After extending a winning streak against one NESCAC rival, the women's basketball team has been given the chance to end a losing streak against another.
And so it comes down to this: The nationally ranked No. 4 women's track and field team will compete in its most important meet of the season — apart from NCAAs — this weekend when it travels to Bowdoin for the England Div. III Championships. "This is a really big meet. We won last year, so it's all or nothing this year, pretty much," senior tri-captain Paula Dormon said. "We've been training all year for Div. IIIs. We're excited but still preparing to defend our title." After finishing second to Williams at the meet for five straight years, the Jumbos finally broke through last year to take home the New England Championship. The team hopes to repeat its success this year but will again have to fend off the nationally ranked No. 11 Ephs, who finished second at the meet last year, in addition to No. 12 MIT, which came in third last season. "Winning last year was incredible," sophomore Stephanie McNamara said. "We hadn't won for a while before last year, so everyone was totally ecstatic. Everything just came together at the right time. I think this year in terms of comparing us against Williams or MIT, we're going to have a run for the money again to defend our title, but I think we can do it. We're just as strong in the jumps now — we've got some really good jumpers this year — and right now our running events look good too. I have high expectations for this weekend." "Last year was just unbelievable," Dormon added. "Everybody was crying. We all did it together — it was a big moment for us. We just really want the same thing to happen this year. We've been training, working hard. We hope it happens again; it was so big for us last year." This weekend in particular, the team will be counting on Dormon, who has been putting together the best year of her four-year career. Just one week ago she approached the Tufts record in the weight throw with a heave of 45' 7 3/4", less than a foot short of the school mark of 46' 4 3/4" set in 2007. Dormon just hopes she can repeat that level of performance on a bigger stage this weekend. "Last year at Div. IIIs I didn't do as well as I wanted, but I'm just hoping I can bring everything and perform at my best ability this weekend," Dormon said. The Jumbos will also be counting on McNamara, who won the 1,000-meter run as a freshman last year. "This weekend is kind of interesting for me," McNamara said. "Obviously, the main thing that we're focusing on is trying to maximize our points in every event. You can only put people in so many events, especially when it comes to runs over 1,000 [meters]. You can only usually do two or maybe three. I'll be in 5k, the 1,000 and potentially a relay, but it depends on what happens as the meet goes along. I'm excited to run a 5k — I haven't done one in over two months. I'm looking to get in a good race. I feel I'm in better shape, and then I think I can defend my title in the 1,000." Tufts will have one other returning individual champion competing for the team this weekend in junior Logan Crane, who last week missed out on the Tufts record in the 200-meter dash by just one-tenth of a second. Last year at New Englands, Crane won the 55-meter dash by setting a school record with a time of 7.18 seconds and took home the long jump crown with a jump of 17'6". "It felt amazing to be the New England champion in two events," Crane, who is also a columnist for the Daily, said. "And there's a lot of pressure coming back as a defending champion. I have that weight on my shoulders, but it's also great to have that motivation to be No. 1." The team will also be hoping for big performances from several freshmen, including Nakeisha Jones, Dayorsha Collins and Heather Theiss. Jones currently owns the best triple jump in Div. III with the 39'3" mark set at the BU Terrier Invitational in January, which was well above the automatic qualifier for NCAAs. Collins has qualified provisionally for Nationals with her high jump of 5'5", while Theiss has broken the school record in the pole vault twice this year, culminating in her reaching a height of 11' 2 1/2" at the final Tufts Invitational two weeks ago. "I feel very excited to actually make Div. IIIs and be able to compete there," Theiss said. "I'm pretty confident that our team can bring home the championship; I also think that I'll be able to perform pretty well, just because I'm sort of on a roll with how I've been jumping." This weekend's trip to Bowdoin will be the team's first since it participated in an invitational held there on Jan. 27, 2007. For Crane, it will be a return to her home state and a track that she's competed on many times before. "It's actually the town next to my high school, so I'm very comfortable with it," Crane said. "I ran there all of high school. It's a great track, good surface — it's a good track for sprinters — and the pits have a little downward slope, so good to jump in." Despite being the favorite for the first time in years, the team has not lost sight of its goals and is certainly not discounting its competition. "This is the most important meet of the indoor season," Crane said. "It felt great to beat Williams last year; that was our main goal. We're just going to try to do our best to do that again this year."
