Pro Cycling News – Hamilton, San Fran, Bloopers

It looks like it might be a bad week for cycling. Tyler Hamilton’s dope case got pushed back to Jan. 10. That’s not the date for a decision, mind you, but for closing arguements. The actual decision? I’ll guess probably sometime around the ’06 Vuelta, just to make sure Tyler can’t ride for two years, even if he’s ruled innocent. That’ll teach him to try and fight the system; look, now everybody’s doing it. T-Ham, for his own part, has been has been getting huge felling trees and restoring cabins in the Colorado backwoods. An excerpt: “There’s nothing like tearing down a wall when you need to.” Members of the UCI arbitration panel, take notice.

Even if it turns out the the ’03 Liege-Bastogne-Liege winner is guilty, he won’t have to worry about missing the San Fran GP. Why? Because there is no San Fran GP. Apparently, not paying your bills makes finding sponsorship difficult. Who knew? Fortunately, Philly Week, that other timeworn American racing monument, will keep battling on, despite having still not paid out some prize money. So remember, kiddies, if you’re running a cycling event, and funds are tight, just pay off the host cities before you pay off the winning riders, and everything will be fine. Sure, you might have deal with a few whiny racers, but at least you’ll have your gobs of sponsorship dollars. Call it the Lankawi plan.

But it’s not all long-delayed dope decisions and deabeat race organizations. check out the diaries of these two Americans, Ryan Trebon and Jonathan Page, getting shellacked so hard on the Euro’ ‘cross circuit that they couldn’t possibly be on drugs. Keep fighting the good fight, guys! Even if you can’t muster more than a few OTB finishes, you’ll at least be in good company on the blooper reel. How so? Why, Jens Voigt just recently tore three shoulder ligaments (scroll down just a tad) warming up for a moutain bike race. “I was trying to jump over a tree trunk,” admitted Voight, “but I wasn’t going fast enough.” Personally, if I had injured myself in such an embarassing manner, I would have instead concocted some tale about rescuing orphans from a kinfe fight. Quick.Step’s Sebastien Rosseler (same link) didn’t have this luxury, as he apparently broke his leg in front of his whole team, merely by “jumping off a platfrom.” Clearly, he hasn’t been drinking his milk.