THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Pound-ing CAS and that Italian job
The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, Inside Communications, Inc.
Pound-ing CAS
Editor:
What's wrong with this picture: Dick Pound as the “neutral” president of the Court of Arbitration for Sport? If that actually happens, I'll have to believe everything Floyd Landis has said about the system.
Nolan Winkler
Hillsboro, New Mexico
Pound is antithesis of neutrality
Editor:
If that biased, vindictive and punitive blowhard Dick Pound gets his ham fists on the presidency of the Court of Arbitration of Sport, he will choke off the last avenue of anything resembling due process for cyclists under the gun of a doping charge. He is the antithesis of neutrality that is vital to the arbitration process.
With the WADA and USADA basically doing whatever they want in the pursuit of doping, regardless of their own guidelines, the CAS is the only place accused athletes can have a fair hearing of their case. Professional cyclists should boycott training camp and refuse to race until Pound's name is withdrawn from the candidates’ list.
Morgan Andriulli
Huntsville, Alabama
Fight the power!
Editor:
The unfair exclusion of teams from the Giro d'Italia is a horrible precedent and should prompt a reality check for all professional cycling teams: unionize or die. If subjective “ethics and quality” are the standard to which individual teams are subject, then no team is safe from the whims of the organizers. All teams should threaten to stand down in the name of fairness.
Benjamin Quinby
Portland, Oregon
Giro stance hurts fans
Editor:
Just when cycling fans thought there might be some normalcy coming back to cycling, RCS decides two of the best teams can’t race “our race.” What kind of stupidity is this? Next it will be ASO. The big losers here are the fans not being able to see the best teams. What more do the organizers want High Road and Astana to do? Give up their first born? This is idiocy at it’s best.
The season is just starting and these so-called organizers are already turning away not only teams, but us fans!
Patrick Caselli
San Jose, California
Time for Tour of America
Editor:
With the disinvitation of Astana and High Road from the Giro and maybe even the Tour de France, I think the time is now perfect for an event like the proposed Tour of America. Bike racing seems to be so fractured right now over in Europe that U.S. cycling has a great opportunity to take the remnants and turn it into something great again, for participants and fans alike.
Let’s take the momentum from the Tour of California and Tour de Georgia along with The Tour of America and establish new "grand tours.” And instead of Europe being the hub for pro cycling, the U.S. can take that role. If the organizers of the grand tours are going to say, "We don't need you," then I say these teams need to say, "No, it’s the other way around.”
I would love to see Astana and High Road headlining a $10 million race across America though states and cities that I have called home. L'Alpe d’Huez? Ha! Lets see the battle up to Whitney Portal in the shadow of the highest peak in the lower 48.
Ben Towery
Clinton, Utah
The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, Inside Communications, Inc.
