2013 Vuelta a España - Tour of Spain

"...well... this?"

Maybe he just popped out for a medical? I hear they have some fine doctors in Spain :

Awesome.

Seems there's hope for my grand tour win after all... I just need to shave.

... and stop drinking, train 100x harder and stop falling off your bike in winter.

... and swap out my genes or be reborn to different parents for a physiology that will allow me to ride amongst the elite.

Is that long hand for lose weight?

Kind of, but just being light doesn't make you a GT contender.

Maybe I should go for Paris-Roubaix instead.

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/15477/RadioShack-Leopard-team-issues-confirmation-email-from-USADA-which-it-says-proves-Horner-changed-whereabouts-information.aspx

Confirmation email on Horner's change of whereabouts notification ADAMS thingie.

Well sketchy leaking it to the press if that is true.

Michele Ferrari's view on Horner's win

What are we supposed to do with Michele Ferrari's opinion? It's getting like Inception in here!

Seems legit.

This has certainly put my mind at rest and no mistake.

This.

Love the end of the post

"
confirming that in this cycling, hysterically "needle-free", it is almost impossible to have two peaks of top condition in the same season.
"

Just what pro cycling needs, another shot in the arm.....

I believe in Chris Horner. And Santa. And the Tooth Fairy.

Perhaps we should just accept that there has never been a clean era in the sport, neither is there likely to be.

Perhaps we should just accept that there has never been a clean era in sport, neither is there likely to be.

ftfy. The problem goes way beyond cycling, it's just cycling has had it's dirty laundry washed in public. In other sports popped sportsperson have long lay offs due to 'injury' rather than doping bans. You think Manchester United or Barcelona are clean? The world certainly does, and those clubs and the sport itself will do anything to preserve that image. With cycling the veil has been snatched away and we see professional sport for what it really is. Don't think for a second that cyclists somehow have a lower moral threshold that other sports people, or blame the dirty Euros for the corruption.

And the irony of that is cyclists are undoubtedly the most tested sports people of all. Not that that counts for much given the ineffective testing. More so you hear of self-policing within the peloton, a sort of reverse omerta, where the riders turn on those they think are doping. Sayer and Santa are examples of this.

Whether it's PR, part of the Sky/Vaughters assertion of a cleaner sport or reality is another matter. One snippet is Horner is a popular man within the peloton. Read into that what you will.

For the record I think this missed test is what it has been shown to be: lack of communication between the Americans and the Spanish, and the nefarious aspect comes from the leaking of the story rather than Horner's whereabouts. I believe USADA have come out and confirmed his side of the story and aren't counting it as a missed test.

Not that I'm saying he did that clean. Who the fuck knows anymore. And the UCI elections are going to make the sport even more of a circus.

But hey at least we can ride bikes and enjoy it, even if at times it's difficult to enjoy watching the pros do it on the telly.

Out of interest, Daniel Friebe was saying that Horner was tested 16 times by USADA last year, and 8 times so far this year. That's just USADA tests, he'll have had more done when he's racing.

As a comparison, Taylor Phinney was tested 6 times by USADA last year.

Do USADA only conduct tests in the US? If so, Horner would be tested more often as he spends more time in the US than likes of Phinney (anecdotally at least, I don't have evidence to back that claim).

You can search and filter USADA's testing database and I think he is most or joint most tested male US cyclist in their pool last two years and a massive jump in number of tests in 2012.

Some of the Pro Conti boys who had dropped down from WT also had loads of tests but the younger guys like Dombrowski had barely been tested at all. Seems like targetted testing.

^^^Couldn't agree more Jimmy, if a professional sports performance can be medically enhanced it will be, as will the swimming 'amateurs', etc. etc. You only need to question the samples NOT used as evidence in Operation Puerto to realise a little of the breadth of sports affected.

Not so very long ago a friend of mine was asked by his coaches whether he had 'prepared properly' for races whilst racing for a top French AMATEUR team... Two international elite Aussies rode for my previous team and worked for me on their way back from Belgium to home as they weren't prepared to do what was necessary to get a contract.

I still thought the Angliru was terrific to watch......

Do USADA only conduct tests in the US? If so, Horner would be tested more often as he spends more time in the US than likes of Phinney (anecdotally at least, I don't have evidence to back that claim).

They can ask other national anti-doping agencies to conduct tests on their behalf, as per the Horner "missed test" story yesterday.

Phinney lives in Lucca during the racing season, Horner tends to live in Bend, Oregon and come to Europe only for racing, so anecdotally, you're probably right.

I thought USADA were going to pass names of redacted riders in the Armstrong case to relevant authorities. As Horner is believed to be Rider 15, why haven't they taken action against him? Surely he falls outside the amnesty extended to riders who cooperated.

The thought struck because spike in testing coincides with the end of the USADA case.

Is he definitely rider 15? Only USADA know that for certain. But if he is, then that would explain the spike.

On the other hand, there is a belief amongst some that Horner left the European scene to return to the US domestic scene in the early noughties because he didn't want to get involved in doping. How true that is I don't know. He returned in 2005 with Saunier-Duval which rather undermines this theory as it was pre-Puerto and Gianetti's teams are notoriously dirty.

Rider 15 is only a rumour for now, apparently because the name fits the blacked out bit in the report, and the circumstances fit (right team, right injury, right time).

Horner actually has a solid stage racing record over the last 7-8 years, such that winning the Vuelta would be a plausible progression. With a combination of perfect form and off peak rivals it is not inconsistent with his past performances.

The big question mark is his age, but that should be a more general question ( i.e. how is a rider this age able to compete at the sharp end of the peloton over a sustained period?), rather than specific to his Vuelta performance.

If Froome is a genetic freak in terms of top end, then why can't Horner be a genetic freak in terms of defying ageing? We are in the same corridor, with people reaching conclusions they prefer based on a combination of plausibility of performance and circumstantial 'evidence'.

I'll repeat what I said before, who the fuck knows.

Fair play Horner could be an outlier, his physique is tiny, he weighs next to nothing, if you were to sit down and design the perfect climbing body it would something like him, to me the stumbling block is the age and the legacy of his generation of Amercian riders.