Opinion: Lance One of Many Tour de France Cheaters


Editor's note: England-based writer and photographer Roff Smith rides around 10,000 miles a year through the lanes of Sussex and Kent and writes a cycling blog at: www.my-bicycle-and-I.co.uk

And so, the television correspondent said to the former Tour de France champion, a man who had been lionised for years, feted as the greatest cyclist of his day, did you ever use drugs in the course of your career?

"Yes," came the reply. "Whenever it was necessary."

"And how often was that?" came the follow-up question.

"Almost all the time!"

This is not a leak of a transcript from Oprah Winfrey's much anticipated tell-all with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, but instead was lifted from a decades-old interview with Fausto Coppi, the great Italian road cycling champion of the 1940s and 1950s.

To this day, though, Coppi is lauded as one of the gods of cycling, an icon of a distant and mythical golden age in the sport.

So is five-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961-64) who famously remarked that it was impossible "to ride the Tour on mineral water."

"You would have to be an imbecile or a crook to imagine that a professional cyclist who races for 235 days a year can hold the pace without stimulants," Anquetil said.

And then there's British cycling champion Tommy Simpson, who died of heart failure while trying to race up Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France, a victim of heat, stress, and a heady cocktail of amphetamines.

All are heroes today. If their performance-enhancing peccadillos are not forgotten, they have at least been glossed over in the popular imagination.

As the latest chapter of the sorry Lance Armstrong saga unfolds, it is worth looking at the history of cheating in the Tour de France to get a sense of perspective. This is not an attempt at rationalisation or justification for what Lance did. Far from it.

But the simple, unpalatable fact is that cheating, drugs, and dirty tricks have been part and parcel of the Tour de France nearly from its inception in 1903.

Cheating was so rife in the 1904 event that Henri Desgrange, the founder and organiser of the Tour, declared he would never run the race again. Not only was the overall winner, Maurice Garin, disqualified for taking the train over significant stretches of the course, but so were next three cyclists who placed, along with the winner of every single stage of the course.

Of the 27 cyclists who actually finished the 1904 race, 12 were disqualified and given bans ranging from one year to life. The race's eventual official winner, 19-year-old Henri Cornet, was not determined until four months after the event.

And so it went. Desgrange relented on his threat to scrub the Tour de France and the great race survived and prospered-as did the antics. Trains were hopped, taxis taken, nails scattered along the roads, partisan supporters enlisted to beat up rivals on late-night lonely stretches of the course, signposts tampered with, bicycles sabotaged, itching powder sprinkled in competitors' jerseys and shorts, food doctored, and inkwells smashed so riders yet to arrive couldn't sign the control documents to prove they'd taken the correct route.

And then of course there were the stimulants-brandy, strychnine, ether, whatever-anything to get a rider through the nightmarishly tough days and nights of racing along stages that were often over 200 miles long. In a way the race was tailor-made to encourage this sort of thing. Desgrange once famously said that his idea of a perfect Tour de France would be one that was so tough that only one rider finished.

Add to this the big prizes at a time when money was hard to come by, a Tour largely comprising young riders from impoverished backgrounds for whom bicycle racing was their one big chance to get ahead, and the passionate following cycling enjoyed, and you had the perfect recipe for a desperate, high stakes, win-at-all-costs mentality, especially given the generally tolerant views on alcohol and drugs in those days.

After World War II came the amphetamines. Devised to keep soldiers awake and aggressive through long hours of battle they were equally handy for bicycle racers competing in the world's longest and toughest race.

So what makes the Lance Armstrong story any different, his road to redemption any rougher? For one thing, none of the aforementioned riders were ever the point man for what the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has described in a thousand-page report as the most sophisticated, cynical, and far-reaching doping program the world of sport has ever seen-one whose secrecy and efficiency was maintained by ruthlessness, bullying, fear, and intimidation.

Somewhere along the line, the casualness of cheating in the past evolved into an almost Frankenstein sort of science in which cyclists, aided by creepy doctors and trainers, were receiving blood transfusions in hotel rooms and tinkering around with their bodies at the molecular level many months before they ever lined up for a race.

To be sure, Armstrong didn't invent all of this, any more than he invented original sin-nor was he acting alone. But with his success, money, intelligence, influence, and cohort of thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyers-and the way he used all this to prop up the Lance brand and the Lance machine at any cost-he became the poster boy and lightning rod for all that went wrong with cycling, his high profile eclipsing even the heads of the Union Cycliste Internationale, the global cycling union, who richly deserve their share of the blame.

