Who Sport What?

Dude! TdF, UCI: WTF?

Alexandre Vinokourov has left the Tour de France, as has his entire Astana team, following a positive doping test, pointing to the same kind of homologous blood transfusion used by the disgraced Tyler Hamilton. Last year "Vino" had been banned from starting the Tour on account of his links to the Operation Puerto blood doping ring. This year he was heavily criticized for his links to the infamous Italian coach Michele Ferrari (the one who claimed using EPO was no more harmful than using orange juice and subsequently advised Armstrong's miraculous comeback). Vino's positive came after a performance, like Landis's last year, that simply seemed too good to be true. Questions will now be asked of his whole career. Such as: "How did he go fast enough to take third place overall in 2003"

All of this has been well-covered in other places. Pat McQuaid and Dick Pound are to be commended for avoiding the temptation to chime in with their "I told you so's" until after the B sample. But McQuaid, of the UCI, should also be prepared to answer some tricky tests when he does face journalists. In particular, expect him to be quizzed on the efficacy of the UCI's commitment to a new cycling. The ability of the commitment's deterrent effect for would-be dopers must now surely be in doubt. Vino, like Sinkewitz, had signed it.

Channeling Dilbert

The good fellows at Deadspin unearthed a company memo from ESPN that addresses a whole lot of office housekeeping issues. Bikes racks to the acccrual of vacation time type stuff. Nothing too surprising to anyone who has worked in any kind of cubicle farm, but it was fascinating to note that even though it has a content deal with Verizon, ESPN is sticking with Cingular for its employees. They work better and the rates are cheaper...

Question:

With the switch to Verizon for ESPN phone content, will our company phones, (Treos), be switched to Verizon?

Answer:

There are no plans to switch to Verizon. Verizon does not offer international coverage and it would be a lot of work to constantly swap a Verizon phone for a Cingular phone based on international travel. It also would require two processes to manage the phones, one for each vendor. Currently our rates are the same, if not better, with Cingular.

And the prize quote for all those enamored of a job in sports media:

Many of us live pay check to pay check.

So Is That How They Look So Young?

Is nothing sacred? Golf is set to be the next sport under the dope labs' microscopes, with claims today by none other than Gary Player of abuse. The PGA is to introduce dope testing next year and Player, at Carnoustie for the Open, was asked if he would be surprised to see any positives. His response set off the alarm bells: "No, not surprise me because I know - I know for a fact - that there are golfers, whether it's HGH, creatine or steroids, that some golfers are doing it."

"I would say of golfers around the world playing on tour there's 10 guys taking something," he continued. "I might be way out - definitely not going to be lower, but might be a hell of a lot more. And I'm delighted to see that they're going to start having tests at random, if that's what they officially have decided."

Questioned on how we knew "for a fact" that there are drug cheats in golf, Player said: "Because one guy told me." So now every sports journalist in the world is looking for one guy. Or could it be Guy?

Tour De France Turn Off

A truly remarkable thing just happened. Can anyone out there think of a precedent? The German rights holders for the Tour de France, state-owned ARD and ZDF, just pulled the plug on their live coverage of this year's race. Because of doping. Cycling in Germany has been in total disarray for some time. From Jan Ullrich having his DNA linked to bags of blood in Dr. Fuentes's office to Jorg Jacksche telling Der Spiegel how the bloood-doping operation worked. The implication of T-Mobile in systematic doping...

But to pull the plug on the broadcast after paying for the rights, and half way through the race?

Ostensibly, the reason is T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz's positive A sample (that would be testosterone, Floyd). ARD / ZDF claim they are unwilling to pay to cover a pharmaceutical race to Paris.  If his B sample comes back positive, that's it: the Tour goes completely dark in Germany on network (Eurosport will probably continue on cable, even though it is run by the European Broadcast Union, of which ARD / ZDF are key members).

Rather than just wait for viewers to vote with their remotes, the broadcaster has figured out it has a public-service duty to show something less unhealthy than a bike race. "We were in intensive discussion with the German racing teams and they swore that everything would be clean,'' Guenter Stuve, ARD's director of programming, told the station's Web site. It will come as no surprise to lean that Sinkewitz denies everything: "Me? Why me? I don't know anything about it. This can't be," he is reported as saying.

The implications for other sports are huge, demonstrating that some broadcasters still see sport as more than just gladiatorial spectacle. Imagine Disney cutting back on ESPN's coverage of the NFL following Michael Vick's indictment (instead of wall-to-wall SportsCenter coverage of the case). Or then again, no. That's just wishful thinking, isn't it?

Wrestling With Addiction

"People don't realise how addictive these drugs are," said Penny Bordeau-Durham on the CNN show "Nancy Grace", this evening. She's the widow of "Johnny Grunge" Durham, whose death was linked to steroid abuse. The interview and others with former wrestlers, which first aired earlier this week, comes as the U.S. media continues to wring its hands in the aftermath of WWE star Chris Benoit killing his family then killing himself, yet more victims of the death mill.

