Archives
|
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
LIVE Video Streaming:
Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana (Tour de Valence)
Selected images from yesterday's stage
They were streaming video images of some beautiful locations yesterday,
during stage 1 of the Vuelta a la Comunidad Valenciana (Tour of Valencia).
The stage finished earlier than expected so there were only about
20 minutes of live race video, followed by a lengthy post-race show.
Live streaming video coverage for this race, which ends on Saturday,
March 3, begins each day at 15:30 CET (9:30am U.S. Eastern Time). Thanks,
Bernie S!
The video stream is low resolution but it's free.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
LIVE Video Streaming:
Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana (Tour de Valence)
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Notes:
|
2007 Amgen Tour of
California
February 18-25
(Tour de Californie)
Live video streaming:
(Tour Tracker includes live streaming video)
(San Francisco CBS affiliate)
(News helicopter with no race commentary)
CBS5 homepage
Live tickers:
News and photos:
(cycling news)
|
|
|
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Notes:
CSC Tour of California Tracker
Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) has a nifty little
tracker that is being used in the Tour of California. Using
small GPS trackers, OmniLocation tracks
people and objects in near real time. You can locate selected riders
on a map during the stage. It works with Google Earth. We've
found it works better on the CSC site than what has been integrated with
the Tour of California official site tracker.
You can check it out here:
One reader asked about live SRM telemetry. We
have included this in our Live Guides in the past, when available,
but we are unaware of an SRM/T-Mobile or other initiative to offer this,
via special bike-mounted modems, during the Tour of California, though
some riders are using SRM power meters during the race.
We will update our Live Guide with more links as
they become available. Please don't hesitate to
let us know
if you are aware of other Tour of California links that
might be of interest to everyone.
|
2007 Amgen Tour of
California
February 18-25
(Tour de Californie)
Live video streaming:
(Tour Tracker includes live streaming video)
(San Francisco CBS affiliate)
(News helicopter with no race commentary)
CBS5 homepage
Live tickers:
News and photos:
(cycling news)
|
|
|
Friday, February 23, 2007
Notes:
We will update our Live Guide with more links as
they become available. Please don't hesitate to
let us know
if you are aware of other Tour of California links that
might be of interest to everyone.
|
2007 Amgen Tour of
California
February 18-25
(Tour de Californie)
Live video streaming:
(Tour Tracker includes live streaming video)
(San Francisco CBS affiliate)
(News helicopter with no race commentary)
CBS5 homepage
Live tickers:
News and photos:
(cycling news)
|
|
|
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Note: Bad weather today in California will wreak
havoc with Tour of California race coverage.
We will update our Live Guide with more links as
they become available. Please don't hesitate to
let us know
if you are aware of other Tour of California links that
might be of interest to everyone.
|
2007 Amgen Tour of
California
February 18-25
(Tour de Californie)
Live video streaming:
(Tour Tracker includes live streaming video)
(San Francisco CBS affiliate)
(News helicopter with no race commentary)
CBS5 homepage
Live tickers:
News and photos:
(cycling news)
|
|
|
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
More Tour of California links to come....
Note: CBS5 live video coverage of the Tour of
California is spotty at best, compared to last year.
We will update our Live Guide with more links as
they become available. Please don't hesitate to
let us know
if you are aware of other Tour of California links that
might be of interest to everyone.
|
2007 Amgen Tour of
California
February 18-25
(Tour de Californie)
Live video streaming:
(Tour Tracker includes live streaming video)
(San Francisco CBS affiliate)
(News helicopter with no race commentary)
CBS5 homepage
Live tickers:
News and photos:
(cycling news)
|
|
|
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
More Tour of California links to come....
Note: CBS5 changed the link to their live video
stream, so we have changed the link in our Live Guide accordingly. Generally
speaking, when there is no live video link at the top of their home
page (link for that is in our Live Guide too), then that means they
are currently not streaming over the internet.
If you are unable to access the official site stream, again
keep trying, refresh the Tour Ticker page, wait a couple of minutes
and perhaps you will get through. We've found that the video starts
up automatically but you might also click on the Live Video link in
the upper right corner of the Tour Ticker page. Access seemed improved
yesterday.
We will update our Live Guide with more links as
they become available. Please don't hesitate to
let us know
if you are aware of other Tour of California links that
might be of interest to everyone.
|
2007 Amgen Tour of
California
February 18-25
(Tour de Californie)
Live video streaming:
(Tour Tracker includes live streaming video)
(San Francisco CBS affiliate)
(News helicopter with no race commentary)
CBS5 homepage
Live tickers:
News and photos:
(cycling news)
|
|
|
Monday, February 19, 2007
More Tour of California links to come....