Two weeks ago, I remembered why I'm in love with sports. I wrote a column that explored the marriage between religion and American athletics. In it, I tried to convey that while I truly do believe that athletes like Kurt Warner and Josh Hamilton can and should say whatever they want (the Constitution holds as much weight for me as the Bible does for some Christians and Jews), I felt that their constant proselytizing is oftentimes inappropriate and irresponsible — that conversations of faith "should exist between families and clergy members who know a whole lot more about religion than these athletes do." I didn't think I was saying anything particularly controversial. I live in the bubble of a liberal university in the Northeast. But as soon as the column hit the Internet, I was flooded with e-mails. Students, professors, friends and family members felt a need to respond, whether in agreement or disagreement. As I sat at my desk scrambling to answer them all, I started wondering, "How could a sports column touch on something that so many different kinds of people could get fired up about?" I realized that all these people felt the need to throw in their two cents for the same reason I am head-over-heels, "you complete me" in love with sports: because sports are the pulse of American culture. They tell you everything from the state of the economy to the attitudes of the people. They expose the country's strengths, mentalities and insecurities. They are the Freudian conscious to the country's unconscious. Like an awesome Chekhov story, sports seem like a shallow, simple game on the surface, but upon closer inspection, they tell you everything. And the constant proselytizing on display in the sports world tells me just how common it is in this country. And people's different reactions to this practice demonstrate a serious divide between those who are tired of devoutly religious America encroaching on their everyday lives (the positive e-mails) and those who are happy to see the devoutly religious population's growing influence on our culture (the critical e-mails). All the critics hammered home one point that they felt I was completely overlooking: "Belief is personal." They felt that these athletes should say whatever they want and if I don't share their beliefs, I can choose to ignore them. One e-mail explained it by saying that if Josh Hamilton starts using his postgame interview as a platform to recruit fans to accept Jesus Christ, "you are free to hit the mute button." The thing is, I wholeheartedly agree that belief should be personal, and in fact, my very complaint was that it so often isn't. Every individual has the incredible, beautiful and sacred right to believe whatever he or she wants. And it's extremely important for people to understand that they have the power to hit the proverbial "mute button" when they hear something they don't agree with (it's people's inability to do so that has led to the rampant political correctness that plagues this country, but that could be another column entirely). My point is that religion, especially in American culture, has made it impossible to simply "hit the mute button." My point is that, in my measly 19-and-a-half years of experience, it feels like I haven't truly had that choice. I've spent my entire conscious life under a president whose closest adviser on foreign policy was a man/spirit who apparently sits in the heavens and punishes homosexuals. In 2000 and again in 2004, this country, with the help of the proselytizing Kurt Warners and Josh Hamiltons, voted this clearly incompetent but — as literally millions of Americans admitted was the reason they voted for him both times — devoutly religious man into office. Now, my buddies and I are going to be paying off the greatest deficit in American history until I reach my parents' age, and I can't travel the world without a negative stigma attached to the fact that I'm American. In seventh grade, I stood in the middle of Third Avenue crying into my dad's belly as we watched the Twin Towers fall in the name of another — yet obviously perverse form of — monotheistic religion. My friends admit that even now, if they hear a loud noise in Manhattan, they think we're under attack again. I could go on about having a sister and niece who live in a country where the right to an abortion is constantly under attack. I could talk about the day I learned about what stem cell research could have done for my deceased grandparents. I could tell the story about consoling my best friend when his dad, a big-shot doctor back home, was found on a radical Scientologist group's "hit list." I could tell countless stories from my short life that show that belief is, without a doubt, not "personal." At least, not the way all the e-mails I got claim it to be. This column — like the last — isn't meant to be an attack on religion. Despite all the problems radical faith has caused in the world during my life, I still have a deep appreciation for all the good that is done in the name of religion. Josh Hamilton's use of faith in his valiant battle against drug addiction is, in itself, a great example of the way religious devotion can empower an individual. But I grew up with the expectation that I was the one who would get to decide the role religion played in my life: from things as casual as watching a football game on Sunday to something as serious as deciding how to treat a loved one's cancer. And I criticized Kurt Warner and Josh Hamilton's constant evangelizing because it felt like just another sign that in America, this expectation is an unrealistic one — that I have been naïve this whole time. I never thought this was something I'd realize while watching a silly football game, but I guess therein lies the reason why sports are so special to me in the first place.
