The rumor mill is speculating that four US cyclists who would normally be considered for the US Olympic cycling team this summer are not going to race because of some involvement in the Lance Armstrong investigation. This rumor comes from the following statement published by USA Cycling:
USA Cycling has received numerous inquiries regarding the men’s Olympic road team announced yesterday. Prior to the commencement of the Olympic team nomination process, George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer, Christian Vande Velde and David Zabriskie individually requested that they not be considered for nomination. USA Cycling will not speculate on the reasoning behind their requests and will not have further comment on this topic; any questions related to their decision should be directed to the individual athletes.
It seems very strange that all four of these riders would ask to have their names taken out of the hat. The Washington Post has a quote from Hincapie who purportedly said earlier in the year that he would love to go to his sixth Olympic games this summer. Something certainly changed his tune...
Curiously, all four of the riders rode with Lance's team in the past. Is this a very odd coincidence or is something else going on? If it is a coincidence, the timing couldn't be better to get a rumor going. Not to mention USA Cycling's wording of the press release. The last sentence (underlined above) makes me wonder what they aren't saying...
Wow! I didn't see this until now. Obviously they know something.
ReplyDeleteIf it Walks like a Duck
ReplyDeleteLance's lawyer's response to USADA in WaPo was pretty damning of USADA's apparent flouting of its own rules and protocols. I don't know what the truth is about Lance; however, I am disgusted at the apparent lack of due process afforded to accused athletes (e.g., Scott Moninger). See
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/lance.html
By all means, catch the cheaters, but let us recognize that the accused should at least have access to the evidence against him so that he can prepare a defense, and let us also recognize that "strict liability," given the absurdly low limits for some of these substances (in some cases, thousands of times lower than what would be required to derive an ergogenic benefit), is a flawed doctrine.
Espresso, Lance's claims that USADA is not allowing him to have access to the evidence is ridiculous. At this point, Lance doesn't get to see the evidence because USADA has to follow protocol to see if an independent panel believes they have sufficient evidence to file charges, so to speak. This is similar to a grand jury deciding first if charges are warranted. Otherwise, if the evidence was provided all sorts of problems could occur at this point. Once it's ruled that USADA has sufficient evidence then Lance and his lawyers will know exactly what the evidence is and be given plenty of time to prepare a defense.
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