- Rodolfo Massi was also released. He is still suspected for dealing with doping/drugs. At first Massi refused a blood test, but then he consented. The results evidently won't be available until September (after all France closes down in August and justice can wait for the camping eh!). The press claim that Massi has been implicated by confessions made by various people already, including, it is alleged Willy Voet, the Festina masseur who was caught with a car full of drugs.
- Other teams had visits by French police after hearings with Alex Zülle, Gilles Bouvard and Emmanuel Magnien.
- No luck for Jeroen Blijlevens. He left Switzerland by plane and landed in Brussels, but.... without a valid passport. So he is still sitting on the airport... Police spokesman Franckx at the Zaventem Airport said it's only an 'administrative problem'. They want to look for a solution as soon as possible.
- Gianni Bugno (34) announced he will retire after the Tour of Lombardi in October. He won the world road title twice, the Giro in 1990, and was the winner of the FICP world rankings twice. He won Milan-San Remo, several stages in the Giro and the Tour de France.
It starts.... Cheer up Juan. Keep your chin up Senor Samaranch. No need to throw your hands in the air and give up on the whole drug-testing thing just because the leader of the Tour de France now gets the yellow jersey and first use of the sharps bin.
Before your bottom lip starts wobbling and you threaten to take your Olympics and go home, let's pause for a moment and consider the situation.
On the one hand, it has become obvious that the major sports are completely drug-riddled and, as a consequence, the credibility of the Olympics is shrinking faster than a stanozolol junkie's testes.
On the other hand, the Olympics are now worth so much money Bill Gates would have to do two hours overtime to buy them. So there is no way anyone - politicians, sports officials, Olympic leaders, athletes or other underworld figures - are going to do anything to derail the gravy train.
So what we need are more public statements that appear to make a huge difference and cause great media debate, but don't actually change anything. Juan set the ball rolling with his, "As long as it doesn't affect your health, roll up your sleeve and jab away" remark.
Only include sports in which taking drugs doesn't improve performance
Under this criteria, the entire Sydney 2000 program will comprise synchronised swimming, lawn bowls, archery, chess and Twister. No amount of EPO will improve performance in these events, although large quantities of very strong drugs will be required to watch them.
Bring back the stocks for athletes who won't accept the blame for what is happening in their sport
Is anyone else bemused by the Tour de France riders' protest at the press coverage of the drug scandal? The top team has been banned, riders and team managers strip-searched in police cells and illegal drugs impounded. What do the riders expect to read in the morning paper, a back page expose on the the dangers of chaffing caused by nylon bike pants?
Let everyone take as many drugs as they like and rake in the sponsorship dollars
Samaranch wasn't the first one aboard the "legalise the needle" bandwagon. This idea has been around for a while. Its proponents argue that drug use is rife, so we may as well let everyone take them and see who comes out on top. Naturally, the IOC would seize the commercial opportunities so that instead of competing for America or Russia athletes would represent Hoechst or Roche.
The up-side is that with even more drugs in their systems, sprinters would smash previous world records, creating great excitement. The down-side is that the long jump pit in the new Olympic Stadium would have to be extended to Randwick.
Given the inadequacy of testing, bring in "assumed" findings based on appearance
This method has been popular in Australia for some time. We assume, for instance, that anyone who beats one of our swimmers must have cheated, especially if she orders a second helping of dim sims after the race, if you know what I mean.
Given that Prime Minister Pauline Hanson will be opening the Sydney Olympics, let's assume anyone who doesn't pass a written English exam, does not have enough vowels in their surname or just looks funny must be on the gear.
Make everyone drink a glass of Sydney water before their event
That'll flush out their systems. (Bill: there is a water crisis in Sydney at present).
Implement the same rigorous policing of drug codes at the Olympics as those used by rugby league.
And you thought the NRL had a drug problem. Huh! As the recently released test results reveal, rugby league is cleaner than the stand-up act at a Salvation Army pie night.
Robbie O and Rodney Howe? The exceptions that prove the rule. And don't say anything different, or some front-rower endowed with only the strength that nature gave him will throw a Volvo at you.
Quarantine the drug cheats by introducing events specifically designed for them
Weightlifters are always bragging about lifting three times their own body weight, so let's have a no-drugs-barred contest where they have to lift three guys in the same weight division (or just one Kim Beazley). There would also be certain ghoulish appeal in making the beard-growing contest among the women's shot putters official and you could still have the 100m sprint but contestants would have to carry a refrigerator.
