Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Its the first day of Autumn and I figure its time to try and give this sucker another go.

After spending two weeks off the bike following Labor Day I jumped on the CX bike Saturday. There was a football game up at school and most of the fields were occupied so I just did fundamental stuff like dismounts and remounts. Nothing too hard. Then I rode over to the church grounds and got a little bit of riding in and ran around the baseball field once.

Sunday I went back up to school and had the area to myself. I did three hard laps, then 1 easy, and 2 more hard laps. It was about 35 minutes of riding and then not including the warmup and cooldown. Sunday evening and Monday I was a little stiff.

I have resolved to try and do a some running this winter just a something different. It may help a little in CX too.

Tonight, after dinner, I walked up to school and ran a half mile. It took about 3:15 to complete. Not exactly world class but I'm satisfied considering I never run. A couple years ago I ran 2 miles just for the heck of it and it took 16 minutes so 3:15 for .5 miles is not bad. I'd probably slot down over 2 miles though.

News Item of the Day
The Vuelta a España has been rocked this morning by news that Tyler Hamilton (Phonak), has returned two positive blood tests that showed evidence of a homologous blood transfusion. One test was performed at the Athens Olympics and another at the Vuelta on September 13. Both tests showed evidence of a "mixed red blood cell population, an indication of a homologous blood transfusion," Phonak's press officer Georges Lüchinger was quoted by AP as saying. The results of the counter-analyses are not yet known, but are expected today (Tuesday).

Hamilton, winner of the gold medal at the Athens 2004 Olympics in the individual time trial as well as the Vuelta's eighth stage time trial, abandoned the race prior to stage 13 claiming stomach problems. Hamilton has denied having a transfusion, saying the positive test was the result of a surgical intervention he had some time ago. If the B samples are confirmed positive, then he risks losing his Olympic gold medal, which would make Viatcheslav Ekimov the Olympic time trial champion again.

Phonak team director Alvaro Pino said, "I have spoken to Tyler and he has claimed he is innocent and apart from whatever the (Phonak) team decides, he will do whatever he has to do to defend himself from these accusations." Phonak will hold a press conference later this evening.

Enhancing endurance performance via blood transfusion is nothing new: Athletes admitted to using it at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, when it was not illegal. Typically, a quantity of blood is withdrawn from an athlete some time before an important competition, and when the time comes, the red cells are reinjected to provide an extra boost. This can also be done with another person's blood and even with EPO-enhanced blood, although the risk of detection is far greater. Former Kelme cyclist Jesus Manzano claimed that he nearly died when he was reinjected with some "bad blood" late in 2003.

Tyler Hamilton's case is the first ever positive for a blood transfusion, as up until very recently, doping via this method has been undetectable. A powerful blood test developed by Australian researchers was implemented at this year's Tour de France. The test didn't look for a particular banned substance, but instead examined whether there were any abnormalities in a person's blood as a result of artificial manipulation. At the Tour, it was announced that homologous blood transfusions could be detected, but autologous

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