Live video streaming update:
Live video streaming from the Tour of California
official site seems to be working better today than yesterday. However,
they clearly cannot handle all the demands on bandwidth; if you
lose access to the video stream, it can be impossible to get it back
again. If you have been unable to get access at all, try a bit
earlier in tomorrow's stage, keeping in mind that the official site
is doing a poor job of communicating exactly when we should be expecting
there to be live video. Also, make sure you have the latest version
of the
Macromedia/Adobe Flash player
.
We have found that when it works, the official site video
stream plays automatically on the background of the Tour Tracker page.
It can take a little while for it to appear. And if usage
is heavy, it may not appear at all.
Note: After providing a live video feed from
the air earlier in today's stage 1, the CBS5 chopper has either
set down or was called away from the race to a breaking news story.
The web site has begun archiving portions of their earlier coverage,
available via the CBS5.com link in our Live Guide. Whether or
not the live video becomes available for the finish of today's stage
is anybody's guess...
Tour of California live video streaming
Online coverage of yesterday's Tour of California
prologue was crippled by technical issues. The official race
site so far is promising more than it is delivering. Hopefully
things will improve.
Perhaps you will be lucky enough to get access to the live
video stream portion of the official site Tour Tracker. Alternatively,
starting with today's Stage 1, the CBS5 chopper will be providing
a live video stream from the air, like last year. Keep
in mind that helicopters do occasionally need to set down in order to
refuel, so there will not be a picture during these times. Also,
don't expect the pilots to provide much, if any, race commentary!
We will update our Live Guide with more links as
they become available. Please don't hesitate to
let us know
if you are aware of other Tour of California links that
might be of interest to everyone.
|
2007 Amgen Tour of
California
February 18-25
(Tour de Californie)
Live video streaming:
(Tour Tracker includes live streaming video)
(San Francisco CBS affiliate)
(News helicopter with no race commentary)
CBS5 homepage
Live tickers:
News and photos:
(cycling news)
|
|
|
Sunday, February 18, 2007
More Tour of California links to come....
2007 Amgen Tour of
California
February 18-25
(Tour de Californie)
Live video streaming:
(coming)
Live tickers:
News and photos:
(cycling news)
|
|
|
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Versus 2007 cycling broadcast schedule
Though the ProTour (such as it is) doesn't get underway
for another month or so with Paris-Nice, the 2007 pro cycling season
is underway with some smaller races in Europe. In the U.S.,
the 2007 Amgen Tour of California (February 18-25) is just around the
corner. The Tour of California will be
broadcast
on Versus (formerly OLN/Outdoor Life Network). It is
also expected that some form of live coverage will be available
on the
official race site
, like last year.
The Versus network also continues its "Cyclysm Sundays"
formula for pro cycling TV coverage in 2007 with the following
races scheduled:
Paris-Nice (March 11 and March 18)
Criterium International (April 1)
Tour of Flanders (April 8)
Paris-Roubaix (April 15)
Amstel Gold (April 22)
Tour de Georgia (April 28 and April 29)
Liege-Bastogne-Liege (April 29)
La Fleche Wallonne (April 29)
Tour de Suisse (June 11 and 18)
Tour de France (July 7-29, LIVE)
Paris-Tours (October 14)
Tour du Faso (November 25)
For more information:
Versus Cyclysm Sundays
Monday, January 15, 2007
Tour Down Under
The Tour Down Under begins tomorrow and runs
through January 21. Live coverage of this
race includes a text ticker and radio (final kilometer only)
streamed on the net.
Discovery Channel signs Contador
Alberto Contador wallpaper
(in the wallpaper section)
photo © 2005 Pete Geyer
Alberto "The Accountant" Contador of Spain
has signed with Discovery Channel for the 2007 and 2008 seasons.
Contador is young (24), a super climbing talent and stage
racer (he has stage wins in the Tour of Switzerland, Tour de Romandie,
Tour of the Basque Country, Setmana Catalana and Tour Down Under
with top 3 overall placings at Romandie and Basque Country and overall
victory in Setmana Catalana) and a favorite with fans. He is
also gutsy as evidenced by his repeated comebacks from serious injuries.
He is sure to quickly become a favorite with fans of the Discovery
Channel team.
Discovery Channel also announced the signings
of Steve Cummings and John Devine.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Briefly:
- In today's L'Equipe, Damien
Ressiot insists (and repeats) that French authorities
investigating the hacking of LNDD computers
have established a link to someone close to Floyd Landis
. These are serious allegations that are going to have
to be supported with evidence. At the moment it looks like
L'Equipe sees this as an opportunity to engage in a little public
war with the Landis camp (Ressiot is on a roll with articles published
three days in a row, a rarity for him), the kind of thing the newspaper
has thrived on in recent years. We note that Ressiot himself is
under indictment in the Cofidis Affair
, along with colleague Dominique Issartel and three journalists
for Le Point, charged with breaking the law in
publishing confidential court documents. That same case was
also marked by the fabrication of evidence, by policeman Richard
Deydier , against rider Cedric Vasseur . Deydier
got a suspended prison sentence.
