2008: The YEAR of the GIRO... Italian style

The cycling world would do well to realize that this year is the Year of the Giro, and allow the Tour de France a secondary role that it is certainly not willing to accept.

But if the Tour de France has taught cyclists anything, that would be how someone that only owns and organizes an event of global stature, that nearly the entire world notices in July, is capable of stupidity, avarice and ... unZEN karma.

We are not aware of what conversation, or event, transaction, or promise (and we are NOT insinuating bad things) created a change of mind with RCS the organizers of the Giro d'Italia. But we applaud the alignment of the stars, that gives only this, the first of the three Grand Tours, a claim to 'world championship' status.

If the management of the Tour de France, whose 'Tolérance Zéro' only begins on the Tenth Anniversary of the Worst Tour, is paying any attention, they would be biting their nails now, wondering if they've made the wrong 'last stand' at denying the team Astana of Kazakhstan an opportunity to race, with its 2008 winner (via the withdrawal of the leading Michael Rasmussen of RABOBANK, for a 'whereabouts' conflict that erupted in the middle of the race).

Remember: the 1998 FESTINA-stained event, with its drug busts and embarrassing sequels... was ten years ago; it then opened the door to a US Postal >> Discovery Channel sequel. That shift was monumental: it presented to the world, the fabulous, money-making, sport-redefining reign of Lance Armstrong, without whose miraculous, post-cancer "rebirth", the sport of cycling may very well have faded into total obscurity.

We at ZEN Central do wish the riders at the Giro the race of their lives!

And this report will suffice, because, hey! The Giro is on live, now, and we don't want to miss another slippery turn

___ç-ç*******/ ZENmud \*******ç-ç___
© 2008

Open Letter to la famille Amaury...

Bonjour mes chers amis du cyclisme,

Forgive this article being written in English, all the ZEN'ers are sort of used to this. And forgive the title, M. Philippe Amaury, as it is really your former wife, Madame Marie-Odile Amaury, who controls the privately-held company since your death in May of 2006 (at age 66 or so). And to note for certain readers, that the ASO group, is a branch of EPA (Editions Philippe Amaury)

Some of we, the fans of your cycling events, are certainly curious about the recent announcement of your company's decision to exclude the Kazakhi team ASTANA from any and all ASO - produced events this year.

That news comes as a shock to those fans, who don't (or maybe haven't) chosen to associate the 'name' of a team with the past, as vociferously as your employees have.

When the Liberty Seguros-Würth team was in the torment, in the late spring of 2006, your spectacle was ensured, as far as the riders who were not implicated in the Manolo Saiz/Operacion Puerto, when the Kazakhi Government stepped in late as a sponsor. Until it was revealed that this newly-reformed team was unable to start the minimum required six riders, your ASO management appeared happy that one of the few stars of the sport could be present - in spite of the team's former turbulent era.

There's no question (other than the typical incredulous variety that come from ANY doping controls effected by your concitoyens at LNDD/département des analyses) that Astana shot themselves in the feet in 2007...

But it strikes some of us cycling-lovers as a bit disingenuous, when you deny Astana of a right to participate, by cumulating their 'offenses' of 2007 to their 'rescue' of the team that WAS in the hotseat: Liberty Seguros-Würth, for 2006.

As a long-time Tour de France (TdF) fan, ZENmud can state without any qualms, how much he thought that the Rabobank team was one of those very few (since we now know that even 'rabid' anti-doping French teams such as Cofidis are not 'perfect'...) which seemed to uphold the cleanest ethics. Yet Rabobank gave us, gave you, the Michael Rasmussen 'affair'; the implications of that extensive cover-up by team management, have not apparently bothered your staff at ASO.

It sometimes appears that your Organisation has two sets of rules:

• HARSH, for those 'who sleep with my wife', and
  
• TOLERANT: for those 'who slept with my neighbour's wife'...

But here at trusting ZEN Central, the appearances are not in line with the 'high moral road' your staff claims it seeks to follow.

As ASTANA ponders its future, it would do well to remember that back-room decisions become tomorrow's global headlines. Not only in their proper effect, but as they spawn the legal battles that are generated by what appear to be ill-conceived, and arbitrarily discriminatory decisions.

Whether or not Alberto Contador is in your 2008 Tour, or not, your actions do not bode well for ANY NEW SPONSORS to rush into the sport we love.

In learning about Amaury Sport Group, whose President Patrice Leclerc, and Director of Cycling Christian Prudhomme have emulated Dick Pound in terms of outrageously premature pronouncements to the press, one finds out much about the privately-held company which owns ASO.

