Just as this week winds down , the news breaks that the UCI Management Meeting has suspended the action against Paul Kimmage ! They also announced that an External Inquiry will be conducted into UCI’s involvement in the “ Armstrong saga “!
Of course those with vested interests will “ spin “ the story to suit their individual purposes . Whilst the “ Official news Bulletin “ will say one thing , reality will dictate another . Those with long memories will recall the aftermath of the “ Festina Affair “?WADA was a result of the IOC meeting in 1999 , when Samaranch was “ Head Honcho “ of IOC . Aside from this the UCI had Bjarne Riis head up a dope clean up commission ! Little did UCI know , that Riis would reveal , years later , that his Tour de France win in 1996 , was fuelled by PEDs ?
In 2006 there was another “ External Report “ conducted by Vrijmen ! Anyone want to bet this “ New External Commission “ will be like the Vrijmen report ? “ Cover you’re A$$ “ , time will be announced in the week of 5th November , Guy Fawkes day for the Brits !
Coming out of the meeting , Tom Lund of the Danish Cycling Union stated :
" I expect that it will become crystal clear what the role of the UCI has been in this. And I hope and believe that the duty to run the sport of cycling has been managed in an honest way. If the UCI has not it will be discovered by the commission and then the implicated persons must take the consequence afterwards ".
Further stated that :
“ In the week of November 5th , the UCI will decide which independent body will choose the members of the investigation committee. Tom Lund hopes and believes that the international court of sport CAS will be chosen. “Recent days have seen many comments and articles attributed to Greg LeMond , along the lines of “ The problem for sport is not drugs but corruption “ . Prominent was this Open letter to Pat Mc Quaid :
http://nyvelocity.com/content/features/2012/open-letter-pat-mcquaid-greg-lemond#comment-107230
Many of you will know that I reported Greg’s donation to the “ Paul Kimmage Defence Fund “in earlier Blog Posts . This week not only Cash Support was offered but Greg is providing a detailed dossier of information on UCI matters . Could this have swayed the UCI Delegates to cause the “ phats of aigle “ to temporarily stay their court action ?
Whilst the “ Paul fund “ is in excess of US$70k , there are other matters continuing . The Petition that calls for the resignation of heinous & phat , has close to 600 signatories and I have added another in recent days .
The “ Change.org Petition “ that I created is to be found here and needs YOUR SUPPORT !
http://t.co/oFWgsHA7
Do any of you recall a Science fiction Movie , where a minature / microscopic submarine , was inserted into the bloodstream of a patient in a hospital procedure ?
Well the following idea was floated in the Cyclingnews forum recently !
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=19165
“ Just flying a kite here....Things we know.
(i) Almost every attempt to manipulate blood by EPO or transfusions have transitional changes in blood readings.
(ii) The "glow" times and infrequent testing mean it is possible to hide transitional values.
(iii) It is hard to increase the rate of testing because of the difficulties in taking and process samples.
Idea
(i) Chipping is in essence a safe process - so animals are traced by insertion of a chip under the skin. There do not appear to be side effects that I know of.
(ii) Biosensors ( I was involved in the technology 15 years ago, were even then good at sniffing specific chemicals (and no doubt other biophysical properties could be measured too)
So..
If you wants to be a pro rider.
(i) You have a bionsensor chip implanted.
(ii) It measures biophysical properties (like blood cell count densities, pressures, sniffs for specific chemicals)
(ii) It is scanned remotely at intervals along a race, much like timing chips are on marathons.
(iiii)All serious training venues have a scanner.
(iv) Riders are provided with a remotely interrogated scanning box in the places they live, which they can carry with them if they travel. Downloaded when they are near a WIFI
(v) So blood passports are no longer a few readings a year, they are twice a day - inded could be every hour, stored on the chip until downloaded, the information downloaded once a day.
(vi) Riders who say "no" are subjected to more frequent blood and urine tests they pay for...they would soon get the point - this is much cheaper.
(vii) Encode the readings so riders cannot see their own test data..
Drug testing 24/7 = I am sure the technology can be done.
Question is .
Assuming it WAS possible...
(i) Is it too much of an intrusion of privacy?
(ii) Are the lifestyle constraints (seemingly few) it would impose practical?
(iii) How could it be cheated?
(iv) What then would be the process for a "positive"
My suggestion
(i) Develop it - test it in animals. It may take a couple of years, but animal testing is not a great issue because it should not harm the animal.
(ii) Trial it, and after a year of riders evaluating it.
(iii) Make it compulsory on every grand tour.
You can say "no", it is up to you...you just don't get to ride a grand tour if you do!
Discuss.
It needs a year 2012 solution, not a throwback to 1995
If it was simply monitoring haematocrit, internally optically..that would be a good start.
****ing in bottles and taking blood samples should be a thing of the past! EXCEPT to confirm other results. Ie if haemocrit has jumped..
Stupid idea? Worth thinking about?
Pro riders - if all it was was a chip under the skin - would you object to the principle, so long as you did not have to "do anything" other than pass near a scanner occasionally to upload the information? "
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