Ireland - please forward your mail to me there...

Am leaving this afternoon for a mini-vacation in Ireland with my brother, Dave. I will keep you posted if I run into Sean Kelly.

While I'm away, please send all hate mail to my blackberry address.

The Surprise Toll of Doping

Dawn Richardson writes, "An open dialogue about the problem of doping has been, up to this point, the third rail of cycling. Touch it and you die. The culture insists that anyone wishing to continue working in the sport remain silent on the issue, which perpetuates the problem.

But the tide appears to be turning. Team managers and riders are not being immediately fired for admitting a prior history of doping in the era before EPO testing. Breaking the silence is a huge step towards solving the problem. As the biggest names in the sport are falling, the anti-doping movement seems to be throwing a haymaker at the doping culture.

Sadly, doping continues, but its hold on cycling and other sports is weakening. UCI, WADA and USADA are catching dopers, and these successes are beginning to dictate team management. The culture is shifting away from the two most common doping models: the "if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'" doping infrastructure within a team or a "don't ask, don't tell" obliviousness. The most innovative management approach is medical testing within the team structure itself to discourage doping, as takes place at T-Mobile, or Slipstream's third-party testing through the Agency for Cycling Ethics.

For team physicians who wish to work ethically, doping is our worst nightmare. Team doctors aren't cops or lawyers, nor should we be. Our job is to keep the athletes healthy so they can perform to the best of their natural ability. As ethical anti-doping physicians our influence and expertise should be used to prevent doping through education and intervene when we encounter it. Some of us are organizing our efforts in these areas and others as the American Association of Cycling Team Doctors.

But in order to help solve the problem of doping, I figured I first had to understand it. So I went straight to the source - to reformed dopers themselves, some caught and some not, some active and some retired..."

Full article, "Ask the Doctor: The surprising dual toll of doping" By Dawn M. Richardson, MD, FACEP, here:
http://velonews.com/train/articles/12396.0.html

Having Fun Again

BERTHA MAE LEMOND 1940 - 2007

Bertha Mae LeMond of Washoe Valley passed away June 1, 2007. Born February 14, 1940, she was the beloved, devoted wife of 49 years to Bob LeMond. Bertha is survived by her husband, her daughters, Kathy (Ken) McGee and Karen (Mike) Melarkey, of Reno, NV, her son, Greg (Kathy) LeMond, of Medina, MN, and seven dear grandchildren, Nathan and Nick Blades, Gavin and Lindy Deller, Geoffrey, Scott and Simone LeMond and five step-grandchildren, Matt, Allison and Patrick Melarkey and Kayla and Kendra McGee. The family asks that everyone educate their own family about organ transplantation and become an organ donor. Each organ donor saves eight lives. In lieu of flowers, please become an organ donor and help support Donate Life America, 700 No. Fourth Street, Richmond, VA 23219 or www.unos.org.

HONESTY

HONESTY IS A SPIRITUAL QUALITY THAT CANNOT BE EVALUATED IN TERMS OF MONEY

There are many practical reasons to practice honesty. It requires far less effort to be truthful than to be deceitful, and in the long term the risks are fewer and the rewards greater. But in today’s complex society, the boundaries of acceptable behavior have been blurred until they are sometimes indistinguishable. Laws and codes of ethics establish minimum standards of behavior. Make sure you establish standards for yourself that exceed such minimums, a standard below which you will not allow yourself to fall, regardless of what others may do or say. Your own set of standards will allow you to decide quickly and easily upon an appropriate course of action when faced with a difficult problem. persevere in the face of great odds.

This positive message is brought to you by the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Visit them at http://www.naphill.org.

Greg LeMond

"Greg LeMond has more courage than anyone I know," Papp said. "When I started in cycling, I looked up to him as an athlete. Now, I look up to him as a person."

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