Longo facing anti-doping suspension

secretsqirrel

andyp wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

This makes no sense to me.

She's the reigning national champion.

Why would she retire? Just to let someone slower have a turn.

Nonsense.

Have you considered why she might be faster than younger riders?

TBF TailWind was responding to mz-jo's comment about retiring regardless of doping.

dougzz

Football not cycling, but since many drug related threads make much of other sports lack of testing I thought there might be interest, didn't seem worth a thread of it's own.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... ayers.html

Le Commentateur

Plot thickens... Husband now accused of buying EPO.

rick_chasey

Eurosport news claiming her husband got caught with his hand in the EPO jar.

pilot_pete

Time to hang her saddle bags up

Is she that old that they are dangling down now then? :?

PP

rick_chasey

Makes sense.

Rider does way beyond what we expect - turns out they're on the juice.

mroli

Stone Glider wrote:

If you are the fastest cyclist and still competing, you have every right to carry on until someone turns up and beats you regularly. It's not about the bike, it is about how good you are.

I don't even think that you have to be the fastest cyclist - as long as you love what you do. Why should you have to retire when you are 40/50/60 ever, just because a 24 year old can beat you? If you are still loving it - carry on cycling. Look at Malcolm Elliott...

inkyfingers

mroli wrote:

Stone Glider wrote:

If you are the fastest cyclist and still competing, you have every right to carry on until someone turns up and beats you regularly. It's not about the bike, it is about how good you are.

I don't even think that you have to be the fastest cyclist - as long as you love what you do. Why should you have to retire when you are 40/50/60 ever, just because a 24 year old can beat you? If you are still loving it - carry on cycling. Look at Malcolm Elliott...

I don't think anyones suggesting you should hang your wheels up at a certain age, there are plenty of older cyclist who still do a great job in the pro peloton even if they don't win that many races. What I would question is why she is still winning at that age, is it because she's doping, or is it because the new generation of french women cyclists is rubbish?

graeme_s-2

Rick Chasey wrote:

Eurosport news claiming her husband got caught with his hand in the EPO jar.

Maybe it's for himself. If you were trying to keep up with her at the weekends wouldn't you want to be on the good stuff?

pat1cp

Apparently she's got away with. The French Federation failed to send a letter.

shinyhelmut

pat1cp wrote:

Apparently she's got away with. The French Federation failed to send a letter.

INRNG explains;

http://inrng.com/2011/11/jeannie-longo-acquitted/

Basically she walked on a technicality.

LangerDan

Wot? An organisational screw-up that wasn't the UCI's fault?
Shome mishtake, shurely

mz__jo

The technicality as it has been presented over here is that, in spite of claiming divine right on access to national and international championships, she also claims not to be a targetted top-level competitor unless she receives written confirmation each year (and the FFC didn't send her a letter; they say that continuation in the testing regime was a tacit agreement unless the competitor was told otherwise. unfortunately Jeannie read their rules better than they did!). Question is is she no longer a targetted world-class competitor and has her defence committed her to semi-retirement? Time will tell!
I am sure that all of this case was simply the typical working of french internal politics to keep her out of the squad this year. Somewhere there is someone who has received a pay-off - but who?