2010 Tour de France; Will Team Radio Shack Survive?

It is time for the Tour de France, which in America is the only race that matters. The rest of the year America slumbers through the bicycle racing season like a somnambulist, only an occasional newspaper story appears related to doping.

Floyd Landis is still alive and talking to the federal investigators about traffickers; past teammates and support staff who he alleges aided him with his nefarious past performance enhancement abuse.

The results of this investigation into performance enhancing drug abuse by Floyd Landis is confidential; but some comments appear to indicate that the investigation is still in the infancy stage. No new career threatening revelations seem to be forth coming; at present.

This is good news for team Radio Shack. Lance Armstrong and his team have not been banned. Johan Bruyneel is still sport director, even though Floyd Landis accused Bruyneel and the United States Postal Service Professional Cycling team of receiving midnight blood transfusions at a French mountain peak rest stop. Allen Lim is still a physiological consultant to team Radio Shack; he has not been arrested, even though Floyd Landis accused Lim of giving him performance enhancing drugs.

Allen Lim is a mystery man and suspect; because anyone associated in any way with Floyd Landis is suspicious. Allen Lim has a huge Cheshire cat grin and an immense ego; he figured out that yarn pasted onto riders could be used to model air flow. Lance Armstrong, the most wind tunnel tested man in the world, has worked to maximize his time trial position with computer generated air flow models using sophisticated computer programs. But the Allen Lim yarn model works better than computers for team Radio Shack.

Allen Lim, the great innovator, has even determined that body core temperatures are critical in performance! When Jan Ullrich was warming up in a air conditioned bicycle shop while Lance Armstrong was warming up under the shade trees; and when Ullrich beat Armstrong by 1:15 in the time trial; and when Lance Armstrong was riding in squares with a dried salt saliva ring around his mouth; and when later Armstrong admitted that he wanted to quit that day; well even the thickest of cyclists learned that body core temperatures were important. Recently, Allen Lim designed ice filled jackets to lower body core temperatures. This is a very good innovation, but not space age design, because cycling clothing manufactures have been working with wicking away of moisture and improvements of air flows through clothing for years. The goal of these clothing innovations? Lower rider body core temperatures.

Allen Lim is suspect because even though he works for cycle-ops and is an expert in power by riders measured in watts; he must have known that the impossibly high watts generated by Floyd Landis during those training rides in Spain must have had an artificial source, performance enhancing drugs, if Lim is half the physiologist that he claims to be.

So, the nonsense that Allen Lim asserts as to the shock he experienced when Floyd Landis tested positive during the Tour de France is difficult to believe, even though Lim proclaims himself as a tour de force anti-doping crusader. If something sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Because no matter how you spin it riders need help to defeat doping tests and that help must come from a medical or physiological experts of some sort. The excuse that the WADA anti-doping laboratories are incompetent, though true, is not enough to explain how a rider could abuse performance enhancing drugs for years without being caught.

Team Radio Shack is alive and well today but will they survive the 2010 Tour de France? Will some revelation of wrong doing destroy the team? Will the team be expelled during the race?

WADA, the UCI, and The Dope Testing

One footnote: The dope tests will be done by the WADA laboratory at Chatenay-Malabry once again. WADA will do a report on the UCI anti-doping efforts done during the 2010 Tour de France. We only hope that this report is more than self serving drivel written by WADA.