- Jean-François Lamour
, French minister of Youth and Sport, wrote to Pierre
Bordry , head of the recently created French anti-doping
agency ( AFLD ), questioning why Bordry was quick to
criticize the computer security at the French anti-doping lab
(LNDD) as well as government support of the lab before the investigation
into the hacking incident has even been completed. Let's
see if we've got this right: Lamour, who pressured Spanish authorities
to release names of riders allegedly involved in Operation
Puerto is complaining about someone drawing conclusions before
an investigation is complete? And Bordry was out of line
for questioning computer security at a lab.....that just had its computer
system broken into? And this same man, Lamour, will
take over for Dick Pound at the World Anti-Doping
Agency (WADA) next year?
We are doomed...
How about we all just agree that Lamour
can skip the term at WADA and instead just get in the ring
with Jacques Rogge , Hein Verbruggen,
Pound and Hulk Hogan to determine
who gets to run the International Olympic Committee
( IOC )...
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Editorial
Continued problems at the French
national anti-doping laboratory
at Châtenay-Malabry
Poor computer security symptomatic
of more fundamental issues
Storm clouds continue to hover above
the French
national anti-doping lab (LNDD) at
Châtenay-Malabry
(Photo Copyright
© 2006 Pete Geyer)
Paris (cyclingfans.com) -- With the
news yesterday that a computer hacker was able to break
into the computer system at the French national doping laboratory
( LNDD ) at Châtenay-Malabry and the
news today that the lab's director has admitted incorrect labeling
of samples in the Floyd Landis case, it
is fair to suggest, as we did in
September
, that the world's most controversial
anti-doping lab perhaps needs a little down time while
someone fully investigates the context within which it is
working.
The lab's director, Jacques de
Ceaurriz says the labeling error "is minor".
That may or may not be the case. However, one wonders
how a lab charged with something as important as testing samples
from the Tour de France , and repeatedly
unable (unwilling?) to guarantee confidentiality as required
by anti-doping protocol, just doesn't seem to be able to do the
job in a professional manner. Were they under too much pressure
to analyze the "B" sample before August vacation? If so, what
other mistakes were made? As Martial Saugy
, director of the top anti-doping
laboratory in Switzerland has said in the past, nothing
is worse in the testing process than a lab being put under too much
pressure.
The situation with the lab is further
complicated by the fact that its context has changed over
the past 19 months, largely for political reasons.
Jean-François Lamour , French Minister
of Youth and Sport , with much fanfare announced
in early 2005 that under a new law (the "Loi Lamour" or "Lamour
law"), LNDD would benefit from a larger budget and more independence
and that France's anti-doping efforts would be brought up to
the standard of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)
code. The law also called for the creation of the
Agence Française de Lutte Contre le Dopage
( AFLD or French Anti-Doping Agency) which would
replace the Conseil de Prevention et de Lutte Contre
le Dopage (CPLD) and also take over responsibility for LNDD
which until recently was directly administered by the French ministry.
France rushed to approve the law ahead of the all-important
selection, in July, 2005, of the host city for the
2012 Olympic Games . The law was initially to go
into effect in September, 2005. Alas, the 2012 Olympics were
awarded to London, not Paris, and the September deadline for the
creation of AFLD was missed, as was the subsequent deadline, in February
in time for the Turin Games. It was not until October 1, 2006
that AFLD quietly came into being, headed by Pierre
Bordry . (As we reported in
September
, the English-language media still
has not seemed to have even gotten notice of the existence
of AFLD...much less look into what it is actually doing.)
It is Bordry who, since the hacking
incident, has angrily called on more support from Lamour's
ministry. This is an embarrassment for Lamour who was
also instrumental in rushing Spanish authorities, ahead of the
Tour de France, to release names of riders allegedly involved
in the Operation Puerto doping scandal,
ultimately turning the case into a fiasco with charges being dropped
left and right, reputations in shatters, and no one sure what is
going on. It is a recurring theme in the supposed anti-doping
fight: come up with "evidence" (against cyclists) that no one knows
what to do with while making headlines and selling newspapers. And
when in September, on L'Equipe TV
, Lamour was asked for an update on Operation Puerto, he responded
that he didn't have any news since the eve of the Tour de France.
So the man in line to replace Dick Pound
in 2007 as head of WADA and who is close
to his Spanish counterpart, Jaime Lissavetzky
, didn't know anything more than the rest of us? (Didn't
want to know?) Decidedly, once again it seems that the willpower
to fight doping in sport just isn't there. But repeated
attacks on cycling allow everyone to claim they are fighting
doping.
