"I never tested positive."

In article
,
Ryan Cousineau wrote:

To give an example from hockey, fighting is penalized by a 5-minute
sit-down. You don't get ejected, you don't get sanctioned. Indeed, there
are circumstances in which the etiquette of the game would demand that
two players fight (ie if one player goons your star player, then the
toughest guy on the ice from your team is expected to skate up and drop
gloves. If the goon doesn't reciprocate, it's VERY bad manners, with
consequences akin to perpetually not working in a breakaway).

I will go further. Fighting in ice hockey is healthy. Even
then nutting is illegal and is sanctioned, beyond the
coincidental five minute major penalty.

--
Michael Press

In article ,
Michael Press wrote:

In article
,
Ryan Cousineau wrote:

To give an example from hockey, fighting is penalized by a 5-minute
sit-down. You don't get ejected, you don't get sanctioned. Indeed, there
are circumstances in which the etiquette of the game would demand that
two players fight (ie if one player goons your star player, then the
toughest guy on the ice from your team is expected to skate up and drop
gloves. If the goon doesn't reciprocate, it's VERY bad manners, with
consequences akin to perpetually not working in a breakaway).

I will go further. Fighting in ice hockey is healthy. Even
then nutting is illegal and is sanctioned, beyond the
coincidental five minute major penalty.

Absolutely. Indeed, it's generally seen as a practical, non-dangerous
way to settle disputes when the gentlemen in question are out there with
skates and sticks.

On the other hand, diving in hockey, though it happens, is considered by
most fans to be an utterly classless move. The NHL has made some effort
to get rid of it, mainly through calling penalties on divers (or, in one
of the most confusing plays in sport, the same incident can lead to one
player getting a penalty for tripping/hooking/interference, and the
other player getting a penalty for the dive). As far as I can tell from
watching the World Cup, they must give a best supporting actor award at
the season-end banquet.

***

I hope the feeling in cycling is moving towards the idea that doping is
an outre activity, and not 2 minutes for doping.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

Steve Freides a écrit :
"Gunsberg" wrote in message
oups.com...


Guilty until proven innocent is an essential concept--when dealing
with
crimnal cases where the defendant faces santions by the State. It is
morally obtuse to assert that everybody is entitles to a presumption
of
innocence all of the time, even when facing non-criminal penalties
from
team owners or race organizers.


I disagree. The bigger the consequences, the more important it is to be
certain. The fact that the penalties are non-criminal means nothing
here.

-S-




Are you under the impression that the guarda civil is not pursuing
criminal prosecutions ?

in message , Steve Freides
') wrote:

"Mark" wrote in message
...
Steve Freides wrote:
There are places where appearances matter, e.g., politics - I know
politicians sometimes can't do their jobs effectively if they are
under suspicion of wrongdoing, even if nothing's been proven. But
this is not that, and these guys could race.

If we view the racers as product endorsers (they do have corporate
names displayed all over their racing kit), their profession might
qualify as one in which appearances matter.

So they can lose their endorsement deals, but they still should be able
to race, IMHO.

So, "you can race round France for a month if you like, but you won't get
paid and you'll have to pay your own masseurs, mechanics and team car
drivers, and your hotel bills and food and petrol for the cars and..."

Might be realistic if this was an individual sport, but it's not. Nor
could it be. If every rider had his own support car the caravan would be
even more chaotic; and, in any case, the emergence of the team system
merely formalised the realities of road racing - a bunch of guys working
together do better than individuals competing all the time.

In a team where everyone dopes, of course, the riders could club together
to pay their mechanics and drivers... until the money runs out.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

...but have you *seen* the size of the world wide spider?

in message , Steve Freides
') wrote:

This is a good point, but in my opinion, the concept of that agreement
is flawed as well. Â*What is to stop a malicious person from creating
"evidence", calling a press conference, and derailing an opportunity
for a professional cyclist to compete. Â*How do we know, e.g., that the
list of names found isn't a list of people they're planning to contact
but haven't yet - or any of a milliion other possible explanations?

I have not learned the particulars, and it may well be that the
evidence is damning, but I would like to see what this evidence is.

Again, just my opinion. Â*I find it difficult to believe the likes of
Ulrich and Basso would throw away their chance at a TdF win, two
different guys from two different teams, that they would have this same
"Spanish connection" in common. Â*Just difficult for me to accept based
on what I've heard to date.

