This Day in Doping: Floyd hit with warrant

Our dreams for Team Rehab at the Dopers Reunion Tour de France 2010 have taken another body blow with announcement that a France-based warrant for Floyd Landis’ arrest was issued in late January. The warrant concerns hacking of an lab computer, but since the hacking related to Landis’ being stripped of his Tour de France victory for cheating, it seems likely to take Floyd out of the picture for this year’s Tour.

Looks clean...

[Update: Floyd says warrant? What warrant? One suggestion: You might want to lose the shades, my man.]

The warrant stipulates that Landis can be arrested if he touches foot in France. It might well be possible for a rider of Landis’ abilities to stay on his bike the entire time, including track stands in staging areas, but for practical purposes Floyd will have to stay out of France if he wants to avoid a court appearance.

Twisted Spoke muses over a Landis-Polanski straight-up trade, the problem (for our purposes) being that Polanski, whatever his cinematic accomplishments, can’t climb Alpe d’Huez and the kind of rehab he needs has nothing to do with doping. Still, we’re not opposed to the idea…

And it looks like Michael Rasmussen won’t be able to make the Tour either. Drat. The cheats are dropping like flies. It’s hard to know who, when you put doping in the mix, you can really count on in professional cycling these days.

Meanwhile, Italian cyclist Eddy Ratti has joined the ranks of the fallen.

This Day in Doping: Landis dreams of BIG comeback, Rebellin must wait it out

Having served his penalty for doping in the 2006 Tour de France, Floyd Landis now aims to get back into Euro stage racing. What team will he join? Expect the rumor mill to churn back up as trial balloons get sent … Team Radio Shack anyone? Lance & Floyd, reunited?

Bicycle.net: Davide Rebellin will be stripped of his 2008 Olympic silver medal after testing positive for EPO. Another indication that even if you dodge detection the first time or two around, technological advances will eventually nab ya.

This Day in Doping: So many syringes, so little time

Doping scandals aplenty, Velo News reports. They’re taking another look at 2008 Giro d’Italia samples for CERA, undetectable previously but now testable. The same may happen for the 2009 Giro and Tour as testing catches up with ever newer, previously undetectable substances.

“The report also outlined a new blood doping practice which evaded current testing protocol which monitor blood parameters. About 200ml of blood is extracted, mixed with an anti-coagulant, and re-injected. The practice does not alter blood values and is all but undetectable, the report said.”

And the UCI, whose efficacy anti-doping authorities continue to question, emerges with another black eye:

“Earlier efforts to back-test Giro samples for CERA were squashed by the UCI, but now Italian officials in Padua have taken up the case.”

The Chicken is back! Michael Rasmussen, who was on track to win the 2007 Tour de France before his team suspended him for deceiving it re his whereabouts before the race began, has picked up a new team following his two-year ban.

Rasmussen’s case bears some investigation, because he essentially beat the doping system. He never actually tested positive. He was put on ice simply out of suspicion of cheating.

Which means the system must be pretty easily beatable, because they suspected Rasmussen well before the Tour began and one would assume must have tested him rigorously during the race. So what went wrong? How could this happen? They’re so convinced he doped that they barred him, but nothing in their vast array of testing procedures could prove it?

Euskaltel-Euskadi on the comeback trail from doping scandals? Can they stay clean? And with this kind of money involved, will they get reported if they aren’t clean?

“As part of continued 1 million euro commitment to the team’s total 6.5 million euro budget, the government has included a clause in the sponsorship contract that would end the deal if more doping cases pop up. Reports in Basque Country media also point to an early exodus of title sponsor Euskaltel – the regional telephone operator – if there’s another doping case.”

Floyd Landis got caught and paid the price. Now he’s saying “politics” will keep him from ever competing in the Tour again.

Here’s an idea: Floyd and the Chicken and Tyler Hamilton and Bernhard Kohl and Vinokourov and a bunch of other banned cyclists get together and form a Tour team sponsored by BigPharma companies that make methadone. They could call it Team LiveClean.

World Champion Cadel Evans now wants to finally win the Tour, a prime motivator for his move from Silence to BMC Racing. We wish him luck. Cadel is one of the few pros who proactively says he does not dope. We trust he’s telling the truth and admire him for taking a stand. We also like him because he’s a former mountain biking champion. (So is Rasmussen, but we don’t admire him because, as with a lot of big names in cycling, there’s too much evidence he’s a cheat, even though he never actually got caught.)