York Times on Tuesday:

Federal authorities investigating allegations that Lance Armstrong and other top cyclists engaged in doping are considering whether they can expand the investigation beyond traditional drug distribution charges to include ones involving fraud and conspiracy, according to two people briefed on the investigation.

The authorities, who are in the early stages of their investigation, are seeking to determine whether Armstrong, the owners and managers of his former cycling teams and his teammates conspired to defraud their sponsors by doping to improve their performances and garner more money and prizes, one of the people said.

In particular, the authorities want to know whether money from the United States Postal Service, the main sponsor of Armstrong’s team from 1996 to 2004, was used to buy performance-enhancing drugs, one of the people said. Fraud charges can carry longer sentences than charges of drug distribution.

Bicycling magazine has done a pretty good job with this as well. Here's Bill Strickland on why the Landis/Armstrong bombshell is good for cycling.