Drug test the IOC
Actually, no need. I think we have already had our first positive.
On Friday, the Guardian (London) newspaper had a full main-section page which made some of these points to some effect, including this striking piece by distinguished former pro Robert Millar. The article appears below for those outside the UK who cannot access the newspaper.
It appeared under the headline - "I can understand guys being tempted"
Robert Millar, fourth in the 1984 Tour de France and King of the Mountains, writes:
The riders reckon that a good Tour takes one year off your life, and when you finish in a bad state, they reckon three years. I've ridden 11 Tours, finished or got close to the end of four in a bad state, so you work it out.
You can't describe to a normal person how tired you feel: how can you describe feeling so tired that you can't sleep? In 1987, when I finished in a really bad way it took me until the end of November to recover: by that I mean until I could wake up and not feel as tired as if I had already done a day's work.
The fatigue starts to kick in on the Tour after 10 days if you're in good shape, and after five days if you're not in your best condition physically. Then it all just gets worse and worse, you don't sleep so much, so you don't recover as well from the day's racing, so you go into your reserves, you get more knackered, so you sleep less ... It's simply a vicious circle.
The best way of describing how you feel is that it's as if you were a normal person doing a hard day's work, you've got flu, and you can just about drive home and fall into bed. By the end of the Tour, you need sleeping tablets.
You can't divide the mental and physical suffering: you tend to let go mentally before you crack physically, with the constant noise all day as you're riding in the bunch -- people yelling at you, the cars, the helicopters. If you're still physically strong you can block it out mentally, if not, you never relax -- people are shouting, screaming,and trying to touch you.
Riding up one of the mountains in the Tour if you're feeling bad is like being sick. Physically, your body has a limit every day, there's only a set speed you can go at and it might not always be good enough.
The pain in your legs is not the kind of pain you get when you cut yourself. It's fatigue and it's self-imposed.
After a mountain stage, it takes about a day to feel physically normal -- if there isn't another mountain stage the next day. I won three mountain stages, and the day after each one I felt bad for the whole day.
It takes two weeks to recover from a good Tour, three months to recover from a bad one. In 1991 I rode with a neck brace for half the race, after I fell off and a load of guys landed on top of me. I'll have that neck injury for the rest of my life. I crushed some vertebrae, displaced a few bits, and they wouldn't go back immediately because of the swelling.
If you crash and get anything more than superficial injuries, end of story. Your body shuts down, stops recovering, and you perform at a lower level.
I can understand guys being tempted to use drugs in the Tour. Given the real-life situation of drug use, I'd say it was no worse than in the real world where 1 million ecstasy tablets are sold every weekend. Why should sport be different from real life? I don't think it's an isolated cycling thing, people just expect sport to be cleaner than real life.
Men's Pursuit: 1. Robert Slippens 2. Peter Pieters 3. Paul van Schalen 4. Gianni Romme Women's Pursuit: 1. Leontien van Moorsel 2. Anouska van de Zee 3. Marielle van Scheppingen Men's Sprint: 1. Martin Benjamin 2. Floris Klunder 3. Raymond Langevoort Women's Sprint: 1. Mirella van Melis 2. Elke Zijlstra 3. Jose Laan Men's Keirin: 1. Floris Klunder 2. Martin Benjamin 3. Waanders Men's Points Race (Elite/Neo-amateurs): 1. Peter Pieters 2. Robert Slippens 3. Lust Women's Classification Race: 1. Leontien van Moorsel 2. Sissy van Alebeek 3. Debby Mansveld
Florian Rousseau (24), won the world championship in 1977 at Perth and also the Olympic kilo gold at Atlanta in 1996, confirmed his supremacy at the speed Vincent Le Quellec (Cofidis), who is a year younger and part of the sprint team world champions in Perth.
In the two races he needed to take the title, Rousseau was imposing. The first race he won in 11 sec 302/1000 and in the second it was a faster 10 sec 817/1000.
Arnaud Tournant (Cofidis) was third in front of fellow Cofidis rider Laurent Gane. Frédéric Magne, the record holder (9.978) since September 1995, was 5th.
The Elite points race went to 25-year old Serge Barbara in front of Jean-Michel Monin (Ile-de-France) and Jean-Michel Tessier (Nouvelle-Calédonie).