Timing Is Everything

The Thorpe Story, Revisited

Remember the dustup over an anti-doping test Australia’s Ian Thorpe supposedly failed in May 2006? Well, according to an article last month in The Sydney Morning Herald, Ressiot and L’Equipe (his employer) may have timed the release of that story for maximum impact.

But it became clear in talking with Ressiot that L’Equipe – which some have criticised as waging a propaganda campaign – timed the release of the Thorpe news for maximum publicity. Not only did the paper wait to release the story as if it was a live scoop on Thorpe – at the competition where the newly retired swimmer and the world’s press would be – it waited until Ressiot would be there to take the hits.

“I had to come to Melbourne if only to be present when the article came out and to shoulder my responsibility,” he said.

Others are critical of the newspaper and its methods. Pete Geyer, an editor for a cycling fan website (cyclingfans.com), viewed the journalist as L’Equipe‘s tool. “The goal is getting the L’Equipe brand out there as it seeks to expand beyond France,” Geyer said. “The objective is not to inform the public, much less to educate it, but rather to increase L’Equipe‘s influence, and profits, beyond France.”

Ressiot, in the same article, expressed surprise that Thorpe did not know of the test’s results.

Ressiot was confounded to find Thorpe had no idea of the test and that some media had turned the report of the test posing a problem into news of it being a positive test.

“If ASADA had respected procedures, he [Thorpe] would have been informed of the problem posed by his sample taken in May 2006 and he would not have discovered it in my paper,” Ressiot said. “I am not responsible therefore for this negligence.”

Perhap Thorpe hadn’t been informed yet because ASADA was being careful to determine the cause of Thorpe’s test results before releasing any findings, unlike other labs and organizations, who are only too pleased to release information to the press about test results before the process is complete.

Thorpe’s attorneys have been trying to discover who leaked the information about his test results to Ressiot and other members of the press. In the SMH’s article, Ressiot offers this advice to Thorpe:

“He has to concentrate mostly on his defence if he has a clear conscience,” Ressiot said. “Because he will never find the source of the leaks.”

Interestingly, back in May Ressiot had told another publication:

The article came out during the World Championships because that is when my investigation was concluded.

Yeah, right. Timing is everything. Makes you wonder about some of the other articles M. Ressiot has published, doesn’t it?

Paranoia, Will Destroy Ya …

… to paraphrase The Kinks. (Most transcriptions have the lyric as “Paranoia, the destroyer”.) Remember the UCI’s Men In Black concerns? Cyclists training in black jerseys, supposedly to avoid the Anti-Doping Cops? Apparently they have some of the same concerns about Danish cyclist Michael Rasmussen. According to an article in today’s New York Times:

Rasmussen … sometimes trains wearing a neutral jersey, so that he does not attract attention from fans, a practice that has been labeled suspicious by antidoping officials.

I can just picture it, a police car rolls up to a group of pro cyclists on a training ride while they’re climbing a steep mountain road.

“Oi, any one of you lot Michael Rasmussen?”

A thin rider gives them a dirty look.

“Yeah.”

The cop hands the rider a plastic cup with a lid on it.

“Right. Give us a sample, then.”

Wait, I should have done that with a Mexican flair, since Rasmussen trains at altitude in Mexico, his wife’s native country. Mexico also happens to be a bit off the beaten path for the anti-doping cops. Guess they expect the riders to be where it’s convenient for testing, rather than where their in-laws and family might live.

As my wife (who’s a practicing psychologist) observed, the whole thing about riders wearing non-team kits while training being “suspicious” smacks of paranoia.

Rasmussen has apparently been kicked off the Danish National Cycling Team, according to a number of stories in the past day, because the Danish Cycling Union says he hasn’t always told them his whereabouts so they can come and do surprise, out of competition tests. The DCU claims they’ve contacted Rasmussen a number of times about the issue. Rasmussen says he’s only heard from them once. And that they haven’t been satisfied with his explanations.

This exchange between the DCU and Rasmussen occurred on June 26th or about 11 days before the Tour started, so it’s not exactly breaking news. So why are we hearing about it now? Hard to say, but the story is already spawning rumors of worse yet to come for Rasmussen.

Timing is everything.

Word Of The Day

Tactics: (noun) A method or strategy for achieving a goal.

In Stage 16 of last year’s Tour, Floyd Landis had a bad day. Landis struggled up the last climb of the stage, to La Toussuire. Sensing blood in the waters, his rivals attacked Landis on the climb, making the last 15 kilometers a hellish struggle for the man in the yellow jersey. By the end of the stage he’d lost so much time he dropped from first to eleventh overall, and most commentators wrote him out of contention for the victory in Paris where the Tour would end in four days time.

What happened that day? Two things: Landis had a bad day on the bike, and the other teams used that to their tactical advantage.

The big question on everyone’s mind after his epic bonk was whether he still stood any chance at all of finishing on the podium by the time the Tour would arrive in Paris a few days later. Many didn’t think it could happen. Landis thought differently. He even joked about what he was going to do before the start of Stage 17. As Landis recounted in the Prologue to his book, Positively False:

“I’m going to attack today,” I told Dave Zabriskie. “At the base of the first climb. Don’t know if you heard.”

…

“Oh, man, that’s gonna hurt,” Zabriskie said with a nervous laugh. “Do you think it will work?”

I told him I had no idea, but at that point I didn’t really care. I wasn’t going to just give up.

Landis and his Phonak teammates did just that. On the very first climb, they launched him from the front of the main group on what would become a long, hot solo breakaway for much of the rest of the day. In short order, Landis caught — and then left behind — a group of riders who had already gone off the front. From then on, he was alone.

And from that point on, he gained time on the peloton. His rivals in the race, perhaps thinking Landis wouldn’t or couldn’t stay away, didn’t mount a chase. And Landis kept pulling away from the peloton, at one point being 9 minutes or more ahead of the main pack.

Unlike the day before, Landis was able to get all the food and drink he needed, as his team car was right there, almost in arm’s reach. Landis was able to stay cool by dunking his head with cold water (which he did at regular intervals), thus preventing his engine from overheating.

And, as unlikely as it seems to casual observers, he was able to gain back enough time to leapfrog into third overall at the end of the stage. A couple of days later he would reclaim the yellow jersey by turning in one of the fastest times in the final time trial, on the penultimate stage of the Tour.

How did Landis win? In a word: Tactics. He correctly guessed that the leaders wouldn’t mount a chase against him until it was too late. For him, the tactics succeeded. The peloton, however, figured that Landis wouldn’t gain enough time for it to matter and let him go. When they realized he wasn’t losing steam, they started to go after him.

Timing is everything. Their tactics failed.

That was one year ago, today.

Quote Of The Day

Tony Rominger, in comments at CyclingNews.com:

Right now it is hunting season. Too often, people write first and research later.

Rominger hit the nail on the head.