It is not his PED popping that is the hard-to-forgive part of the Lance story. Armstrong cheated better than his peers, that's all.

What I find troubling is the bullying and calculated destruction of anyone who got in his way, raised a question, or cast a doubt. By all accounts Armstrong was absolutely vicious, vindictive as hell. Former U.S. Postal team masseuse Emma O'Reilly found herself being described publicly as a "prostitute" and an "alcoholic," and had her life put through a legal grinder when she spoke out about Armstrong's use of PEDs.

Journalists were sued, intimidated, and blacklisted from events, press conferences, and interviews if they so much as questioned the Lance miracle or well-greased machine that kept winning Le Tour.

Armstrong left a lot of wreckage behind him.

If he is genuinely sorry, if he truly repents for his past "indiscretions," one would think his first act would be to try to find some way of not only seeking forgiveness from those whom he brutally put down, but to do something meaningful to repair the damage he did to their lives and livelihoods.


Read More..

Armstrong Admits to Doping, 'One Big Lie'













Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.


After years of denying that he had taken banned drugs and received oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and attacking his teammates and competitors who attempted to expose him, Armstrong came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview, admitting to using banned substances for years.


"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he said. "I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there. The truth isn't what I said.


"I'm a flawed character, as I well know," Armstrong added. "All the fault and all the blame here falls on me."


In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report in which 11 former Armstrong teammates exposed the system with which they and Armstrong received drugs with the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians.






George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo











Lance Armstrong's Many Denials Caught on Tape Watch Video









Lance Armstrong Admits Using Performance-Enhancing Drugs Watch Video









Lance Armstrong's Oprah Confession: The Consequences Watch Video





The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," USADA said in its report.


As a result of USADA's findings, Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles. Soon, longtime sponsors including Nike began to abandon him, too.


READ MORE: Did Doping Cause Armstrong's Cancer?


Armstrong said he was driven to cheat by a "ruthless desire to win."


He told Winfrey that his competition "cocktail" consisted of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, and that he had previously used cortisone. He would not, however, give Winfrey the details of when, where and with whom he doped during seven winning Tours de France between 1999 and 2005.


He said he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the tour again in 2010.


"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.


READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions


PHOTOS: Olympic Doping Scandals: Past and Present


PHOTOS: Tour de France 2012


Armstrong would not name other members of his team who doped, but admitted that as the team's captain he set an example. He admitted he was "a bully" but said there "there was a never a directive" from him that his teammates had to use banned substances.


"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.


"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."


"Did you feel bad about it?" she asked again.


"No," he said.


Armstrong said he thought taking the drugs was similar to filling his tires with air and bottle with water. He never thought of his actions as cheating, but "leveling the playing field" in a sport rife with doping.






Read More..

Floods swamp Indonesia capital, 19,000 homeless






JAKARTA: Floods which have made more than 19,000 people homeless and killed three brought parts of the Indonesian capital to a standstill Thursday, with even the president forced to roll up his trousers.

The waist-deep muddy waters paralysed much of the centre of Jakarta, home to 20 million people and already notorious for its chaotic traffic.

Drivers were stuck in snaking queues for hours in the morning and cyclists pushed bikes with only the handlebars and seats visible.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was pictured in the grounds of the presidential palace with his trousers rolled up to the knee, brown water lapping his calves and threatening to flood the shrubbery.

"Jakarta is flooded: hopefully there won't be too many victims," he told photographers, ordering military, police and disaster officials to ensure safety.

The monsoon floods had driven more than 19,000 people from their homes, according to Jakarta governor Joko Widodo.

National disaster management agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the death toll rose to three when a 35-year old man was electrocuted on Thursday. A two-year old boy was swept away and a 46-year-old man was electrocuted earlier this week.

The waters started to recede in the afternoon but floods remained in some areas including the central business district, where luxury hotels and the French, German and British embassies were surrounded.

Motorists trying to avoid the deluge drove along pavements and central reservations, or headed the wrong way down one-way streets. In some areas children punted rafts along roads which looked more like canals.

"Jakarta today is a huge swimming pool. Everyone's playing in the rain, walking in the water and laughing. The downside is, I have no idea how to get home, I might have to walk back three hours," 32-year-old administrative officer Yohanna, who uses a single name, told AFP.

