Landis Hearing

[Trek420]

I almost wish this thread could be split - the Landis thread, and the Women's pro-cycling thread.

Both are great convos!

So here first... women's cycling and my 2cents

Re women's cycling not being so obvious in the public eye - we are fighting (in the Western world at least) a loooong social history of how women are perceived. And that takes time to change. And even longer, apparently, for media and advertisers to think they have to 'get with the programme' too.

Women's sports rarely set "world fastest times", they tend to set women's bests. No women will ever match O'Bree's 1 hour record - probably not even with the use of drugs. No women will ever ride in a team with men like Lance and Floyd. Our physiology is just too different.

And this is the crux of the issue, I believe.

Media believe they should portray the best, and til they are willing to take a chance and realise that there is a big following of men and women for womens sports, we wont see it "out therre". And to make the following bigger, it needs to be supported by media. Catch 22.

Or start a new thread on womens sports.

We don't get the money, coverage, sponsorship, salary .... but if you take the biggest pro sports fan, men or women that you can think of to a womens pro game and here it doesn't matter if it's WNBA, pro softball, soccer, American football or of course cycling and you'll hear this:

"wow, they play the game the way it's supposed to be played".

I'm not a fan of most sports and I truly suck at any team sport. But womens basketball for example does not have the speed, power, dunks of the mens game but I'm told by those who enjoy the game that the strategy is better.

[Fredwina]

well, it so happens that one of the more prestigious women's race (the Tour De l'Aude) is happening right now:
http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showt...693#post205693

[KnottedYet]

"wow, they play the game the way it's supposed to be played".

That's exactly how I feel when I watch women's college basketball.

Now I want to see some women's cycling!

[traveller_62]

I don't know if Landis cheated or not but it is clear that cycling has a long history of the illegal use of performance enhancing drugs. If anything good comes out of the Landis case I hope that it is that professional sport cycling cleans up its act and also that the methods for drug testing become much more rigorous then they are now.

As a scientist I'm appalled at the violations of good laboratory practice that are clearly happening at some of these labs. Someone in this thread mentioned the OJ case and there are some similarities in that the folks that handled the blood/DNA evidence in that case so badly mishandled the samples that reasonable doubt was guaranteed.

To get a valid result from a drug test the sample must be handled correctly, the instrumentation must be well-maintained and calibrated, and the analysis must be performed by an experienced technician. In Floyd's case there were breaks in the chain of custody of the sample, the sample itself failed to pass WADA's own criteria for additional (more sensitive) testing, there was confusion in the labeling of the sample (casting doubt on which rider the sample came from), and the instrumentation used to do the measurements was not properly calibrated.

As far as I'm concerned the methodology for drug testing in cycling needs to be seriously scrutinized and subjected to the same scientific rigor and review that my research data are. Until this is the case we will continue to have these media-driven circus trials that focus on the significance of the color of the defendant's neck tie.

As for Floyd's character...well, I guess if someone accused me of something I didn't do and I was subject to incredible pressure by the media, etc. I'm not sure I would be able to hold it together and take the high road all of the time either.

As for women's cycling...I think the power of the web might be the answer to broadcasting more women's events independent of network or cable TV. The web coverage of the Tour of Californnia was awesome and it would be too cool to use that same infrastructure and technology to get women's cycling on the map!

- traveller