That's what's bothering me. It would be /extremely/ easy to manufacture
false 'evidence' against the cyclists. It could well be that this whole
thing is a betting fraud. The fact that it's /such/ a clean sweep of the
people who were favourites a year ago is suspicious in itself. As I
understand it, all the evidence against Basso that's been revealed so
far is that the name of /his/ /dog/ was found written on the back of a
business card, and the evidence against Ullrich is that 'Rudy's boy' has
been found written on a blood bag.

So if this is a fraud, Fuentes will be able to turn round later and say
with a straight face 'no, of course Basso and Ullrich weren't involved,
I never suggested they were'. If this is a fraud, I find it extremely
hard to see what Fuentes could be charged with - is it illegal to keep
200 bags of blood?

/Presumably/ the Guardia Civil have done DNA analysis on the contents of
the bags, and certainly the UCI have samples of blood from all the
cyclists against which those DNA analyses could be matched, and I assume
by now someone has done this. But I wish someone would stand up and
say "yes, definitely, three of the 200 bags contain [Basso|Ullrich]'s
blood", or, conversely, "no, definitely, we have not found any trace of
[Basso|Ullrich]'s blood here."

Of course, if the word on the street a year ago was 'if you want to win
you have to see Fuentes - he's expensive but he's the best there is'
then you would, sadly, expect to see all the most ambitious and best
paid dopers going to him, so I don't find the idea that '...two
different guys from two different teams...' should go to the same blood
doping clinic surprising in itself.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; An enamorata is for life, not just for weekends.

That's what's bothering me. It would be /extremely/ easy to manufacture
false 'evidence' against the cyclists.

So if all / some riders are found not guilty, would they have any legal
recourse against UCI / ASO / Spanish police for the presumption of guilt
without a trial and so onto loss of earnings etc.

I think a well publisized legal case against these entities would stop the
guilty by innuendo that we currently have, this would hopefully lead to a
situation where there are no smear campaigns but actual facts to prosecute
with.

I do find it a little suspicious that this always seems to start a week or
so before the TDF.

J

in message , news.absamail.co.za
') wrote:

in message ,
Simon Brooke ') wrote:
That's what's bothering me. It would be /extremely/ easy to
manufacture false 'evidence' against the cyclists.

So if all / some riders are found not guilty, would they have any legal
recourse against UCI / ASO / Spanish police for the presumption of
guilt without a trial and so onto loss of earnings etc.

I don't see why, sadly. le Tour is ASO's party. You can't make them
invite you to their party, and if they do invite you and then withdraw
the invitation, well tough. No-one has a /right/ to be invited. It is,
essentially, a private event.

I'm still hoping that some of the riders named will be found not guilty.
I'm like a Christian. I /want/ to believe, against all the evidence. I
know I'm clutching at straws.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; my other religion is Emacs

I don't see why, sadly. le Tour is ASO's party. You can't make them
invite you to their party, and if they do invite you and then withdraw
the invitation, well tough. No-one has a /right/ to be invited. It is,
essentially, a private event.
Mmmmmm.... don't know if it is a private party, the whole of cycling is
controlled by the UCI, ASO runs under UCI rules, the riders run under UCI
rules.

But my bottom line is that riders are being /hurt/ by innuendo, no one that
has been kicked out of this tour has had any way of defending himself.
Surely there has to be some system in place for this, like someone said,
perhaps this is a put up by the bookies, now all that money placed on the
big names is theirs.

I think the system needs to be challenged so that we get to a point where a
rider does not suffer any sanction until the allegations have been tested in
court.

Jean

it says as much or just add very little?

it's interesting all of them, including lance,
always say:

"i never tested positive"

instead of an enphatic:

"i've never taken performance enhancing drugs"


"Snippy Bobkins" wrote in message
news:BScpg.85746$I61.76880@clgrps13...
"B. Lafferty" wrote in message
k.net...
Ag2r's Francisco Mancebo, one of those ejected: "I consider myself
innocent and I have never tested positive. I'm just going to see how this
all evolves now. I'm sick of this world, I am going to hang to my bike
up."
http://www.procycling.com/news.aspx?ID=2213

New excuses are needed Francisco.

His I "consider myself" innocent says at least as much as the "I never
tested positive."

--
Snippy

"mimoso" wrote in message
news:HaTpg.116477$IK3.57640@pd7tw1no...
it says as much or just add very little?

it's interesting all of them, including lance,
always say:

"i never tested positive"

instead of an enphatic:

"i've never taken performance enhancing drugs"

Lance has also said that but I don't feel like looking it up.

--
Snippy