the US attacks the global sports world

The US could take some solace in Floyd Landis’ victory in the Tour de France after the treatment of Lance Armstrong. I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s unlikely Armstrong won seven straight Tours without picking up a few extra red blood cells here and there but that doesn’t excuse the actions of the organizers of the Tour.

A 2005 article in the French newspaper L’Equipe announced that a B sample of Armstrong’s urine tested positive for EPO. L’Equipe is owned by the same group that runs the Tour. Never mind that samples are marked anonymously and are tightly controlled by the French national laboratory but both an A and B sample are required for a positive test. As I said in a previous post, the Tour can’t prove that Armstrong tested positive because the A sample has been used up and Armstrong can never prove he was innocent because the A sample has been used up.

If that wasn’t bad enough, at the press conference introducing the 2006 Tour, the organizers showed a highlight film of the 2005 Tour without highlighting the winner – Armstrong. They were happy to be rid of him. Now it was time for a European to win.

Except that Floyd Landis from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was the hero. He hasn’t won seven straight times and he’s unlikely to win with an artificial hip – he’ll have hip replacement surgery after the Tour – but no one could remember a ride that matched his solo tour up the mountain that wiped out a ten minute deficit and put him within thirty seconds of the leader. One time trial later he was up a minute and the victory was his.

The US could use some good news. It’s hard enough to be a citizen in a country under fire for its participation in two wars: Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but now the US is attacking the global sports world too. US Federal agents arrested the principals in the British web site, betonsports.com, and is preventing them from returning to their home country. Even though online gambling is legal in England, the US has decided that they are breaking a US law because they have US customers. The website has had to close down until the legal matter is settled.

Look into this matter more before writing about it more: http://www.bettingmarket.com/doj5001.htm.