When it rains it pours, pour l'AFLD...
In relation to the discussion of the report AFLD purportedly sent to WADA and the UCI Monday, we harken back to the reputation 'earned' by various French governmental agents, or agencies, that seem to prefer assessing 'guilt' by the premature publication of 'suspicions' in the French press.
It certainly wouldn't be 'courteous', now would it, to afford both the UCI, and WADA, time to receive the report prior to wailing like a cat, (as WC Fields once said, that 'was swung in the air by its tail' (paraphrased, in relation to his non-support for his long-time lover's desire to return to her cabaret guitarist/singer career...)?
Cher Monsieur Bordry must, as always, be totally self-assured of the methodology and objectivity that is displayed through such crass and unconscious 'professional-ism' (or -suicide)?
Nevertheless, this column allows readers to find another French article regarding the Tour de France 2009, also from Le Monde, also from Monday, 5 October, 2009.
Des médicaments saisis au sein de certaines équipes
Summarizing due to the late hour (early? 02h43 Tuesday...), the French Police are now engaged in rifling hotel trash cans, as they and the Italians made famous back in the post-FESTINA era... Le Monde claims that the fishing was fruitful (we can only presume that these police were honest, transparent, and duty-bound), because:
"... several substances that benefit from no authorization for importation from the French Agency for Sanitary Security for health products (Agence française de sécurité sanitaire des produits de santé) were the object of judicial seizures at the bosom of certain foreign teams."
These are anti-hypertension substances, which the article ascribes to use for sportsmen (and women) who are (obviously?) suffering from hypertension associated with blood transfusions (or 'blood packing').
Most interestingly, Le Monde is proud to trumpet the names of these medications to the public (as is common in journalism, we are only 'the messenger', who reminds You that someone else has done this...).
WADAwatch is NOT on the side of 'doping Athletes' (or anyone violating WADA Rules: that includes Laboratories that are strictly liable to WADA's Code Article 6.4, et al, and the ISL, Tech Docs and the 'beauty of Science').
Now, this 'Hematide' is most interesting, because it's a product not yet on the market, under proprietary ownership from Affymax, from Palo Alto (Stanford's region), California. Le Monde reminds us that this medication probably won't see the market until 2011. It's Phase II clinical trials are being prepared right now.
Le Monde also puts out the requisite 'French spin' as the article winds up: "To have a 'clean heart' (French idiom) the AFLD wished to be able to test again certain Samples taken during the last Tour. Lacking the authorization from the UCI (proprietary organ of the Samples from the Tour de France 2009)..."
SIDEBAR: Faithful readers are reminded that such never stopped LNDD in 2004 and 2005, from analyzing (for 'research' purposes) the 'B Samples' that it allegedly kept frozen (sort of...) for five years, prior to (kind of) determining that there were 'obviously' traces of EPO in five or six rider's urine (although in 2000 they published some 29 positives (anonymously) were found in some 102 samples (using the same test, although 'accelerated testing methods were being 'tried' without a peer review system of publication, and from which five riders were 'granted anonymity', to the great detriment of Tour retiree Lance Armstrong
"... to pratice these complementary analyses, the AFLD and its Châtenay-Malabry laboratory are leaning, since several days, towards Samples from the Tour... 2008."
Le Monde reminds those whose heads were buried in the sand, that the 2008 was run 'renegade' (WADAwatch terms, not Le Monde's), during the Great WAR between UCI and ASO, the FFC (Fédération française du cyclisme) and ASO, and thus being the only post-WW II Tour to not be run under the Internation Federation (and respected (cough) Signatory of WADA, a veritable pioneer and martyr for anti-doping regulations)...
But we digress (and 'counter-spin'? At least we're open about it);
Le Monde's author, Stéphane Mandard, closes up by reminding his audience how successful the AFLD was, in nabbing Ricardo Ricco and Bernard Kohl for CERA (M. Mandard is reluctant to remind readers that the CERA was 'found' because of collaboration between the laboratory Roche and WADA (but not the 'inserted secret marker' that was first rumoured widely)).
According to Mandard/AFLD, there are seventeen Tour riders 'in the collimator'...
(as you can see, a laser-focusing device with several uses, NOT recommended for children <<<< )
How to fathom, as we started this column, in the methods of a certain French Agency's Director, who seemingly (we've written that before) has no shame at all, in offering his 'conviction' (in the legal sense) prior than allowing 'justice' and the WADA Code to work its due course.
But again, we're talking of la France: the country, 'Liberté, Fraternité, Egalité', in which it now is taken as normal when its President, Nicolas Sarkozy, went on national (or international?) TV, from the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh last week, to pronounce a party 'guilty' in mid-trial (!!). The former French Prime Minister under whom Sarkozy worked as Interior Minister, is one of five parties 'arraigned' as 'suspects' in the internationally famous 'Affaire Clearstream' whose trial concerns the alleged placement of names on lists of bank clients, two of which were associated with Sarkozy's two parents.
"Guilty, until proven Innocent"
Vive la France...
Vive la France...
..........@.........WADAwatch
one hundred percent pure
copyright 2009 Ww
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