#inrng

[mugswithjumpers]

via INRNG

[asummersanscycling]

Did Arnaud Démare cheat his way to Sanremo? Even asking the question is explosive as it's a rhetorical device, a loaded question. The Milan-Sanremo winner has seen his win tarnished by allegations first aired in La Gazzetta Dello Sport from two riders that he was driven up the climb of the Cipr...

Great summary by INRNG on the whole Milan San Remo-controversy. Required reading, even better than his/her usual articles.

[womenscycling]

We can welcome the outside influence of the law but with this comes lawyers and with them legal bills. A wealthy athlete can deploy legal resources that poorer ones cannot. Femke van den Driessche does not seem rich by any measure so any verdict given to her may not be appealed and she certainly won’t be laying siege to the CAS with a phalanx of pricey lawyers. By contrast top sportspeople do try this whether Pechstein or in cycling see Alberto Contador’s appeal attempts over his doping ban or his team mate Roman Kreuziger who took the UCI to task over his protracted provisional suspension. So in the specific van den Driessche could get a long ban and therefore begin a precedent but if they’d caught a wealthy rider would they set such a long ban? We’d like to think not but the UCI itself has limited resources and legal risk, ie being sued for a poor ruling, is an issue. Often the UCI has counted on WADA for back-up, for example WADA joined the UCI in the Contador case in order to bolster the resources available and pool the legal risk. But this isn’t available when it comes to those UCI-specific rules suggested above where, everything else being equal it’s easier to prosecute a small rider than a big one.

inrng : the grey area

I really love inrng’s post on the grey areas around doping/cheating bans and the UCI.  It’s really fascinating and nuanced, I recommend it all, but I especially appreciate his thoughtful comments on the Van den Driessche case and any precendent it’ll set (especially in contrast to a lot of “BAN HER FOR LIFE!!!!!” articles I’m still seeing)

[weoutdoor]

Like a BOSS. Sir Peto #SAGAN /// foto inrng 

[inrng]

Available to buy HERE

A portion of the sale proceeds helps keep the blog on the road.

[neilishungry]

I've posted something similar before but it's always fun to revisit the relation between beer and sport.

[glashalbleer]

On paper OPQS were the strongest team but as anyone who has tried to wipe their rear with a cobblestone will know there’s a big difference between paper and pavé.

http://inrng.com/2014/04/the-moment-the-race-was-won-the-tour-of-flanders/

[sprintingforsigns]

UCI and the Rule Book . . . Sock Doping

When I originally heard about the new sock rule I dismissed it as an April Fool and didn't bother looking into this. Oh boy was I wrong. Thanks to the folks on twitter for pointing me to the article on inrng site which covers it off. I am sure that I will touch on this a bit more over a few weeks once I have digested it all.

[[posterous-content:dqBDvFJzAFmrphJqtIcH]]Ever since watching Graeme Obree  race on the track in the early 90's to see thier (the UCI) crazy decisions made for not the most intelligent reasons. They don't seem to like people or things that 'rock the boat' and I'd question how many times they have made the right decision fueled by the correct motives. 

So to the sock rule. As a performance enhancer there is some scientific basis to back this up that a 'compression sock' would aid performance, but even then it is minimal. In regards to compression you can read many studies on the recovery element, and whether it works in a competition enviroment is still a point of discusion with experts.

I think what is interesting is that they comment on the ruling, but don't give a reason why. But I am pretty sure that some of this may have come from an angle of styling, and deeming what is appropiate for the sport. To a degree I can see there point (if indeed that is their point) that up to the knee socks look a little silly. And in a sport where people wear costumes not out of place in a DC comic book, they probably think that they are helping things. The irony is that if the rider was wearing tights or leg warmers the Officials are unlikely to check and Sock Doping of the highest order could take place. Seeing Comissaires rolling up tights and leg warmers would be like a sketch out of Monty Python. 

What I note of being of interest on the same page is that they have banned shoe covers for indoor events on a covered track. Again, seems an odd ruling as a piece of cloth to cover the shoes is affordable, available to all and allows the rider to cover any sponsorship transgressions. I am sure that the shoe manufacturers where very happy to see this get put through as they get zero coverage at these events.

It looks like though if I turned up to a UCI registered Sportive/Fondo I'm not going to get done for sock doping as my two favourite socks are pretty long, but not as long as those worn by triathletes. Sometimes you just wish that the Governing Body would chase after and act upon the concerns that are really in the best interests of cycling, rather than adding rules to a handbook and making the beautiful sport cluttered with rules and regulations that detract from it.