April 24? Two months to test, they must have a serious backlog, and a huge refrigerator full of pee.

-K-

The Gravity Assisted Flyers

I wonder how many more non-negatives and AAFs we'll hear in the days to come. Ah well, I guess Matty Kessler probably won't get a TdF start. I enjoyed his attacks last year.

-K-

He is a favorite of mine and the first of my Yearlong VDS to fall.  I hope the B analysis tests in his favor.

Probably the first of them.

I just saw this on Cycling Heroes:

Holczer: "I think we are standing before the 10 worst days in cycling"

In an interview with the Tour website of German tv station ARD, tour.ard, Gerlosteiner team manager Hans Michael Holczer was asked if he thinks that there will be new 'Operacion Puerto' developements before this years Tour de France. Holczer said: "A clear yes. The rumour mill says for instance that some bigger story concernig 'Operacion Puerto' is to come. Since a couple of weeks I am convinced that there are people who have certain documents in their drawer and who will maken them public in the week before the Tour or during the first days of the Tour. Then we had the report of Anne Gripper [UCI anti-doping director] about the 'Men in black'. And now it looks like there are mysterious values of top Giro riders. I think that we are standing before the 10 worst days in cycling."

When half the field might not start.

My first impression of the Giro drugs stuff is that it is a non-issue. I think blood doping and hormones became the PED du jour because they are hard to test for. Now, the tests aren't better, but the suspicion is higher.

I'm more suspicious of Astana, but I hope Vino gets a shot at his TdF, and at least isn't yanked on a technicality, like last year. If Vino tests positive, exclude him. If he doesn't, but one or more teammates do, don't force him out.

-K-

IMHO that is because the teams don't always tell the riders when they are being doped.  I think the term is "plausible deniability"  or some such...

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt

send Tour VDS teams in? Looks like it might be prudent to wait until the last minute.....

"The ox is slow but the earth is patient."

The Gravity Assisted Flyers

Prepare for a lot of entries at this time then!

Are we even hearing about this prior to the testing of the "B" sample?

And yes, the weeks before the tour have become a media feeding frenzy as everyone with an axe to grind or profit motive starts coming out of the wood work...

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We're not one of the other VDS teams

Imagine the Tour without Vino/Astana! It'd be wide open!

You know, it also seems like it'd be in the UCI's and ASO's interests to quickly and quietly and IMMEDIATELY sanction riders with positive test results --- man, another Puerto-style eve-of-destruction-type of revelation would have to count as an absolute PR disaster.

Makes me wonder, too, if some things are going to be swept under the rug. When are the cover-ups going to begin?

---j

UCI antidoping program director Anne Gripper told Belga at the time that, "Several abnormal results have already come in" and indicated that there may be announcements before the start of the Tour de France. Gripper declined to comment today on the Kessler case, saying that she would not do so until a B sample result was established.

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt