Ah, Not So Good...

To say I'm shocked or to say this news hasn't rocked the Tour would be a bit of an understatement. No, make that a huge understatement! But the currently labelled patron of the peloton, Alexandre Vinokourov, has tested positive for homologous blood transfusion from blood taken after his ITT win in Albi.

(Photo: Cyclingnews)

The lab that analyzed the blood, none other than the infamous Châtenay-Malabry laboratory that processed Floyd Landis' blood.

Which brings me to a point that I've been wanting to address since the beginning of this Tour, but never found the appropriate venue, at least until now. With the delay in the announcement of Landis' arbitration hearing, what would be the effect of a positive verdict for Floyd? A positive verdict would mean that the processes of the Châtenay-Malabry lab would have been found to be inadequate and some of their staff relatively incompetent, correct?

So by delaying the verdict in the case as to not disrupt the spectacle of the Tour, [if you recall from earlier this week, the current Tour Director, Christian Prudhomme, questioned the timing of the release of information by the Danish Cycling federation regarding Michael Rasmussen's "administrative errors."] then any findings from the lab could be reasonably called into question.

Either the directors of the Tour have essentially given any rider in this year's Tour who would choose to dope evidence to combat their positive finding in their arbitration hearing [last week Italian Marco Fertonani attempted to blame the same lab for his testosterone positive]; they are attempting to lend credence to the Châtenay-Malabry laboratory by allowing them to be the main lab for the Tour [something the officials of the French Open didn't feel confident in doing as they switched all their athletes' testing to the WADA lab in Montreal], or they know the verdict of Landis' hearing [which isn't good for Floyd].

In regard to Vinkourov, my only question would be why? After a year in which he wasn't allowed to participate [due to Liberty Seguros' involvement in Operacion Puerto] and with the suspension of Tyler Hamilton, who allegedly doped in the same fashion, why do it? Maybe that moniker of "Crazy Kazakh" doesn't really refer to his mad-capped attacking attempts but rather to something more clinical.

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--Velonews: A doctor explains blood doping