The men's track and field team will enter the New England Div. III Championships at MIT this weekend as defending champions, looking to match its performance from last year. "Our goal is to put forth the best team effort we can because that's all we are able to control, and what the other teams do is out of our hands," junior quad-captain Nick Welch said. "I think we're all pretty confident that if we succeed in doing that individually and all together, putting our best effort forward, we'll be able to defend that New England title we got last year." The Jumbos won the meet with 118 points last year, beating out Williams in second with 106 and MIT in third with 101. "Williams and MIT have been strong in the past — which is an understatement, to say the least, in the case of Williams — since they've won it [several] times in the last 20 years," Welch said. "But Williams and MIT are always strong, and they're very strong this year. It has always been Tufts, Williams and MIT scoring the majority of the points, but I think there will be a lot of other teams putting up a lot of points. They might have the depth to really shoot for the overall team title, but a lot of these programs are stronger than they've been in recent years, which will make the whole meet overall more competitive." With increased competition, it is clear to the Jumbos that no one athlete will be able to earn the win on his own. "When it comes down to meets like NESCACs and New Englands, we have one entry, Tufts University, and that's really the way we all look at it, coaches and athletes," coach Ethan Barron said. "We're going there with one entry, and we're looking to see how well it can fight." The Jumbos should have no problem focusing on the team, which is deeper and more evenly distributed than it has been in years past. "I think we actually are more well-rounded going into this meet than at least the last two years," Welch said. "In the places where we've had events with only one guy, now we have three, or events that we didn't even run anyone, now we have someone who is looking to maybe be in the top three. "Across the board, we are really well-rounded, and in the end that's what it really takes," Welch continued. "You can't win this meet with just a few studs. It really ends up being the guys who scrape up eighth place, seventh place, one or two points here or there, and in the end that's what really adds up." While the Jumbos graduated a number of key contributors from last year's victory, the team is confident that it will be able to make up for lost ground. "Guys like Dan Marcy [LA '08] in the triple jump and Nate Scott [LA '08], who has won the pentathlon to kick off the meet the previous two years, those guys are hard to replace, but I think we've tried to fill their shoes in two ways," Welch said. "One is the guys … who had the opportunity to watch [alumni] and see them compete and learn from them, have now stepped up to fill their shoes." "The other way is that I think we've gotten stronger in the event groups that weren't necessary our strongest, a good example being the throwers who have PRed repeatedly thus far in the season and are looking to put up more points for us than they have, at least in the time that I've been here," Welch continued. One of the top entries for the Jumbos is junior Jared Engelking, ranked first in New England in the pentathlon that kicks off the meet today. Others include junior Jesse Faller, who holds the top seed in the 3,000-meter run, while Welch is the top seed in the 5,000-meter run. Senior quad-captain James Bradley also occupies the top seed in the high jump with his 6'9" mark. "I'm looking for across-the-board, no-fear, tenacious attacks of everyone's events," Barron said. "That's the only expectation we have going into this championship. I'm not looking for any athlete to step up, because to do well at a meet like this you just have to do what you've been doing. If you just get your seed time, you are almost guaranteed to move up in the standings. The one thing I'm really excited to see is the energies we brought to two venues last weekend. Bringing that together this weekend, I think we could make a lot of noise."
Cheating in sports is nothing new. Levels of cheating range from something as innocuous as using a corked bat or doctoring a baseball to something as potentially harmful as injecting one's body with performance enhancers. Either way, cheating has been going on in one form or another for longer than most sports fans care to remember or players care to admit. But only in recent years has this tendency toward foul play been brought to light in most professional sports, with one exception: cycling. For years now, cycling has been laden with a stigma as a dirty sport. Starting especially in the 1990s, when doping scandals became far more frequent and highly publicized than ever before, the public opinion of the sport began to deteriorate rapidly. Fans assumed, and many still do, that the majority of the professionals they once admired were nothing more than cheaters and liars. All of those great accomplishments that once awed cycling fans were cast under a pall of doubt. The 1990s and early 2000s were probably the most tainted years for the sport, as the rate of positive tests climbed rapidly as regulations were extended to ban more types of drugs and testing procedures began to catch up with the doping technologies available. The '90s also saw numerous all-time greats finally admit to having cheated in some way during their illustrious careers. The lowest of the lows came in the 1998 Tour de France, often referred to as the Festina affair. The Tour took a turn for the worse when police discovered various doping materials in the possession of an employee of the French team Festina, and then with the Dutch team TVM as well. In the end, only 96 of the 189 riders who started the race made it to the finish in Paris. The 1998 edition of the Tour was further marred a year later when winner Marco Pantani of Italy failed a blood test in the 1999 Giro d'Italia. Then came Lance Armstrong. Armstrong won seven consecutive Tour de France titles from 1999 to 2005, and although he never failed a single blood test in or out of competition, the cloud of doubt surrounding his accomplishments never fully dissipated. His recent return to the sport, in addition to his spirited campaign for cancer research funding, might have the ulterior motive of helping clear his name once and for all — although he would likely never admit it. But none of this doping activity and controversy is new. Early cycling culture attached no shame to riders' use of foreign substances to help them through impossibly hard races. Cycling greats like five-time Tour de France winner Jacques Anquetil made no attempt to hide their practices, and neither fans nor the sports governing bodies cared. It was not until 1965 that the first anti-doping regulations were passed, and even then it was still commonplace for riders to use any means they could to help their performance, and regulations were still quite lax. Then in 1967, British great Tom Simpson collapsed mid-race on the 13th stage of the Tour and died soon thereafter. The autopsy showed high levels of amphetamines and alcohol in his bloodstream, a combination that ultimately led to his unfortunate death. More drugs were found in his jersey pocket, and police later found more in his hotel room. After this incident, the inherent dangers of doping were finally exposed, and cycling began the tailspin that has carried the sport to where it is today. Since Simpson's death, cheating has become more expensive, more advanced and more difficult to detect. But after a series of immense scandals that have implicated some of the sport's greatest talents over the past 10 years — some of which are ongoing — the testing technologies have finally caught up with the cheating capabilities. Doping was once an organized practice that some teams advocated, though not publicly. Team directors and doctors were often responsible for administering drugs to their athletes, and at other times they just turned a blind eye when their athletes formed relationships with private doctors who were clearly responsible for more than just regular check-ups. Unlike such sports as baseball and football where players, owners, managers and commissioners continue to remain shockingly silent or sadly naïve about the state of their sports, the leaders of the cycling community have finally decided that the sport is need of a major culture shift. Leading the way are teams like Garmin-Slipstream (United States), Saxo Bank (Denmark) and Columbia-Highroad (United States). In addition to the already extensive in- and out-of-competition testing that the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the sports governing body, places on riders and their teams, these teams have helped to forge the way in insisting that their riders compete the right way. Through internal testing procedures of their own, these teams have helped to clean up the image of the sport by proving that it is possible to win with no more than sweat and perseverance. Despite the great strides, the sport is still struggling to clear its name and save itself from fleeting sponsors and fans. Ironically, the very actions intended to clean up and save the sport have been the ones responsible for its demise. Fans and sponsors have grown increasingly skeptical as the number of exposed cheaters has continued to rise. What all parties involved need to understand is that these results are a positive sign and not an indicator of increased doping practices. A higher rate of positive tests means that the new policies are working and that riders can no longer expect to cheat and get away with it. Now that baseball superstars like Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez are being exposed and fans are realizing that they can no longer turn a blind eye to what is obviously a far more widespread practice than anyone would like to believe, cycling might finally have some company. Cheating in sports is a universal practice, not limited only to endurance sports like cycling or track. If and when the current steroid investigations in baseball produce unfortunate results, cycling should cease to be the source of blame for cheating and instead become the model for how to purify an unclean sport. But it is never easy to do the right thing, and whether it is cycling, baseball, football or any other sport, things can only get worse before they get better.
For weeks, the biggest rumblings in the NBA all focused on what teams would do at the trade deadline. Unlike last season, in which trades for marquee names like Pau Gasol and Mike Bibby ignited playoff pushes, this season, the post-deadline talk is less about the actual trades that went down and more about the ones that didn't. Last weekend at the All-Star festivities in Phoenix, it looked like Amar'e Stoudemire would play his last game as a Phoenix Sun for the Western Conference. But a coaching change encouraged the team to keep its young power forward and hold off on moving him for now. The other supposed sure bets to be traded were players with coveted expiring contracts, such as the Portland Trailblazers' Raef LaFrentz and the Cleveland Cavaliers' Wally Szczerbiak, as it was thought that non-contenders would look to shed high-salary holders in the midst of the economic turmoil that has crept into the league. None of these things occurred. As is the case with the trade deadline in most years, the big-name players did not find new homes. That includes Los Angeles Clippers point guard Baron Davis, who was looking for a change of scenery after his ill-advised move to L.A. as a free agent this summer, as well as other former All-Stars like the Washington Wizards' Antawn Jamison and the New Jersey Nets' Vince Carter. As far as deadline buzzer-beaters, the Orlando Magic's acquisition of point guard Rafer Alston was the most important. In one of the few trades that seemed to be motivated purely by basketball rather than economics, the Magic grabbed Alston from the Houston Rockets in a three-way trade with the Memphis Grizzlies, with the Rockets receiving Kyle Lowry and Brian Cook and the Grizzlies getting a first-round pick from the Magic. For Orlando, the trade gives them a major upgrade at point guard after the likely season-ending shoulder injury to Jameer Nelson. With Alston at the helm, the Magic's title aspirations are buoyed once again, while for Houston, Lowry is not much of a downgrade. While the Rockets' preseason optimism evaporated along with the news that star Tracy McGrady is out for the rest of the year with a knee injury, Houston now has a younger option at point guard to groom for the future. The biggest trade name-wise occurred a week ago when the Miami Heat sent Shawn Marion to the Toronto Raptors along with Marcus Banks for Jermaine O'Neal and Jamario Moon. The trade represents Toronto's realization that it made a mistake in acquiring O'Neal from the Indiana Pacers last summer and attempting to pair him with All-Star forward Chris Bosh. The experiment seemed feasible, but O'Neal never settled into the role envisioned for him as a rebounder and defensive game-changer. With the Heat woefully thin in the middle, O'Neal should get more touches and might prove to be a legitimate sidekick for Dwyane Wade if he can ever stay healthy. As for Marion, the Raptors needed a small forward and took a gamble on the talented — but selfish — former star for Phoenix. If the experiment does not work out, Marion will be a free agent this summer. If Toronto wants Marion for the long haul, however, it must be prepared to cough up the cash for an over-the-hill player who thinks he is better than he actually is. The other blockbuster was between two of the most active teams at this year's deadline, the Chicago Bulls and Sacramento Kings. The Bulls got one of the most coveted big men on the market in Brad Miller, a great passer who offers the front-court-thin Bulls some much-needed size in the middle. They also received another highly sought-after player in John Salmons, who is averaging 18.3 points a game this season. That might help Chicago on offense, but what was really missing in the Windy City was a defensive presence for the 21st-ranked team in the league in points allowed per game. Sacramento, meanwhile, immediately tried to trade their gem from this deal in Andres Nocioni to the Boston Celtics but could not agree to final terms. Both teams also went on to make several other minor deals. Along with the New York Knicks, who acquired Larry Hughes from Chicago and Chris Wilcox from the Oklahoma City Thunder, these were the teams that did the most on Thursday. The common theme for all these teams, however, is that none of them actually improved themselves significantly. In fact, the Bulls are winners not so much for helping their team this year as for potentially clearing cap space for the 2010 free agent bonanza. And of course, it wouldn't be the trade deadline without some controversy, and this year's came in the form of an apparent trade between the Thunder and New Orleans Hornets that was called off. Center Tyson Chandler, who has battled injury problems all season, was sent to Oklahoma City for Wilcox and veteran forward Joe Smith. But the Thunder backed out of the deal because of concerns over a turf toe injury that plagued Chandler two seasons ago. Instead of getting a legitimate big man to join its promising nucleus of Jeff Green, Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, the Thunder got Malik Rose from the Knicks for Wilcox. In other words, they went from a great defensive center to a bench scrub. The biggest winners from this almost-trade could very well be a team that had nothing to do with the initial deal. Oklahoma City, which has almost no chance of making the postseason, might buy out Smith, who would then be free to sign with a contending team such as Boston or Cleveland. That might be the lasting legacy of this year's trade deadline: a failed attempt to improve one team and give another cap relief (the phrase of the day). More teams were losers this year for not having the guts to get their teams to the championship than for making questionable moves.
8 The differential in goals scored this season between Washington Capitals forward Alexander Ovechkin (42) and the next highest goal scorers, Zach Parise and Jeff Carter, with 34. Ovechkin's most recent goal, which helped the Capitals to a 4-3 win over the Canadiens, also defied logic as the reigning MVP passed the puck to himself off the boards to get around defender Roman Hamrlik.