When the Vrijman Report*, which
looked into L'Equipe's allegations of doping by Lance Armstrong,
asked what the French Ministry of Youth and Sport, LNDD and
WADA might be hiding, France was already in the process of
re-organizing the French anti-doping landscape, paving the way
for Lamour to take over the direction of WADA next year.
*Some have questioned the independence of the
Vrijman Report. Jean Pitallier, president of the
French Cycling Federation (FFC) even made an issue of nationality,
pointing out that Vrijman and former UCI president Hein Verbruggen
are both Dutch. However, the findings of Emile Vrijman
are consistent with some of the documented past problems at LNDD,
on political, technical and procedural levels.
|
French Lab Computer Hacking
It wasn't us!
(ask Jerry Lewis)
Yesterday's news that a hacker has
gained access to confidential information on computers at
the Laboratoire national de dépistage du dopage
(LNDD) is the latest bizarre twist in the sorry "war on
doping". French sports daily L'Equipe was
quick to point the finger at the Floyd Landis
camp as being behind the hacking, supposedly based on an investigation
by French officials. L'Equipe's Damien Ressiot
of course provided no details and it was unclear how French
authorities could pin the attack on any specific individual in
the U.S. without the cooperation of U.S. authorities. It
may just be an effort to undermine Landis' public defense against
charges of doping.
Poor journalism seemed to be the order
of the day as Paris-based Agence France-Presse
(AFP) reporter Françoise Chaptal
in an
article
(French) implied that we at cyclingfans.com
are part of the Lance Armstrong
and Floyd Landis entourage. We are not. We
simply believe someone should be shining a spotlight on the
accusers. Chaptal made no effort to contact us. She
did two or three Google searches and had her
story. This is journalism? Chaptal
was also critical of Cyclingnews reporter
Laura Weislo , suggesting that anyone who questions
the French lab is engaging in a witch-hunt (!). There
is indeed a witch-hunt going on but it's not what Chaptal has in mind.
It seems increasingly clear that this
lab is untouchable. Some in France, including us,
believe that no journalist who wants to keep his/her job would
dare expose the hypocrisy and corruption among those who claim
to be fighting doping. There is too much money involved
in sports like soccer and tennis to rock the boat. (Ask French
rocker Johnny Hallyday which French
soccer great advised him to have his blood regularly "cleansed"
in order to keep the energy level high. Three years later,
there has not been any investigation by anyone in France.) The
safe thing to do, to keep most people happy, is to beat up on cycling.
You can then say you are fighting doping.
We of course have nothing to do with
any hacking at LNDD. However, we would like to speak
to the head lab technician who is apparently the former film
star, the bumbling Jerry Lewis .
Hacking into LNDD computers cannot
be condoned, though one cannot help but see the irony in
this "forced leak" of LNDD documents that apparently highlight
more testing errors.
We apologize!
We would like to apologize for blowing up the
A.S.O. logo in our Floyd Landis "movie". It was out
of line and it was wrong. We should not have singled out
A.S.O. in this manner.
Next time we will also blow up the
logos of WADA, the French Ministry of Youth and Sport and
the UCI in an even bigger explosion.
|
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
A.S.O. and Me: The Movie
by Floyd Landis
In place of our usual Monday humor news column,
today we bring you the world premiere of the film
"A.S.O. and Me" which was written and directed
by none other than 2006 Tour de France
winner, Floyd Landis .
Yes, while Floyd continues to
recover from hip surgery he has moved on from
PowerPoint presentations to film and video
production. He was even late (by a day) in delivering
the film and also went over budget, a sure sign of a great filmmaker.
Floyd this year won the two biggest
stage races organized by Amaury Sport
Organization (A.S.O.): Paris-Nice
in March and the Tour in July.
As we all know, Floyd failed
a dope test at the Tour and is contesting the result.
A hearing should take place in early 2007, followed by
eventual appeals. In the meantime, Floyd is still the official
2006 Tour de France champion, though A.S.O. does not consider
him the winner.
At last Thursday's unveiling
of the 2007 Tour de France route, at the
Palais des Congrès in Paris
, A.S.O. showed a video of 2006 Tour highlights. We
described this video and showed you portions of it on Sunday
(see below). That video ended with an image of Floyd on the
winner's podium in Paris. That image then shattered like
glass and fell away to reveal a copy of French sports daily
L'Equipe . The old one-two punch from the
Amaury Group .
The tone of the A.S.O. video's
beginning and ending was tough, evoking battle, the
supposed war on doping. (The real war is between A.S.O.
and cycling's governing body, the Union Cycliste
Internationale (UCI) over the future of cycling,
ie money.)
