UCI: Unabashed Corrupt Individuals

Cycling is a shambles and the main culprits are not deranged dopers willing to testify against the culture of doping. No the problem originates in alphabet soup organizations who seem to have no useful purpose other than to skim money off the top, charging race organizers with senseless fees to sanction races, and racing teams to fund questionable anti-doping efforts.  Once, the UCI (International Cycling Union) represented honesty and integrity; now UCI stands for Unabashed Corrupt Individuals.  Men who accept bribes from riders to alter allegedly test positive for drugs on the prohibited list, men who would go as far as to cover up their malfeasance through a comprehensive program of lies and denies.  These men, Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen refuse to heed the call of Greg LeMond to confess and quit, preferably in eternal shame.  Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen refuse the honorable course and insist on pursuing the dishonorable course even though their conduct has been considered so egregious that the UCI executive committee has called for an independent committee to clarify allegations raised against them in the USADA investigation of rampant use and distribution of performance enhancing drugs to the U.S. Postal Service Professional Cycling Team by Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel; as graphically outlined in the Reasoned Decision.

It will be a hard slog for the independent committee. There is no paper trail and no way to verify through  scientific analyses the Lance Armstrong 2001 Tour of Switzerland stored urine samples for possible traces of recombinant EPO, because the samples have been destroyed. This is a significant point that is suggestive of foul play and this should be thoroughly be investigated by the committee.  There are other problems with the reliability of certain witness testimony as to the allegations raised that the UCI engaged in a systematic conspiracy to alter test results of favored cyclists.  Floyd Landis admitted to federal agents that he lied not only to Irish journalist Paul Kimmage, but probably to Travis Tygart and USADA as well.  Floyd Landis subsequently was found guilty of libel in a Suiss court and ordered to pay damages to Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen.  Paul Kimmage wrote an investigative journalism article detailing the allegations raised by Floyd Landis against the UCI in a newspaper and was subsequently sued for libel by Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen.  Then the bombshell allegations raised against the UCI in the USADA Reasoned Decision by ex-teammate Tyler Hamilton that Lance Armstrong admitted to testing positive to rEPO during the 2001 Tour de Suisse and that the UCI accepted bribes from Lance Armstrong in payment of a falsification of the laboratory results to purchase blood diagnostic laboratory equipment, and as a contribution for UCI operations; prompted the UCI to drop the lawsuit against Paul Kimmage.  This prompted Paul Kimmage to file a counter suit against the UCI seeking damages for filing a baseless, pernicious legal action.

This nonsense cannot be invented!  Now be reasonable, someone is lying here.  Either Floyd Landis told the truth to Paul Kimmage, and lied to federal agents when he admitted that his previous statements implicating the UCI altering positive test results for favored riders were lies: or Tyler Hamilton is lying about the admissions made by Lance Armstrong; or the USADA Reasonable Decision is a fabrication based on lies of ex-teammates of Lance Armstrong; or Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen are lying: but they all can't be telling the truth.

 It will be up to the Independent Committee to sort out this nonsense in a worthless investigation that is touted to last into June, 2013; well past the Giro d' Italia.  This is unacceptable considering the fact that the entire cycling community is sick of the UCI, sick of this subterfuge.  Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen awake!  we are sick of you!  we want you to resign! spare us this comedy, we want people in charge of cycling that we can trust and respect, not charlatans!

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