All the laps racked up on the training trip to Puerto Rico, all the early-morning practices in stuffy Hamilton Pool and all the strenuous dual meets will culminate with this for the women's swimming and diving team: the NESCAC Championships this weekend at Bowdoin. Posting its best season record-wise in over 10 years, Tufts has been carried by a stellar group of experienced upperclassmen and numerous speedy freshmen en route to an 8-1 mark, besting NESCAC foes and local rivals along the way. Now, with the biggest meet of the season looming, the effects of the tapering the Jumbos have undergone for the past two weeks will come to fruition when Tufts goes up against Williams, the defending NESCAC champion, and Amherst, which finished third last season. Still, even taking third place will pose a serious challenge. In past years, Williams, Amherst and Middlebury finished first through third consistently, leaving Tufts battling with Conn. College, Bates and Bowdoin for fourth. This year, with a 175-123 dual meet win over Middlebury under their belts, the Jumbos feel hopeful about their chances to place third. "If we got third, it would be like winning," senior tri-captain Katie Swett said. "Williams and Amherst have programs that are far more talent-filled. You can barely find a girl on their teams that's seeded below 12th. If you look at the 500 free, without [Tufts sophomore] Megan Kono, the top 14 girls are Williams and Amherst. Still, we think we have a great shot at fourth because of our talented depth. " Leading the charge for Tufts will be junior diver Lindsay Gardel, who has consistently racked up high marks for the Jumbos this season. Although classmate Kelsey Bell, who has placed second behind Gardel in nearly every meet this season, will be absent from NESCACs, Gardel and the divers figure to factor prominently at Bowdoin this weekend, especially if Tufts has any hope of upsetting the juggernauts of the conference or surpassing Middlebury. Gardel, a returning All-American, made the 1-meter national qualifying score in Tufts' final home meet of the year, a Dec. 3 victory over Wellesley. While her score of 258.68 solidified her a place in Minneapolis in late March, she has not looked back, winning seven of eight 1-meter events and six of eight 3-meter events over the course of the season. In the team's most recent meet — the Middlebury Invitational, held two weeks ago — Gardel posted national qualifying scores in both the 1- and 3-meter boards, as did Bell. With freshman Rachel Lew and junior Jamie Ryan diving at NESCACs along with Gardel, it seems inevitable that the divers will tally some key points. "The divers are really crucial for us," Swett said. "To have three girls represent us is huge, especially in two events that count towards the standings. We really look to them for those extra points. It's going to be a tight race, and if that can be something that differentiates us from fourth to third, then that is huge." On the swimming end, not one Jumbo stands out as particularly noteworthy simply because the entire team is having such an outstanding season thus far. Tufts has by far the largest roster in the NESCAC and consequently gets to pick its 24 swimmers to compete, while other teams generally bring their entire rosters. "We have such great talent with leaders in every category, be it breaststroke or distance or whatever," Swett said. "This year the NESCAC has grown immensely in depth and it's going to be a tough battle; every point will count. We have the best of our team swimming, so our depth is much better than other schools'. That's not to say they don't have good swimmers at the top, but we have an advantage from the [No. 9-24] swimmers on the roster, the people that get those big points." Kono, distance extraordinaire and current Tufts record-holder in the 1,000- and 1,650-yard freestyle events, made the NCAA B cut in the 500 freestyle in a tri-meet with Bates and Wheaton on Jan. 31. Fellow record-holder and classmate Maureen O'Neill is the resident sprinter in the water for the Jumbos, holding the top mark on the Hill for the 50-yard freestyle. Although Tufts classifies itself as more of a distance-heavy squad, crucial points in the sprint meets, headed by O'Neill, are all the more important. "The second half of our meets is always stronger then the first half for us," Swett said. "Since we're not really a sprint team and the first half is 50s, we're going to try to use our strong second halves to our advantage." "Our relays are going to be really important because they score us the most points," senior tri-captain Kayla Burke added. "Our shorter relays are going to be challenging but also the most exciting because they're the closest race. We haven't had the best of luck in the past few years, disqualifying in both 200-yard relays last year, but if we can get the girls together, then we're going to do awesome." Swett and a group of standout freshmen, including Courtney Adams, Annie Doisneau, Valerie Eacret, Kelly Moriarty and Paulina Ziolek, round out the top point-getters for Tufts thus far. The Jumbos have consistently opened meets with strong showings in the 200-yard medley relay, usually featuring some combination of three freshmen and O'Neill. For the past few weeks the Tufts squad has been tapering for the NESCAC meet, something the Jumbos pride themselves on doing particularly well, yet it has not detracted from the team's focus for this weekend. "We've been working on visualizing and coming together as a team, talking about what we're worried about, what we can do to achieve and just getting everyone in the right mindset," Swett said. "We're really excited and everyone is pretty proud of what we've done this season, but it's kind of that time where we just shut our minds off and let our bodies do the swimming. Our focus is always on NESCACs with tapering, so that's kind of the big show. We haven't really seen what we can do fully tapered yet." "We watched ‘Miracle' on the bus ride going up to Bowdoin and did a few inspirational things just to get everyone psyched up for the meet," Burke said. "There's no room for bad nerves now, so we just want to keep it to excitement. We put together a great team this year, so it's going to be a whole team effort, but everyone is going to have an impact."