No, Penny, people don't realize how addictive the drugs are. There's physiological addiction of course, but more powerful still is the psychological addiction. And all the kneejerk laws that Congress pass will serve only to satisfy the vanity of the lawmakers, a soundbite for the campaign trail, doing nothing to curb the pressures to cheat. Just look at the war on drugs. Does anyone really think supply can be eliminated?  Real spending on health education, meanwhile, just doesn't fit the country's zeitgeist.

What the sports world has yet to understand, meanwhile, is the mindset of the doper. The athlete who, pressured since childhood, conditioned to win, doubts his or her ability to do so clean. Whether due to the self-doubt that our society promotes as a key means to encourage consumer spending, or on the basis that at least one opponent might be doping. Hell, I've seen "clean" athletes indulge in utterly adddictive behavior when it comes to legal supplements, succumbing to the artifice of the health food store and ending up only with expensively nutritious pee.

Addictions for athletes, like obsessive compulsive disorder or attention deficit disorder, are symptomatic of the maladies of our times, the trans-fatty fries and sugary soda we have found ourselves saddled with, almost unwittingly, when all we thought we were going out for was a sandwich. The WWE just happens to be a magnified microcosm. Smackdown, anyone?

Chris Benoit, RIP

New Galaxy Logo

Just ahead of Beckham's arrival, the LA Galaxy rebranded. Understandable: the old team identity was, frankly, crap.

The new logo, below, is accompanied by new kit and the team has already sold more Beckham shirts than Real Madrid sold on signing the Londoner. The bold new logo is total southern California, reminiscent of cheesy sci fi book covers through the ages, hopefully looking forward to our bright, nuclear-powered future. It would look great on the monorail to the Epcot Center. Or advertising a Star Trek convention.

Beckham's Arrival Live

Well, turns out the LA Galaxy will be streaming the Beckham press conference live. So check there for the minute-by-minute and here for commentary.

Beckham: The Start Of Something Big

As I was driving through Los Angeles today, listening to the local radio, the news said it all: "David Beckham has now boarded a plane at London, Heathrow, headed for Los Angeles. With him were his wife Victoria and their three children." He's boarded the plane?

Beckham's arrival is clearly the start of something big. Worth a close look, methinks. The story is already known, of Phil Anschutz and his belief that football has a front-and-center place alongside baseball, basketball and the NFL version of football in the U.S. professional sports world. And yes, this is not the first attempt to use star power to give the game a lift. Pelé and the New York Cosmos helped back in the 1970s but by no means secured the game's North American future.

More important to the success of the game is America's changing demographic. Mexicans love football. Whether documented or undocumented, they form an increasing proportion of America's society. And they like to watch matches. When Chelsea plays at Stanford (close to San Francisco) this Saturday, West London's finest will find themselves not up against a U.S. team, but Club América of Mexico City...

Beckham's arrival, meanwhile, looks like being quite the mediafest. So I'll be headed down to the Home Depot Center, the LA Galaxy's ground, to liveblog the whole thing. Watch this space

Pan American Game Over?

The venues are ready. The opening ceremony will be a thing of great beauty. The images will be beautiful. But where are the best athletes? The Pan American Games are about to open to a clear lack of interest from top sportsmen and women. The best player in the men's tournament is ranked only 126th in the world. The rowing competition has been cancelled due to lack of interest: a minimum of six countries were needed, but only four signed up.

Political shenanigans in other sports have exacerbated the issue. It's normal to run out youth teams for the Olympic Games: FIFA doesn't want the World Cup franchise to be overshadowed. Under 20 is the Pan Am norm. But in scheduling the under 20 World Cup in Canada right now, FIFA has ensured that only the region's best 17 and 18 year olds are likely to play in Rio.

Once a major feather in the cap of any athlete, the Pan Ams are now used mostly as a means to groom youngsters in the ways of multi-day, multi-sport competition. But is the event's status as training ground for Olympic hopefuls enough to ensure its future? Will viewer figures and the correlating sponsorship interest survive the absence of the "stars"?

Athletes are now clearly more keen on a proper payday than patriotic prestige: the chance to win medals for the mother country has lost its allure at everything but world championships and Olympic Games. Meanwhile, expectations of near-Olympic service levels on the part of international sports federations have made organising this event and others (think Asian Games) seriously burdensome. Huge and costly stadia are expected, as are top-notch accomodations, transport and hospitality for officials. Hopefully, the venues will be full of spectators. But just as Torino 2006 was trounced by American Idol, the TV ratings for these Games may yet have alarm bells ringing.

Not A Heart Of Darkness

U.S. Olympic Committee media man Kevin Neuendorf was sent home in "disgrace" after a Brazilian newspaper ran a photo of him in front of a whiteboard saying "Welcome to the Congo!", in the press room at the Pan Am games in Rio. The whys and wherefores hardly matter. This kind of indiscretion is rarely pounced on in the normal give and take of sports journalism. But Rio is up against Chicago in the race for the 2016 Olympic Games and will be barred from direct criticism of the United States during that race. So it is hardly surprising to see the Brazilian media jump at this chance.

Neuendorf, meanwhile, has given years of his life to the service of sport. He is no Imus. Sure, go through the motions of "sensitivity training" and what-have-you. But let's be reasonable, here. The man's career should no more be defined by this storm in a teacup than Rio's Olympic candidacy be defined by crime in the favelas.