Authorities raised the flood alert to its highest level early Thursday, said disaster agency spokesman Nugroho, describing the city as "besieged".

"The situation could get worse in the coming days as the rain shows little sign of abating," he told AFP.

But as rescuers rushed to evacuate residents, welfare ministry spokesman Tito Setiawan said the situation was under control.

"We have sent out trucks and rafts to move victims whose homes were inundated to temporary shelters. We will also provide food, water and humanitarian aid," he said.

Indonesia is regularly afflicted by deadly floods and landslides during its wet season, which lasts around half the year, and many in the capital live beside rivers which periodically overflow.

- AFP/fa



Read More..

ISI fomented BTAD trouble to destabilize country: Gogoi

GUWAHATI: Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi today blamed both external forces, including Pakistan's ISI, and internal elements for fomenting trouble in BTAD area in the state to destabilise the country.

"The trouble in BTAD area last year was a part of a greater design by both internal and external forces like the ISI to not only to destabilise Assam but the country as well," Gogoi told reporters here.

"The role of insurgents and ISI is there. These forces were certainly involved in the Bodoland Territorial Administrative Districts (BTAD) trouble. Otherwise how did it happen," he asked.

The ongoing CBI probe will reveal the anti-national forces as well as those from outside involved in the BTAD violence, he said.

The involvement of some political forces in the month- long violence that claimed about a hundred lives and left about 4.5 lakh people homeless, would also be exposed by the CBI investigation, he said.

The role of the social networking media was also being investigated. "Otherwise from where were the bulk SMSes (about northeasterners living outside the region to be targeted following the violence and resulted in mass exodus) sent?"

As the social media cannot be regulated in a democracy, the state government in consultation with the Centre is trying to work out a strategy for such a situation.

The divisive forces were still active in BTAD, Gogoi said, adding both the government and the people would have to remain alert to thwart the designs of such forces out to create disturbances.

Referring to the 4.5 lakh people who had taken shelter in relief camps following the outbreak of the violence last year, he said 4000 are yet to return to their homes and the process of rehabilitation was on.

Read More..

6 Ways Climate Change Will Affect You

Photograph by AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

The planet keeps getting hotter, new data showed this week. Especially in America, where 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded, by far. Every few years, the U.S. federal government engages hundreds of experts to assess the impacts of climate change, now and in the future.

From agriculture (pictured) to infrastructure to how humans consume energy, the National Climate Assessment Development Advisory Committee spotlights how a warming world may bring widespread disruption.

Farmers will see declines in some crops, while others will reap increased yields.

Won't more atmospheric carbon mean longer growing seasons? Not quite. Over the next several decades, the yield of virtually every crop in California's fertile Central Valley, from corn to wheat to rice and cotton, will drop by up to 30 percent, researchers expect. (Read about "The Carbon Bathtub" in National Geographic magazine.)

Lackluster pollination, driven by declines in bees due partly to the changing climate, is one reason. Government scientists also expect the warmer climate to shorten the length of the frosting season necessary for many crops to grow in the spring.

Aside from yields, climate change will also affect food processing, storage, and transportation—industries that require an increasing amount of expensive water and energy as global demand rises—leading to higher food prices.

Daniel Stone

Published January 16, 2013

Read More..

Notre Dame: Football Star Was 'Catfished' in Hoax













Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.


Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy, said in a statement today that he fell in love with a girl online last year who turned out not to be real.


The university's athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, said it has been investigating the "cruel hoax" since Te'o approached officials in late December to say he believed he had been tricked.


Private investigators hired by the university subsequently monitored online chatter by the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, adding that he was shocked by the "casual cruelty" it revealed.


"They enjoyed the joke," Swarbrick said, comparing the ruse to the popular film "Catfish," in which filmmakers revealed a person at the other end of an online relationship was not who they said they were.


"While we still don't know all of the dimensions of this ... there are certain things that I feel confident we do know," Swarbrick said. "The first is that this was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax, perpetrated for reasons we don't understand."






Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images











Notre Dame's Athletic Director Discusses Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax Watch Video









MTV's 'Catfish' Series Pulls Back Curtain on Online Profiles Watch Video







Te'o said during the season that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia in September on the same day Te'o's grandmother died, triggering an outpouring of support for Te'o at Notre Dame and in the media.


"While my grandma passed away and you take, you know, the love of my life [Kekua]. The last thing she said to me was, 'I love you,'" Te'o said at the time, noting that he had talked to Kekua on the phone and by text message until her death.