Tidbits and factoids abound... in the Amaury 'family history' (personal or EPA-related):

• 1903: Not all TdF fans realize that this flagship race came from an idea floated by Henri Desgranges, who managed the journal L'AUTO; was it first conceived to highlight where and how automobiles could circulate throughout the early dirt roads that adorned the Alpes?
  
  
• 1944: L'AUTO is suppressed, amidst charges of collaborations with the Nazi French occupational government; at the same time that Emilien Amaury was helping the Résistance to publish false ID papers and other documents. In that same year, M. Amaury began Parisien Libéré (now Le Parisien).
  
  
• 1944: Jacques Goddet creates the L'Equipe sporting journal, which Amaury purchased in 1965.
  
  
• 1983: Some six years after the death of Emilien, a struggle between siblings forced the family business to divide: Philippe bought out his sister, and that was accomplished through the investment by the Lagardére group (whose 25% take effected Philippe's payments to his sister). (factoid: Lagardére is a tight, close friend and major backer of French President Sarkozy)
  
  
• 1988: Long before WADA, and EPO, the Tour de France had an interesting rule for doping cases... if a cyclist were to be caught via testing, they incurred a TEN-minute penalty! At least that's what could have happened to Pedro Delgado, who was found 'positive' for a substance, probenecid, which was used to mask the use of steroids: he wasn't 'busted' because that substance, while on the IOC list for prohibited substances, was not to be placed on the UCI list, for another month!
  
  
• 1998: Festina - EPO. Enough said?
  
  
• 1999 / 2000: Amaury, or EPA, being in the publications and sporting events business, branched into a field that it may eternally regret: it acquired the FUTUROSCOPE theme-park business; little public knowledge, when Futuroscope was placed into the Tours 1999 and 2000, of its close association with your family.
  
  
• 2003: After only three to four years of ownership, EPA sells Futuroscope (or reduces its exposure), after the 2002 year saw many employee layoffs. Losses to Amaury appeared to be around 55 million Euros.
  
  
• 2005: The journal L'Equipe shows slowing sales, amidst a year in which that paper was the vehicle through which seven-time TdF champion Lance Armstrong faced serious accusations via mis-applied 'research' data, uniquely generated by the pursuit of your reporter Marc Ressiot: "Monsieur A-TEST".
  
  
• 2006: Landis
  
  
• 2007 - Vinokourov, Rasmussen, Moreni
  
  
• 2008: The future of cycling is in your hands, Madame Amaury.
  

A far cry from the 'ten-minute rule' days... is the Tour such a money-maker that it can overcome objective criticisms for its stances vis-à-vis doping, teams, and the UCI ProTOUR?

Posting these tidbits and factoids is perhaps a groundwork for the future, as the world watches the fall-out of ProTOUR teams remaining outside of the Giro in May, or your Tour in July...

Bonne chance, Madame A!

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___
© 2008

"...a Kazakhstani state of mind..."

sigh...

Would someone from Kazakhstan know as little about, say, the western slope of Colorado, as ZENmud knows about her country? (photo 1: the great Tien Shan mountain range, northern extension of the Himalayas)


Yet, as the 'great exporter' of film and TV 'messages' for nearly a hundred years, the use by America of its home-grown media as 'cultural software' (a misplaced quote from Hans ____ (to be updated)), one might guess that there are more perceptions available as to 'life in the USA', than are available to those who ponder these majestic lands that make up the Eurasian landmass.

BUT!

Who wouldn't love to visit the land from which Humanity first domesticated the Horse, and which knows one of the oldest strains of wild Apple? (photo 2: the Malus sierversii Kazakh apple)

With a landmass greater than Western Europe, prosperity from natural resources, and .... one fact that ZENresearch knew from years back, is that Kazakhstan is one of the great LAND-LOCKED countries (other than the Caspian Sea); there is no need for a Navy, and thus the country must use pipelines for its natural resources export. (photo 3: lovely Kaindy Lake)


Not to recount boring historical facts sans cesse, but it is interesting to note that the Russian Federation has recently renewed a long term lease on an immense swath of Kazakh territory until 2050, where the Baikonur Cosmodrome is located; this was the scene for all Soviet space launches from Vostok 1 onward.

This leased land is some 6,000 square kilometers (approx 2,300 sq. miles); a zone 60 by 100 km encompasses nearly the same sized terrain as that of the lac Léman basin (Home of ZENmud productions, the UNOG, WIPO and the UCI and IOC) in Switzerland.

Why an interest in Kazakhstan?

Is it an overwhelming interest in our stark and beautiful natural planet?

The enticement of seeing amazingly long-lasted cultures?

A desire to pursue unfulfilled dreams?

Many potential reasons...

One concrete response... a heart beats there... and if I spelled this right:

Я тeбя люблю

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç