USPS Conspiracy Loose Ends

There are still unexploded bombs from World War Two. Every now and then one is discovered buried deep in the ground, often during construction work. Residents are evacuated, a security cordon is put in place, a military bomb squad arrives to defuse the defunct device and within a day or two construction work resumes.

Cycling has its buried bombs too. An axis of deceit carpet-bombed European roads, bridges and mountain passes with syringes and vials some of which are only blowing up today. Yesterday’s explosive stories about Lance Armstrong and others involved in the squad that went from US Postal to Radioshack was just one example. Only headlines and text got sometimes warped by the shock. Here’s a quick look at a few of the issues.

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In praise of the CAS (and why the Ullrich case took years)

The Court for Arbitration in Sport has had a busy week. Monday saw it ruling on Alberto Contador, the UCI and Alexander Kolobnev were there on Tuesday and yesterday we got the verdict on Jan Ullrich.

Many fans have expressed anger or frustration with the news this week but a quick note to say don’t blame the CAS.

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Did Highroad ever have a sponsor?

There’s an air of the obituary across newspapers, cycling news websites and fellow blogs. Everyone’s lamenting the announcement that the Highroad team could not find a replacement sponsor for HTC to keep the team going into 2012 and beyond. And many are asking aloud why such a good team could not find a replacement sponsor.

But one answer is that they never had sponsorship in place since the day the team started.

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Jan Ullrich "burns out"

Time to step away from the spotlight Jan Ullrich’s stopping all public appearances. The cake-eating race champion who saw his reputation crumble when he was busted in Operation Puerto is nevertheless still a popular figure on the celebrity circuit in Germany, where he’s been doing charity work and taking part in some motor racing, as … Read more