Bruyneel

[sandy]

Johan looks to be signing a deal with Astana. Bringing along Contador and Levi http://www.velonews.com/race/int/articles/13438.0.html

[megale3]

Still sublime on the fact that there is no more Disco team. what a ride
M

[JFK]

Yeah, but Astana? ASTANA? I wanted to believe Vino was clean, I did. I loved his riding style, his complete lack of logical tactics, his feistiness. Now, it just bums me out that Johan is going there. Unless they are going to remake themselves a la T-Mobile.....

[Legspeed]

I say it's a perfect match.

[JFK]

I say it's a perfect match.

That's part of what bums me out. It's the end of plausible deniability....

[Legspeed]

It's the end of plausible deniability....
Nonsense. As long as a certain cancer spokesman is drawing breath, the "I never tested positive" dodge will carry some measure of plausibility. At least in the USA.

As for Astana "re-inventing" itself, what would be the motivation? With direct support from the Government and, presumably, the Kazak Cycling Federation, Bruyneel will never have to worry about "surprise" revelations (a la Rassmussen) about his riders.

I predict another long string of TdF victories for JB.

[JFK]

Nonsense. As long as a certain cancer spokesman is drawing breath, the "I never tested positive" dodge will carry some measure of plausibility. At least in the USA.

As for Astana "re-inventing" itself, what would be the motivation? With direct support from the Government and, presumably, the Kazak Cycling Federation, Bruyneel will never have to worry about "surprise" revelations (a la Rassmussen) about his riders.

I predict another long string of TdF victories for JB.

But what about the two homologous blood doping positives this summer? Do you mean the Kazaks will make sure the riders are clean? Or just that they won't get caught?

I think that with some of the physiologic monitoring that's been going on (a la Slipstream) at the team level, it will be harder and harder to dope. At least, if a team cares not to. There will always be ways around the tests. I went to a whole talk on it this past summer (it wasn't on how to avoid testing positive, it was about how hard it is to catch doping if you're doing it "right.")

[megale3]

http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news;_ylt=ApxhbvrCO3iDKNLPp1vzjsR.grcF?slug=ap-armstrong&prov=ap&type=lgns