damn. i so wish i’d thought of that. man purse, ha!

but the ball as a “man purse”, oh yeah! There is probably even a secret compartment in there to hold who knows what…..

about kicking Ricco when he’s down. But, since you’ve asked, Ricco has been turning in suspicious tests since he was a junior. He was mentioned in some of the Italian investigations a couple of years ago and mysteriously pulled from SD’s Giro squadra without much of an explanation. While he hasn’t been full-on busted before now, he fits the profile of the “Men in Black” or folks w/ suspicous profiles that the ASO and WADA are pursuing w/ due dilligence.

As for Schumi, he’s had his share of brushes w/ the rules, but nothing, I repeat, nothing on the scale of Ricco’s. For example, his first problems were for a substance (something homeopathic, he got from his mother, a naturopathic doctor) that he wrote IN ADVANCE to his national federation for permission to use. He was granted permission, and then busted by WADA. This is the wisdom of zero tolerance laws.

Then traces of a substance were found in his system in a non-sporting test. No one could have sanctioned him for that without breaking every rule in the book. To be completely clear, nothing in Schumi’s drunk driving arrest could legally have been used to sanction him. This is just like Lance Armstrong’s so-called positive for cortisone in the 1999 tour. It is enough to make folks who don’t like him suspicious, but revealed nothing that was against the rules.

So while on the surface, Ricco and Schumi’s cases appear similar, I’d say there was real reason to doubt the integrity of Ricco’s performances, and Schumi less so. I mean, I’m not going to say I’m any more shocked if he gets busted than when say, Sinkewicz got busted, but Gerol has a good rep for self-policing and a management style that discourages the pharma advantage.

Riding fast is not evidence of doping. I guess folks can look at VAM figures to determining real “extra-terrestrial” performances from mere heroism. But as far as I know, there is no data supporting the argument that Schumi’s ITT was impossible without the aid of Pharma.

None of this is to suggest that suspicion of Schumi is not reasonable, but I don’t think it is any more reasonable to suspect Schumi than it is to suspect anyone and everyone who has ridden for managers like Saiz, Ferretti, Lefevre, Bruynll, Giannetti, Pino, Belda, etc.

you can pretty much find it about just about any performance. seriously. plenty of rumors about the crono, also, as it happens, and schumi was asked point blank at the press conference how his case compared with boonen’s and why he was even riding the tour when boonen isn’t. plenty of questions out there about any number of the riders in this year’s tour and their performances.

judging from the reactions here, the views of ricco were pretty mixed. some believed him clean, others didn’t. pretty much what you can say about just about any rider out there. what k said is plenty true – he’s had a bad rep. for some time in italy. i do seem to recall posting that a few times over the last few months.

for me, there’s not much point in dwelling on this sort of thing. there’s always a possibility that a rider is doping, no one except him knowns the truth. either you’re willing to cheer for a particular rider or you aren’t.

Schumacher’s win wasn’t a huge surprise. He do win TT’s now and then, and he was only beaten by Bert Grabsch in the German championships just a couple of weeks ago.