Paulinho's convenient excuse?

get real! after johan bruyneel has looked him square in the eyes and the good dr. damsgaard has punctured him numerous times?

patch70 said:

Sergio Paulinho pulls out of the Olympics because he's "suffering from allergies and expected China's weather conditions to worsen his state" according to www.cyclingnews.com

Should we read into this that he's been on the CERA too recently and doesn't want to risk getting caught? After all, he does ride for Astana.

Well, perhaps. On the other hand the air pollution is really, really horrible. Lots of athletic teams are even skipping the prestigious opening ceremony so they can delay their arrival to the last minute. The problem is that the pollution level is so high it will affect the athletes lung capacity considerably. Some athletes will wear air-filter masks until they go on for the same reason.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2008/aug08/aug05news

Here is a fascinating photo series that shows visibility in Bejing in relation to the amount of atmospheric pollution:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7506925.stm
Compare e.g. #24 and #26.
And as the articles below says then just because you can't see the pollution doesn't mean it exist, since modern day particle emissions from cars are so small they don't cloud the air as e.g. coal particles:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7532603.stm

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Regards

patch70 said:

Sergio Paulinho pulls out of the Olympics because he's "suffering from allergies and expected China's weather conditions to worsen his state" according to www.cyclingnews.com

Should we read into this that he's been on the CERA too recently and doesn't want to risk getting caught? After all, he does ride for Astana.

Yeah, found that strange too. His Spanish doctor at Astana Pedro Selaya said he underwent "heavy tests" in the U.S., and that the results had been positively bad ("positivamente grave", whatever that means again).

He cannot explain why the tests done by Portuguese Olympic Comittee came out negative in early June.
Then he explains how a Spanish and an American doctor confirm that Paulinho has very strong asthma...
Source http://www.record.pt/noticia.asp?id=797872&idCanal=93

Wonder what Damsgaard would have to say to this (if he actually is testing Astana boys).

In today's Portuguese "Record", an enlightening article "Paulinho's asthma":

http://www.record.pt/noticia.asp?id=797936&idCanal=1080

In a nutshell:
Reporter Luis Avelas notes that the expression "sports is healthy" is not true anymore. But he also finds it very strange, that although handicapped, professional athletes suffering from asthma can live very well from their sports.

He refers to Paulinho, who gave up his participation at the olympics, because he suffers from asthma (HEAVILY!), and said hecouldn't make it to Peking. Avelas also finds it strange that Portugal is taking a representation to China with 20% of their athletes suffering of asthma ! He concludes that Paulinho's story is very fishy: Paulinho and his team Astana say his condition has been known for almost 1 year, indicating that tests in the U.S. done in January this year confirmed this "condition". It is also known that in early June the Portuguese Olympic committee did their own tests on Paulinho, and those did not detect anything abnormal about Paulinho's health. Strange? Yes, if you add to it that all people involved waited until a few days before the start to the Olympics to announce the non participation. If this condition was known for so long, couldn't this have been decided earlier?

P.S. Avelas adds that although Paulinho severely asthmatic, he is training at present to join Contador on Tour of Spain. DUH ! Viva Portugal.

Would be nice to have a UCI representative paying a visit to Sergio in the next days,...