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http://road.cc/content/news/60068-former-lance-armstrong-teammates-excluded-themselves-olympics

And things take another turn!

GCM1980 wrote:

Personally I think it should just be shelved now. So many people are so intent on taking him down that they've lost sight of what they were trying to achieve in the first place. Whether he's guilty of it or not his reputation is already tarnished to be honest, and there's nothing he can do about that. Everyone has their stance on the argument, they come down on one side or the other, and that won't change. Just let it be. There's nothing to be gained out of this now.

Thankfully the sport is as clean as it's ever been now, and the focus should be on keeping it that way.

What can be gained? If he doped then he deserves to have his reputation in tatters. This I see as not delivering a gain for the sport of cycling as it will hurt the sport in the USA.

If he did dope then I feel sorry for him. He was only doing what everyone else was doing. He must feel an overwhelming urge to come clean but he has gone too far down the denial road to turn back.

I still don't know what there is to gain from stripping his titles. Only because that then means we have to hand them down to the next dirty guy on the podium.

Where the real gains will come will be to remove people from our sport who facilitated doping and are still in positions of influence.

That leads me to Johan Bruyneel - if he is guilty then I want him out of the sport so he can't 'help' young impressionable cyclists become 'better' by unfair and illegal means.

I really do hope that cycling is becoming cleaner although I have a constant nagging fear that it isn't. The riders are not the issue. But those in charge of teams and the sport are.

Fungus The Muffin Man wrote:

http://road.cc/content/news/60068-former-lance-armstrong-teammates-excluded-themselves-olympics

And things take another turn!

Sounds to me like they have given evidence to USADA and are fully expecting to be spending the next few months having their reputations torn to shreds by Armstrongs lawyers.

Things starting to warm up for le tour...

Cav... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... Games.html

Wiggins... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... first.html

Sky announce their team tomorrow. BMC have included Steve Cummings in theirs but not Thor Hushovd.

ITV4 coverage in HD... http://www.itv.com/tourdefrance/tour-de ... -schedule/

[John_D]

Sky team announced: Wiggo, Eddy Benson & Hedges, Cav, Eisel, Froome, Knees, Porte, Rogers, Siutsou.

Good team there for Sky with a good mixture of youth and experience. Plus it's quite a strong team for TT's, flat and hilly stages. And lets face it this could end up having to be the strongest most dominant display of a team in the TDF ever if they are to get Brad in Yellow and Cav in Green. Plus also using eddy bo for stage wins in the stages earmarked by the likes of Pip.
It'll be interesting to see if Brad purposefully loses the prolouge so sky don't have to control the race for the first week or so. That way other teams can control the peloton and work to bring back the breakaways leaving sky fresh to lead cav the last 10 k

A really strong team for Sky, underlined by the talent they can afford to leave out.

[John_D]

BMC: Evans, Burghardt, Cummings, Gilbert, Hincapie, Moinard, Quinziato, Schar, van Garderen.
RadioSchleck: FabCan, Gallopin, Horner, Kloden, Monfort, Popovych, Frank, Voigt, Zubeldia.
Garmin: Danielson, Farrar, Hesjedal, Hunter, D Martin, Millar, Vande Velde, Vansummeren, Zabriskie.
Omega Pharma: Chavanel, De Weert, Devenyns, Grabsch, Leipheimer, T Martin, Pineau, Vandenbergh, Velits.
Lotto-Belisol: Bad, de Greef, Greipel, Hansen, Henderson, Roelandts, Sieberg, van den Broeck, Vanendert.
Vacansoleil: Boeckmans, Hoogerland, Larsson, Marcato, Poels, Ruijgh, Valls, van Hummels, Westra.
Katusha: Caruso, Freire, Gusev, Horrach, Kuschynski, Menchov, Paolini, Trofimov, Vorganov.
Rabobank: Gesink, Kruijswijk, Mollema, Renshaw, Luis Leon, Tankink, ten Dam, Tjallingii, Wynants.
Astana: Bozic, Brajkovic, Fofonov, Hryvko, Iglinsky, Kashechkin, Kessiakoff, Kiserlovski, Vinokourov.

Europcar, Euskaltel, Lampre, Liquigas, Ag2r, Cofidis, Saur-Sojasun, FDJ, Movistar, Saxo Bank, Argos-Shimano and GreenEdge yet to declare.

Fungus The Muffin Man wrote:

It'll be interesting to see if Brad purposefully loses the prolouge so sky don't have to control the race for the first week or so. That way other teams can control the peloton and work to bring back the breakaways leaving sky fresh to lead cav the last 10 k

It'll be intruiging to see how Sky play it.

Take it after stage 9 or wait until after stage 19? Stage 9 means defending in the high mountains whereas taking it after stage 20 means no worries at all.

My view would be that he doesn't want to be risking it all at the last TT when anything can happen. Take it after stage 9 would be my preference. Sky have shown how well they defend a jersey.

[John_D]

I don't think you can turn down any opportunity to lead, can you?