In his film, Floyd took a different
approach. A.S.O. and Floyd are like a couple in
love. They traveled together from Paris to Nice in
March, then all around France in July. The music accompanying
the film fits the A.S.O./Floyd romance. (We couldn't afford
ZZ Top .) At the end of the Tour, they
were on top of the world. Some observers, including American
3-time Tour champion Greg LeMond, called it the greatest
Tour ever .
The peaceful, gentle tone of
Floyd's film does contrast with his recent tough talk
with regard to the UCI. (Floyd recently said "I'm going
to do everything I can to bring down the UCI.")
With this film, has Floyd mellowed?
Was he unaffected by A.S.O.'s shattering of his image
in their own video production?
If you haven't already seen how
A.S.O. cracked Landis, you can do so by clicking the image
below:
Floyd Landis
Click image to play short
video clip
(includes audio of shattering
glass)
(from A.S.O. video)
|
Click the image below for the
world premiere of "A.S.O. and
Me" by Floyd Landis.
(duration: 1 minute, 11 seconds)
*Inspired by
actual events, news, personalities and/or quotes in
the world of pro cycling.
Copyright
© 2006 www.cyclingfans.com
|
Sunday, October 29, 2006
2007 Tour de France presentation:
A look at A.S.O.'s 2006 Tour
highlights video
by Pete Geyer
At the end of October each
year, Tour de France organizer Amaury Sport Organization
(A.S.O.) puts on a show for the pro cycling world at the Palais
des Congrès in Paris. While the invitation-only
event is centered around the unveiling of the route for the following
July's edition of the race, it also serves to remind those
in the audience, with the help of a highlights video from the
previous July's race, just how beautiful this sport is. And
in recent years, A.S.O. also uses the opportunity to deliver some
strong words on the subject of doping, usually aimed at the sport's
governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), with whom
A.S.O. has been fighting over the future direction of cycling.
This year, anticipation ahead
of the event was particularly high because of the degree
to which the 2006 Tour was marked by doping scandals, both
"Operation Puerto" which resulted in stars such as Jan Ullrich,
Ivan Basso and Francisco Mancebo being sent home on the eve
of the race due to suspicion of doping and Alexandre Vinokourov
unable to race because of too many of his teammates allegedly
implicated in the scandal in Spain, and the Floyd Landis positive
for testosterone. A.S.O., with the help of the French Ministry
of Youth and Sport had put pressure on Spanish authorities to release
names of cyclists that might be involved in Operation Puerto, in
order that the Tour might be spared a scandal in July. Alas,
the Landis positive gave A.S.O. exactly what they had tried to avoid.
With Operation Puerto now
falling apart due to, take your pick, lack of hard evidence
linking specific individuals to doping practices, a lack
of willpower on the part of public authorities in Spain to really
fight doping, and/or a desire to bury the entire affair to
avoid dragging protected sports like soccer and tennis into
this mess, how would A.S.O., which again had put pressure on Spanish
authorities to begin with, in order to protect its own image and
product, the Tour, deal with the subject in its 2006 Tour highlights
video? The subject, of course, was unavoidable given the possibility,
even likelihood from A.S.O.'s standpoint, of the first disqualification
in history of a Tour winner due to doping.
Christian Prudhomme
Click image to play short
video clip
(from A.S.O. video)
|
Not surprisingly, the A.S.O.
video gets right into the subject of doping from the
start, with images of Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich forced to
depart the race start in Strasbourg. New race director
Christian Prudhomme (video at right), flanked by Roger Legeay
and Patrick Lefevere, team managers respectively of Crédit
Agricole and Quickstep, and longtime race director Jean-Marie
Leblanc, is seen addressing the Tour media regarding the need
to work together to fight doping in cycling. The accompanying
music is ominous, evoking battle. There are more images
of Ullrich, Basso and the entire Astana team. They are then
gone, A.S.O. has spared its event.
(Ullrich, Basso, Landis et
al were not welcome at the Palais des Congrès
on Thursday. However, in the audience sat a veritable
who's who of dopers among former French cyclists, including some
who are now team managers. One cannot help but wonder what
went through their minds as A.S.O. gave their annual anti-doping
tough talk. But then, they've heard it all before. And
besides, they had their invitations. They are a part of
French cycling's family.)
Col d'Izoard
Click image to play short
video clip
(from A.S.O. video)
|
The video then gets into presenting
some of the highlights of the 2006 race, notably the
sprint finishes with some fast-paced music. Then the music
is mellower as we witness an emotional moment with Frenchman
Cyril Dessel grabbing the yellow jersey on his father's birthday.
