Keep your day job Jim

I hope I’m good at what I do. Because, I am further reminded as to why I am not a writer. Today, Martin Dugard, a real writer, outlines clearly, concisely, and eloquently some of the overarching themes that are woven through the recent media attention to the various doping stories out there. To put it in one word, Lance.

Read the entry titled Swift Boating.

Why does virtually every doping story bring the reader to Lance Armstrong? I guess many feel that the general public believes the axiom “Where there is smoke, there is fire.” Therefore, I believe that people like Dick Pound are setting off smoke canisters and yelling “See! See! There must be fire there! Look at all that smoke!”

I have come to the conclusion that with all the cumulative investigative-hours put towards looking, there is nothing to find. Nothing can stay hidden under that pressure, ask Nixon.

As Mr. Dugard puts it; “Would Dick Pound’s life hold up to similar scrutiny?”

And you thought “the look” was bad

I’ll bet a few athletes breathed a sigh of relief when the Spanish authorities in Operation Puerto said they could not and would not pursue any riders since there is no law in place to be broken. That gave some riders the resolve to refuse to cooperate with their own country’s investigation. The big refusal is in providing DNA samples. Even the UCI has said they would not turn over samples to the various anti-doping authorities. Jan Ullrich probably felt pretty confident in his Swiss home looking at his Swiss racing license. Reminds me of the foot of L’Alpe d’Heuz in 2001. Until the German authorities came from the back of the peloton.

German authorities decided to attack by searching 10 houses in the Jan Ullrich case. These included Jan Ullrich’s house in Scherzingen, Switzerland, the home and office of his manager, Wolfgang Strohband, in Hamburg, Germany, and the Belgian home of Rudy Pevenage.

The authorities took DNA samples from Jan to compare to the blood samples seized in Operation Puerto. This may be the tipping point. If a positive link is found, look for pressure to go on Ivan Basso to supply DNA samples even if it is only 99.9% accurate as is the concern of Basso’s lawyers. The code breakers in Operation Puerto will have proved themselves.

If there is no link, look for a huge uproar from riders and their fans to drop the campaign against them. Then this case will go quietly into the night.

How many supporters of Floyd Landis also support Tyler?

And will this erode things? From Cyclingnews

The USA national cycling federation, USA Cycling, confirmed that it has “received information from the UCI regarding Tyler Hamilton and his alleged involvement in ‘Operation Puerto’ along with a request to move forward with disciplinary action.” USAC has placed the matter in the hands of the US Anti-Doping Agency, which will adjudicate.

“We received a communication from the UCI today containing the ‘Operation Puerto’ dossier for Mr. Tyler Hamilton and a request to open disciplinary proceedings against him,” said USAC’s CEO Steve Johnson. “As required by our anti-doping regulations, we have forwarded the complete dossier to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and have asked them to adjudicate this case on our behalf.”

I’ve said before, I don’t think anything should happen to Tyler. If everything said is true, he’s already being punished. We would not only have confirmation on how he did what he was convicted of doing. No new infractions.