Now, responding to a story first reported by the sports website Deadspin, Te'o has acknowledged that Kekua never existed. The website reported today that there were no records of a woman named Lennay Kekua anywhere.


Te'o denied that he was in on the hoax.


"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement released this afternoon. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her."


Swarbrick said he expected Te'o to give his version of events at a public event soon, perhaps Thursday, and that he believed Te'o's representatives were planning to disclose the truth next week until today's story broke.


Deadspin reported that the image attached to Kekua's social media profiles, through which the pair interacted, was of another woman who has said she did not even know Te'o or know that her picture was being used. The website reported that it traced the profiles to a California man who is an acquaintance of Te'o and of the woman whose photo was stolen.


"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," Te'o said.






Read More..

Tennis: Djokovic dazzles in straight-sets win over Harrison






MELBOURNE: Novak Djokovic was in the zone with a dazzling demolition of Ryan Harrison as he stormed into the third round of the Australian Open on Wednesday.

The world number one was in irresistible form, outclassing the young American 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 in just one hour 31 minutes of high-class tennis on Rod Laver Arena.

Djokovic, a three-time winner and going for three straight Australian titles, will next play Czech journeyman Radek Stepanek in the last 32.

The Serb said it was one of the best matches he has played in the early rounds at a Grand Slam.

"I've played many matches in Grand Slams in my career, so it's tough to compare which one is the best I would take under the circumstances," he said.

"I tried to focus on the start and I knew that he had nothing to lose and would come out with his big serves, but I managed to make some very important early breaks at the start of the match.

"I was a set up after 20 minutes and it was a mental advantage, I felt much more comfortable on the court.

"This was definitely a better performance than the first round.

"I managed to play in a very high level already in the second round of a Grand Slam, which is very encouraging for next challenge."

Djokovic jumped out of the blocks and won 12 of the first 13 points to put the young American on the back foot and down an early service break.

He broke Harrison again in the sixth game and wrapped up the opening set in just 20 minutes.

The Serb top seed carried on where he left off breaking the American's opening service to win seven of the first eight games.

Djokovic broke Harrison's serve for a fourth time to carry on the blitz and raced to a two sets to love lead via three set points in 30 minutes.

Harrison was broken again in the opening game of the final set as Djokovic closed in on victory.

But the young American refused to give in and held three service games under pressure, to the appreciation of the centre court crowd.

Djokovic again put Harrison's service under pressure and took out the match on his second match point.

"He played really well," Harrison said. "Kind of getting broke in that first service game, giving a guy that's that good a little bit of a lead and letting him front-run is just not the ideal way to start."

- AFP/fa



Read More..

Puri shankaracharya blames western influence for rapes

KOLKATA: Western influence was one of the main reasons behind the rise in incidents of rape in the country, sankaracharya of Puri Swami Sri Nischalananda Saraswati said here on Wednesday.

The western influence — films, club culture and drugs has destroyed the age old values and principles of the country. "There is need to change this. Before Independence we were able to maintain our culture and values but in the last 65 years we have lost a great part of it."

"Such horrific incidents ( Delhi gang rape) don't happen all of a sudden. They happen when the thin line of culture and values are crossed in the name of civilization and development."

The people, the holy man said, should ponder over this and ensure that such incidents don't happen.

"Earlier sisters and brothers roamed freely but nothing used to happen. There has been decline in human values, emotions ... Our culture and civilization teaches us to respect women, who are our sisters and mothers," he said

Asked for his comment on the brutal killing of Indian soldiers by Pakistani army, the sankaracharya said the incident was barbaric and against human values.

Accusing the government of not being strong enough to deal with such incidents, he said "We need to think why is the image of the government and the country so weak that a neighbouring country doesn't think twice before perpetuating such an act."

Read More..

Mars Rover Finds Intriguing New Evidence of Water


The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum.

Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced Tuesday that the rover was now in a virtual "candy store" of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale crater, called Yellowknife Bay, is filled with many different materials that could have been created only in the presence of water. (Related: "Mars Has 'Oceans' of Water Inside?")

Project scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said during a press conference that the drill area has turned out "to be jackpot unit. Every place we drive exposes fractures and vein fills."

Mission scientists initially decided to visit the depression, a third of a mile from Curiosity's landing site, on a brief detour before heading to the large mountain at the middle of Gale Crater. But because of the richness of their recent finds, Grotzinger said it may be some months before they begin their trek to Mount Sharp.

