Just before the Tour de France started I read John Wilcockson’s biography of Lance Armstrong entitled Lance – The making of the World’s Greatest Champion. I have been fascinated by Lance Armstrong since he came on the scene ion world cycling in the early 90’s. His story is in so many ways is the classic American rags to riches success story that makes you feel good. All the details of his [...]

Check out this very thought provoking interview answer by Lance Armstrong about the differences between suspended dopers who are repentful and those who are not. I was REALLY impressed by how well the guy speaks and thinks on the spot. His talk raises some interesting questions about how we should handle athletes who are caught doping but refuse to admit their guilt; and also about how open we sho [...]

This article from the NY Times is almost too good to be true. I was almost in tears reading this. I am a sucker for the underdog and the unknown, but this tops them all. I am know who I am rooting for. It’s almost like this guy is the anti A Rod or Lance Armstrong. Here's an excerpt:Those who have heard the tale of Svein Tuft have wondered, could it possibly be true?How he dropped out of s [...]

I've kind of taken to using a concept II rower from time to time as my warmup for weight training. I've had quite a bit of exposure to the activity, first from my high school, which is a perennial rowing powerhouse; and second from having Dr. Hagerman as my professor while at OU. Doc Hagerman, is one of the founding fathers of Exercise Physiology in this country and a long time physiologist for [...]

Apparently, cycling legend and come-backing cyclist, Lance Armstrong, has plans to do an Ironman triathlon once his cycling comeback is over. That's some serious training, even for a guy who's known to be a training beast. An ironman consists of a swim of 3.8 km (2.4 miles), bike of 180 km (112 miles) and a run of 42.2 km (a full 26.2 mile marathon). The best of the best finish in around 8 hours [...]

British cycling won 15 Olympic and Paralympic golds! Following from previous successes at the Athens Olympics and the World Track Championships! Performance Director for British Cycling, David Brailsford was asked about the launch point for this amazing success. Quite simply, I think we have a greater desire to succeed than our competition, which means that we are brutally honest about our current [...]

Apparently, the greatest cyclist of all time, Lance Armstrong, is making a comeback. He intends to ride in the 2009 Tour de France. This is interesting and provides for some more discussion material on the differences between seemingly similar sports. Like track, cycling is a physical performance based sport (rather than strategy, gamesmanship, team oriented sports, etc) that is generally quantita [...]

There is a terrific article on the BBS Sport web site on British Cycling. It is a great example of what a systematic sport development process can do to develop champions and sustain championship performance. Excellence in any in any discipline does not happen by chance, there is usually a design. I am a big fan of sustained excellence. When you study teams and individuals who have achieved sustai [...]

Here's an interesting article from the Slate by Nathaniel Vinton:http://www.slate.com/id/2171291By the time the 2007 Tour de France hobbles down the Champs-Élysées this Sunday, the event will be drastically reduced in field size, star power and honor. Two whole teams and several prominent cyclists have withdrawn for anti-doping violations, among them the race-leading Michael Rasm [...]

As doping revelations continue to come out in sports like cycling, baseball, and now golf, track has had a relatively dope-free summer so far. Albiet, the World Championships is still a month away but so far there haven't been any major players in the sport of track caught and just as important there haven't been any rumors or allegations (which always seem to have at least a hint of truth [...]