Father and son cannot hold back the tears. That
is immediately followed by some of the most stunning aerial footage
in all of sports as the peloton reaches the mountains. The
views from above the Izoard Pass (video at right) are mesmerizing.
"Vive le Tour" is seen in big block letters on a mountaintop.
Viewers cannot help but have their faith in this sport renewed,
even if briefly, because what other events in sport can compete with
these images unfolding on the big screen? Set to music, the
Tour is even more powerful, more dramatic, more cinematic, more poetic.
Riders dance on pedals in a ballet of color. You
could watch this for hours. And why can't we see more of
this on IMAX?
Floyd Landis, in yellow,
is then seen struggling in the mountains. He is
dropped and loses many minutes, and the yellow jersey, to
Oscar Pereiro. But the next day, of course, Landis accelerates
away from his rivals and rides to a dramatic stage victory,
crossing the line with his fist in the air, and gets back most
of the time he lost the previous day. A.S.O. has decided
to show us the Tour as it happened on the road. There is
the final battle for the yellow jersey, the individual time trial,
and Landis succeeds in what some called the greatest comeback
in the history of cycling or even in all of sport.
We see some scenes from the
final stage in Paris, followed by the podium presentations
of the final green jersey, polka-dot jersey, young rider jersey
and top team. At this point in the video, A.S.O. is not
showing Floyd Landis. It is clear that they want to separate
him from the other competitions winners. So there is next
a sequence of various moments during the race, including crashes.
Phil Liggett audio commentary features prominently in several
places. There is a stunning fireworks display, more action
and fast paced music as the video nears its conclusion.
Floyd Landis
Click image to play short
video clip
(includes audio of shattering
glass)
(from A.S.O. video)
|
Finally we see Landis in
yellow on the final podium in Paris, his arms raised
in victory. Then the shocker: the image of Landis shatters
like glass, replaced by a copy of French sports daily L'Equipe
announcing a positive dope control for the race's victor.
A number of newspaper and magazine covers announcing the scandal
are then seen. A dream Tour has come crashing down.
The video does a pretty good
job of covering the range of emotions that many of us
felt during and soon after the conclusion of the race. A.S.O.
knows it has arguably the greatest annual sporting spectacle
there is. And it knows how to remind us of that.
Now if only A.S.O. and the
UCI could put an end to their fighting and hypocrisy
and work together to ensure a bright future for this sport.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Tour de France organizers crack Landis
At yesterday's presentation
of the 2007 Tour de France here in Paris, Amaury Sport
Organization (A.S.O.) used the opportunity of showing this
year's Tour highlights to make clearer than ever their position
on the subject of Floyd Landis whose case has yet to be heard
by U.S. anti-doping authorities. Toward the end of the
video, which was distributed as a DVD to all in attendance,
they showed Landis victorious on the final podium in Paris before
abruptly shattering his image to reveal a copy of their sister publication,
French sports daily L'Equipe. Should we have expected anything
less? You can see how they cracked Landis by clicking on
the image to the right. Rumor has it Floyd may
get revenge in our Monday humor column...
We'll have a report on
yesterday's presentation this weekend, along with
another video clip or two.
|
Click image to play short
video clip
(includes audio of shattering
glass)
(from A.S.O. video)
|
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
2007 Tour de France route presentation
tomorrow
Riders, team managers, tour operators, sponsors, politicians
and the media will be in Paris tomorrow for the
invitation-only presentation of the 2007 Tour de France
route, one of the more anticipated events in cycling. But
some big names weren't invited and others are boycotting the
event as political battles continue.
(Photos Copyright ©
Pete Geyer/www.cyclingfans.com)
Paris (cyclingfans.com) -- The 2007 Tour
de France begins tomorrow. Kind of.
It certainly will begin
for tour operators who will be on their cell phones
speaking to colleagues the moment tomorrow's presentation
of the 2007 Tour's route is completed, to get the process
of reserving hotel rooms underway. With that done, they
can move upstairs for wine and snacks and rubbing elbows with
other invitation-only attendees, which include Tour riders past
and present, team managers and directors, sponsors, representatives
of Tour host towns, and members of the media.
The 2007 Tour begins
tomorrow for team directors who can start planning
both pre-Tour race and training schedules in locations featured
in the Tour.
The 2007 Tour also begins
tomorrow for cycling fans anxious to plan July trips
to France or just to speculate on what riders might be favored
by the race route.
Very few route details
are known ahead of tomorrow's presentation. The
game of fan speculation, already underway for weeks, more
often than not results in a route wildly different from
what ends up being presented at the Palais des Congres at the Porte
Maillot in Paris, in part because race organizer Amaury Sport
Organization (A.S.O.) offers up some false leaks to send guessing-game
players on the wrong trail. For example, last year there
was much speculation about a final-stage individual time trial between
Versailles and Paris. The idea even made some sense because
the 2006 Tour was the first designed by new race director Christian
Prudhomme and a final stage time trial into Paris would reproduce
the final stage of retiring race director Jean-Marie Leblanc's first
Tour, in 1989, where American Greg LeMond won the race in dramatic fashion
by just eight seconds after three weeks of racing. As it turned
out, Prudhomme did indeed design a race very similar to Leblanc's first
Tour, but there was no final stage time trial into Paris.
Each May, A.S.O. has
a rough idea of the following year's Tour route. By
September, the general route has been nailed down, including
all the stage host towns, the mountains that will be climbed,
the time trials and whether or not, for example, there will
be a team time trial. In other words, A.S.O. then has
enough information to begin reserving hotel rooms for all the
teams, race and publicity caravan personnel, and others and
indeed the organizers proceed immediately to making those reservations.
They then put together a slick graphics and video show
that traces the path the race will take and includes highlights
of the previous Tour and are ready to share it all with the world,
at the end of October.
The 2007 Tour will begin
with a prologue in London. If tradition holds,
once in France it should travel clockwise around the country
(it was counter-clockwise this year), meaning it will visit the
Alps before the Pyrenees in 2007. For weeks, there has been
speculation the 2007 Tour will climb Mont Ventoux, though not
necessarily as a mountaintop finish. Is the rumor true?
Who knows? It could be due to a false A.S.O. leak,
a genuine leak, or mere speculation due to a leak that the Tour
will finish in a nearby town such as Carpentras. (Some
who play the guessing-game seek to determine, starting in September,
where large quantities of hotel rooms are being booked (by A.S.O.
as discussed above) for the following July.) Another rumor
is that the race will climb the Puy de Dome which has been absent
for years. That location offers some logistical challenges
but new race director Christian Prudhomme has vowed to have the
Tour return there. This year? Maybe, maybe not. We'll
know after 11am tomorrow Paris time.
Gilles Le Roc'h of Reuters
reports that sources close to A.S.O. told him that
once again there will be
no Team Time Trial in
2007
. (Le Roc'h also
reports, incorrectly, that the 2007 Tour is the first
conceived by Prudhomme. In fact, it will be the second.)
On a more negative note,
the annual route presentation lately is also used by
A.S.O. (notably president Patrice Clerc) to launch missiles
at those, particularly the UCI, with whom they are at war
regarding the future of professional cycling. The tone was
already raised last year compared to 2004 and this year UCI president
Pat McQuaid, who is in Paris today for other meetings, has
not even been invited to tomorrow's presentation. A.S.O.
will surely fire off some very strong attacks tomorrow after
the scandals of last summer. Might they even have some
form of surprise weapon in this war among those supposedly fighting
doping? As a preemptive strike, the UCI just yesterday was
critical of what they called a refusal on the part of A.S.O. to collaborate
on the subject of anti-doping. Some top riders and teams are
reportedly boycotting tomorrow's event as a result of the ongoing
battles.
Somewhere in the middle
of tomorrow's missile launchings and 2006 Tour video
highlights which are unlikely to feature Floyd Landis much
or at all, awards presentations and a tribute to retiring
race director Jean-Marie Leblanc, who surely will get a standing
ovation for his 18 years of service, Christian Prudhomme will
get down to the business of presenting the actual 2007 Tour route.
Now if only we knew
who will be racing next July...
- Pete Geyer, Paris
|
The
20th Tour du Faso
gets underway today in Burkina Faso and runs through
November 5th. Some small teams from France,
Belgium and Japan take on some of Africa's best.
|
Must a winner be declared
for the
2006 Tour de France?
That is a question being
asked in France, by French sports daily
L'Equipe and L'Equipe TV
, ahead of tomorrow's presentation of the route for
the 2007 Tour de France.
L'Equipe journalist
Philippe Brunel , former racer
and current television consultant Jean-François
"Jef" Bernard and longtime race director
Jean-Marie Leblanc appeared
on L'Equipe TV yesterday evening to discuss the question,
with UCI president
Pat McQuaid joining in via telephone.
For Bernard, Leblanc
and McQuaid there is no doubt: if Floyd
Landis is stripped of his title, then you need to
declare Oscar Pereiro the winner.
(For Leblanc and A.S.O. , in fact,
Landis is already no longer considered the winner....but only
the UCI can officially strip Landis of the title, pending the result
of early-2007 hearings in the U.S. and eventual appeals to the
Court of Arbitration for Sport (
TAS-CAS )).
Brunel raised the possibility
of leaving first place blank, arguing that Pereiro
benefitted from a 30-minute gift from Landis during the race
and did nothing on the road to show himself worthy as Tour
de France champion. He further argued that having no winner
for the 2006 race would serve as a strong reminder of the damage
doping scandals did to the race.
At the end of the TV
programme, when pressed to name a winner, Leblanc and
Bernard responded "Oscar Pereiro."
L'Equipe's Brunel jokingly
responded: "Floyd Pereiro."
In today's L'Equipe,
the debate continues with Eddy Merckx
arguing that should Landis fail in his attempt
to clear his name, he should nonetheless remain as 2006 champion
but with an asterisk next to his name.
Two-time Tour winner
Laurent Fignon is in the "declare
no winner" camp, as is Frenchman Raymond
Poulidor .
For five-time champion
Bernard Hinault and UCI executive
Alain Rumpf , in addition to the
fact that the rules say Pereiro should be declared the winner
if Landis is disqualified, Pereiro should not be penalized
for a fault that he had nothing to do with.
All of this is of course
premature since the Landis case has yet to even be
heard.
L'Equipe TV, Tuesday:
For Pat McQuaid (inset), president of the Union
Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the rules stipulate that
should Floyd Landis be stripped of his Tour de France title,
due to his doping positive, Oscar Pereiro must be declared
the winner.
L'Equipe TV: Philippe
Brunel (journalist for L'Equipe), Jean-François
Bernard (consultant) and Jean-Marie Leblanc (retiring
race director) all weighed in on who should be declared winner
of the 2006 Tour de France.
L'Equipe TV: L'Equipe's
Philippe Brunel suggests that perhaps first place
should be left blank in order to send a strong signal, should
Landis be stripped of his Tour title.
|
Monday, October 23, 2006
Monday Special Edition* Cycling News
- A summary
(or not) of top news items from the past week -
Monday,
October 23, 2006
Lamour on track to replace Dick Pound at WADA
Paris
(cyclingfans.com) -- Jean-François
Lamour is the French "ministre de la Jeunesse,
des Sports et de la Vie associative," which roughly
translates to "minister of Youth, Sport, Community life,
controversial anti-doping labs, good friends with
L'Equipe and anything else that those with more
serious political ambitions aren't interested in."
Lamour doesn't have
a lot of power in France but he does have an anti-doping
lab, at Chatenay-Malabry , something
most of us cannot claim. At last check, you cannot
even get an anti-doping lab on eBay
. Talk about rare.
The French minister
of Youth and Sport has an important job and make no
mistake, he can make things happen. Case in point: When
guys named Patrice (Clerc) and Jean-Marie (Leblanc) from
Tour de France organizer
A.S.O. came running for help on the eve of the
2006 edition of the race, Jean-François Lamour sprung
to action, called his Spanish equivalent and friend,
Jaime Lissavetzky , and in no time helped
turn "Operation Puerto" ..... into
a real mess . Respect. These guys are good.
Lamour also has personal
ambitions. Specifically, he has designs on
Dick Pound's job as the head
of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
On Saturday, Lamour was nominated as the European
candidate for Vice President at
WADA . If he is officially named to the
position by the agency's board next month, as expected, then
he would take over as head of WADA when Pound steps down in November,
2007.
Jean-François
Lamour, whose ministry funds the controversial French
national anti-doping lab at Chatenay-Malabry, is thus the
likely next head of WADA.
Floyd Landis might
test positive just thinking about that.
Ballester and Walsh write another Lance Armstrong book
Pierre Ballester and David Walsh are back with
their second Lance Armstrong book: "L.A. Officiel"
, published last Thursday. ("L.A. Confidentiel"
was published in 2004.)
Lance Armstrong and
Sally Jenkins earlier teamed to write "It's Not About
the Bike" and "Every Second Counts".
So let's update our
running scoreboard:
Books about Armstrong:
Ballester (writer
) and Walsh ( writer ): 2
Armstrong (athlete
) and Jenkins (writer): 2
Tour de France victories:
Ballester and Walsh:
0
Lance Armstrong: 7
The Armstrong/Jenkins
books are New York Times Bestsellers
and have been translated in numerous languages,
including French. Ballester and Walsh cannot even
find a publisher in Walsh's native tongue, that
obscure language called English .
So how is it that two
full-time writers cannot outdo
an elite athlete, Lance Armstrong, in the book-writing
department?
C'mon, Lance, help these
guys out. Give them some writing and publishing
tips.
PowerPoint, the tool of choice for
cyclists
Some in cycling are following the lead of Floyd Landis
and using Microsoft PowerPoint to communicate.
Thanks to leaks, cyclingfans.com occasionally
obtains draft copies of these documents.
Today: Will Tyler Hamilton finally pick a dog
for his PowerPoint presentation?
*Inspired by
actual events, news, personalities and/or quotes in
the world of pro cycling.
Copyright
© 2006 www.cyclingfans.com
|
|
|