The drilling, expected to start this month, will dig five holes about two inches (five centimeters) into bedrock the size of a throw rug and then feed the powder created to the rover's two chemistry labs for analysis.

The drill is the most complex device on the rover and is the last instrument to be used. Project Manager Richard Cook, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that operating it posed the biggest mechanical challenge since Curiosity's high-drama landing. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

A Watery Past?

That now-desiccated Mars once had a significant amount of surface water is now generally accepted, but every new discovery of when and where water was present is considered highly significant. The presence of surface water in its many possible forms—as a running stream, as a still lake, as ground water soaked into the Martian soil—all add to an increased possibility that the planet was once habitable. (Watch a video about searching for life on Mars.)

And each piece of evidence supporting the presence of water brings the Curiosity mission closer to its formal goal—which is to determine whether Mars was once capable of supporting life.

Curiosity scientists have already concluded that a briskly moving river or stream once flowed near the Gale landing site.

The discovery of the mineral-filled veins within Yellowknife Bay rock fractures adds to the picture because those minerals can be deposited only in watery, underground conditions.

The Curiosity team has also examined Yellowknife Bay for sedimentary rocks with the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).  Scientists have found sandstone with grains up to about the size of a peppercorn, including one shaped like a flower bud that appears to gleam. Other nearby rocks are siltstone, with grains finer than powdered sugar. These are quite different from the pebbles and conglomerate rocks found in the landing area, but all these rocks are evidence of a watery past. (Related: "A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?")

One of the primary reasons Curiosity scientists selected Gale crater as a landing site was because satellite images indicated that water-formed minerals were present near the base of Mount Sharp. Grotzinger said that the minerals' presence so close to the landing site, and some five miles from the mountain, is both a surprise and an opportunity.

The current site in Yellowknife Bay is so promising, Grotzinger said, that he would have been "thrilled" to find similar formations at the mission's prime destination at the base of Mount Sharp.  Now the mission can look forward to the surprises to come at the mountain base while already having struck gold.


Read More..

NRA Ad Calls Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite'


Jan 16, 2013 12:04am







ap barack obama mi 130115 wblog NRA Ad Calls Obama Elitist Hypocrite Ahead of Gun Violence Plan

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo


As the White House prepares to unveil a sweeping plan aimed at curbing gun violence, the National Rifle Association has launched a preemptive, personal attack on President Obama, calling him an “elitist hypocrite” who, the group claims, is putting American children at risk.


In 35-second video posted online Tuesday night, the NRA criticizes Obama for accepting armed Secret Service protection for his daughters, Sasha and Malia, at their private Washington, D.C., school while questioning the placement of similar security at other schools.


“Are the president’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?” the narrator says.


“Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security,” it continues. “Protection for their kids and gun-free zones for ours.”


The immediate family members of U.S. presidents – generally considered potential targets – have long received Secret Service protection.


The ad appeared on a new website for a NRA advocacy campaign – “NRA Stand and Fight” — that the gun-rights group appears poised to launch in response to Obama’s package of gun control proposals that will be announced today.


It’s unclear whether the video will air on TV or only on the web. The NRA did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.  The domain for the website is registered to Ackerman McQueen, the NRA’s long-standing public relations firm.


The White House had no comment on the NRA ad.


In the wake of last month’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Obama administration has met with a cross-section of advocacy groups on all sides of the gun debate to formulate new policy proposals.


The NRA, which met with Vice President Joe Biden last week, has opposed any new legislative gun restrictions, including expanded background checks and limits on the sale of assault-style weapons, instead calling for armed guards at all American schools.


Obama publicly questioned that approach in an interview with “Meet the Press” earlier this month, saying, “I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools. And I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our problem.”


Still, the White House has been considering a call for increased funding for police officers at public schools and the proposal could be part of a broader Obama gun policy package.


Fifty-five percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they support adding armed guards at schools across the country.


“The issue is, are there some sensible steps that we can take to make sure that somebody like the individual in Newtown can’t walk into a school and gun down a bunch of children in a shockingly rapid fashion.  And surely, we can do something about that,” Obama said at a news conference on Monday.


“Responsible gun owners, people who have a gun for protection, for hunting, for sportsmanship, they don’t have anything to worry about,” he said.


ABC News’ Mary Bruce and Jay Shaylor contributed reporting. 



SHOWS: Good Morning America World News







Read More..