Cheating in sports is nothing new. Levels of cheating range from something as innocuous as using a corked bat or doctoring a baseball to something as potentially harmful as injecting one's body with performance enhancers. Either way, cheating has been going on in one form or another for longer than most sports fans care to remember or players care to admit. But only in recent years has this tendency towards foul play been brought to light in most professional sports, with one exception: cycling. For years now, cycling has been laden with a stigma as a dirty sport. Starting especially in the 1990s, when doping scandals became far more frequent and highly publicized than ever before, the public opinion of the sport began to deteriorate rapidly. Fans assumed, and many still do, that the majority of the professionals they once admired were nothing more than cheaters and liars. All of those great accomplishments that once awed cycling fans were cast under a pall of doubt. The 1990s and early 2000s were probably the most tainted years for the sport, as the rate of positive tests climbed rapidly as regulations were extended to ban more types of drugs and testing procedures began to catch up with the doping technologies available. The '90s also saw numerous all-time greats finally admit to having cheated in some way during their illustrious careers. The lowest of the lows came in the 1998 Tour de France, often referred to as the Festina affair. The Tour took a turn for the worst when police discovered various doping materials in the possession of an employee of the French team Festina and then with the Dutch team TVM as well. In the end, only 96 of the 189 riders who started the race made it to the finish in Paris. The 1998 edition of the Tour was further marred a year later when winner Marco Pantani of Italy failed a blood test in the 1999 Giro d'Italia. Then came Lance Armstrong. Armstrong won seven consecutive Tour de France titles from 1999 to 2005, and although he never failed a single blood test in or out of competition, the cloud of doubt surrounding his accomplishments never fully dissipated. His recent return to the sport, in addition to his spirited campaign for cancer research funding, might have the ulterior motive of helping clear his name once and for all -- although he would likely never admit it. But none of this doping activity and controversy is new. Early cycling culture attached no shame to riders' use of foreign substances to help them through impossibly hard races. Cycling greats like five-time Tour de France winner Jacques Anquetil made no attempt to hide their practices, and neither fans nor the sports governing bodies cared. It was not until 1965 that the first anti-doping regulations were passed, and even then it was still commonplace for riders to use any means they could to help their performance, and regulations were still quite lax. Then, in 1967, British great Tom Simpson collapsed mid-race on the 13th stage of the Tour and died soon thereafter. The autopsy showed high levels of amphetamines and alcohol in his bloodstream, a combination that ultimately led to his unfortunate death. More drugs were found in his jersey pocket, and police later found more in his hotel room. After this incident, the inherent dangers of doping were finally exposed, and cycling began the tailspin that has carried the sport to where it is today. Since Simpson's death, cheating has become more expensive, more advanced and more difficult to detect. But after a series of immense scandals that have implicated some of the sport's greatest talents over the past 10 years -- some of which are ongoing -- the testing technologies have finally caught up with the cheating capabilities. Doping was once an organized practice that some teams advocated, though not publicly. Team directors and doctors were often responsible for administering drugs to their athletes, and at other times they just turned a blind eye when their athletes formed relationships with private doctors who were clearly responsible for more than just regular check-ups. Unlike such sports as baseball and football where players, owners, managers and commissioners continue to remain shockingly silent or sadly naïve about the state of their sports, the leaders of the cycling community have finally decided that the sport is need of a major culture shift. Leading the way are teams like Garmin-Slipstream (USA), Saxo Bank (Denmark) and Columbia-Highroad (USA). In addition to the already extensive in- and out-of-competition testing that the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the sports governing body, places on riders and their teams, these teams have helped to forge the way in insisting that their riders compete the right way. Through internal testing procedures of their own, these teams have helped to clean up the image of the sport by proving that it is possible to win with no more than sweat and perseverance. Despite the great strides, the sport is still struggling to clear its name and save itself from fleeting sponsors and fans. Ironically, the very actions intended to clean up and save the sport have been the ones responsible for its demise. Fans and sponsors have grown increasingly skeptical as the number of exposed cheaters has continued to rise. What all parties involved need to understand is that these results are a positive sign and not an indicator of increased doping practices. A higher rate of positive tests means that the new policies are working and that riders can no longer expect to cheat and get away with it. Now that baseball superstars like Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez are being exposed and fans are realizing that they can no longer turn a blind eye to what is obviously a far more widespread practice than anyone would like to believe, cycling might finally have some company. Cheating in sports is a universal practice, not limited only to endurance sports like cycling or track. If and when the current steroid investigations in baseball produce unfortunate results, cycling should cease to be the source of blame for cheating and instead become the model for how to purify an unclean sport. But it is never easy to do the right thing, and whether it is cycling, baseball, football or any other sport, things can only get worse before they get better.
