My name is Elin - A pro cycling lover's reflections

Normally I hate to condemn people, but now it has happened. Doping exists and when they arrested Manolo Saiz and Fuentes, I got shocked. And then they found some code names and everybody tries to break the names, me too, I didn’t get shocked by most of them which we now has heard about. Though I cannot believe Birillo is really Ivan Basso.

Then last night I found out that one of the cyclists who had performed in the Tour de France had been tested positively, so I thought it might be Nicolas Jalabert, because it wouldn’t shock me at all. I did like him before, then he became different and I just couldn’t trust him being clean anymore. I saw him in Ronde d’Aix, but he seemed much closed and it scared me totally. He wasn’t really concentrated; he just seemed very paranoid, paralytic, unsteady and gauche and I wanted to tell him to relax, he seemed really unstable in himself, like he had done something wrong. There’s a lot of things which could have happened, but I got scared the same day as he signed with Phonak Hearing Systems, I wasn’t at all happy about his chooses, and I really had wanted him to stay in Team CSC, as they still feels like a more relaxed group. But whatever happens I hope everything will be okay, and the next time I see him I would rather see a strong and calm guy who seems like having control.

But today when I checked around I found out that Floyd Landis is “gone”, he never showed up at a competition in Acht van Chaam, in the Netherlands, and he will probably not show up in Silkeborg, Denmark, either. Maybe he has gone to see a doctor who can help him with his hip? Maybe he’s the one who was doped? I don’t know, but I hope he will show up and speak out about it.

Sergey Lagutin is doing great in the United States, he’s doing the Tour of Toona right now, and he seems in a good condition, and he seems happy. He has really done well this year, and the Navigators have been a great team for him. I hope he will continue to do great, and I hope everybody will see how great he really is. The funny thing with him is that you never know whether he will be great or quite good or poor in the Time Trials and Prologues, it’s not really he’s strongest part of cycling and of course it’s not a novelty, and I must say that he has learned how to deal with the Time Trial, he’s a lot stronger nowadays than the last two years. Sadly he didn’t become the double Uzbek Champion but he still wears the wonderfully beautiful Uzbek National Road Jersey and he looks so good in it.

Well, the truth is told about Floyd Landis, he tested positive for testosterone, so my feelings about his absence was (maybe) true.