I wonder if it would be considered rude in French culture to turn down their generous offer.

Hell froze over!

“Today, Mr. Pierre Bodry, the new head of the French anti-doping agency, proposed that they retest samples from the 1999 Tour de France. Unfortunately, Mr. Bodry is new to these issues and his proposal is based on a fundamental failure to understand the facts.”

“In 2005, some research was conducted on urine samples left over from the 1998 and 1999 Tours de France. That research was the subject of an independent investigation, and the conclusions of the investigation were that the 1998 and 1999 Tour de France samples have not been maintained properly, have been compromised in many ways, and even three years ago could not be tested to provide any meaningful results. There is simply nothing that I can agree to that would provide any relevant evidence about 1999.”

“In addition, the Independent Investigation concluded that the French laboratory, the French Ministry of Sport, and Dick Pound, the former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, all behaved improperly with respect to the 1999 Tour de France samples. The Independent Investigation concluded that both Mr. Pound and the French laboratory engaged in improper conduct that violated a number of regulations and laws. After the report of the Independent Investigator was issued, Mr. Pound’s conduct was submitted to the IOC Ethics Commission and the IOC Ethics Commission censured Mr. Pound.”

“What the Report of the Independent Investigation did recommend, was that the issues of the conduct of Mr. Pound, the World Anti-Doping Agency, the French Ministry, and the French laboratory should be submitted to an independent tribunal, in particular the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the Court for the entire Olympic movement, to address the issues and improper conduct identified by the Independent Investigator.”

“Two years ago I agreed to have all of these issues aired and decided by that tribunal, but WADA and the French Ministry refused. If Mr. Bodry would now like to re-examine the past, he must start with presenting the issues of the misconduct of the French laboratory, the French Ministry, and WADA before a proper tribunal.”

“To avoid any questions going forward and to avoid any distractions from my primary purpose to launch a global campaign against cancer, I am working with the man who has been the leader of the world anti-doping community for the past 25 years. I approached Dr. Don Catlin in August and proposed to him that he should develop a comprehensive drug testing protocol, to test my blood and urine as often as he believes is appropriate, in order for him to determine categorically whether I have taken any performance-enhancing drugs.”

“As I have stated, I have given Dr. Catlin my permission to post all of my testing results on the internet. Dr. Catlin is developing a protocol that will be available to other athletes who may want to subject themselves to such a rigorous drug testing regimen that Dr. Catlin or other leading anti-doping experts can determine whether they have used performance enhancing drugs.”

Strikes me that there might as well be a line drawn under the 1999 affair for now. Even if HWMNBN (as i understood i should call him from another post i was browsing yesterday) did have positive samples, it would make very little difference to me as a cycling fan. I’m pretty confident on 3 things – that it wasn’t just him (if it was him), that testing procedures weren’t as punctilious as they should have been and finally that there has been considerable hypocrisy at the top levels of cycling & the ASO, etc don’t actually have Moral High Ground to stand on.

I suspect that if ever everyone involved in cycling during the 90s & early 00s actually told the whole truth, we’d end up with about 5 truly innocent riders & possibly even a couple of Lanterne Rouge winners ending up in a retrospective Yellow Jersey.

But it’s time to move on.

I’m happy for the Guilty to step forward and admit – i was pleased when Riis made his admission. I am happy for those who confess to name accomplices. I am happy to see false idols “de-pedified”.

But what i am tiring of is INSINUATION of guilt. I think it is now time to look forward and try to rid the sport of the reasons for that guilt.

I think it is great to have robust contemporary historical analysis (er, ie retrospectively analysing recent races), but i don’t feel the need to find out that Eddy Mercxk was pumped up on Amphetamine, Janques Anquetil had traces of Heroin calming his muscles or Bernard Hinault had Bovine TB vaccine in his blood.

I understand that cycling was a mess, i think i understand why people went along with it – now i just want to be left with a sport that i can believe in… well, actually with athletes i can believe in – i believe in the sport well enough – i ride a bike and i race with fellow riders – that’s all i need to believe in the sport.

My tuppence worth (or maybe more given how long this post is) at any rate.

…the upshot being that personally i’ve given up celebrating that one now

This move from AFLD is just the opening salvo. Fine, he doesn’t want to let his 1999 samples be retested. Next they’ll move on to trying to get him to let the UCI release all his testing data, showing H levels and the like.

Don Catlin in Daily News interview:

We’re going to freeze the samples, forever. In five years, if somebody comes with a test and says, well, probably Lance was using this five years ago – here’s a sample.