At the helm of a team about to go for its 200th straight win tomorrow, Trinity men's squash coach Paul Assaiante remains relatively humble in light of what his team has accomplished over the past decade. "It's one of those things: You walk 100 miles, but all you think about is walking one step at a time, and then someone else says, 'Oh, did you know you walked 100 miles?'" Assaiante said. "No, we just kept walking steps. Each match was an individual pearl, and when I think back to matches, what I really think about most is the relationships with boys on the teams over all those years, which is still my paycheck; my relationship with these boys is absolutely why I do what I do." What was started over a decade ago in 1998 -- when Bill Clinton was president and the Internet was still building up momentum -- has culminated with some downright gaudy numbers for the Bantam squash program: 199 consecutive victories, a record in any intervarsity collegiate sport; 10 straight College Squash Association (CSA) Team Championships, also known as the Potter Trophy; 10 straight perfect seasons; and a decade as the undisputed king of men's college squash. But despite the milestone of No. 200 well within Trinity's grasp when it takes on the Dartmouth Big Green -- a squad the Bantams dominated 9-0 on Jan. 17 -- tomorrow during the first round of games in an eight-team bracket vying for this year's Potter Trophy, both coach and team downplay the statistics and records. "What's happened is [the chance for 200 straight wins] made an interesting story more interesting," said Assaiante, who has amassed a 257-10 record across 15 seasons at the helm of the Bantam program and guided Trinity to a 16-0 regular-season mark this year. "It's been great for the game of squash, and especially great for college squash. It's been good for our little college. It's been great for us and it gives us a sense of pride and yet we don't take it or ourselves too seriously. "I don't think they're focused on streaks," he continued. "I think they're just out there battling, and something will happen at the end of the day, but I don't think they're focused on it. Hopefully not, because it can't help them in any way." "The streak is not something the players think about," senior quad-captain Rushabh Vora added. "I didn't know the number before; five games ago I didn't know if it was 190 or 185 or 180, you know? We take every match as it comes; we really don't know the numbers and we don't care about the numbers." Whether concerned with streaks and records or not, Trinity almost found itself heading to this weekend's national championship bracket with a loss after the No. 2 Princeton Tigers nearly halted the Bantams' tally at 198 during a regular-season showdown between the nation's top two programs Saturday. With a gutsy marathon 3-2 win from sophomore Andres Vargas, the defending national champions escaped 5-4 to bring them to the doorstep of 200 consecutive victories. "We've been very lucky at times, and we won a match on Saturday where we really didn't play very well," Assaiante said. "There's luck there that could have gone the other way; we were within two points of losing that match." Although Trinity has remained untouchable by virtually all standards in the college squash world over the last 10 years, all the winning and titles, including three straight NESCAC crowns, has not made experiencing a victory any less stale. "Every match feels so fun and we're so enthused to go out and play it," Assaiante said. "It's a step at a time through a wonderful forest. Every step has been perfect and pure in its own right … and then you look down at the valley you just crossed and you say, 'Well, that was pretty cool,' but there's no time to think about that while you're taking each step." And while Assaiante undeniably has remained as an anchor for the program as the victories and national championships have continued to pile up, he cited teamwork and a sense of family that he strives to instill each season as the primary reason for Trinity's dominance over the last decade. "The team is truly a team; the boys gave up their own individual stuff and focused on the greater good and they truly believe in team," Assaiante said. "The national team finals will be played Sunday. The following weekend is the intercollegiate singles championships. I won't even be with the team during that week of practice because it's for them, it's individual. We only focus on team, 100 percent." Still, Vora was quick to credit Assaiante as both a coach and a fatherly figure who has been nothing less than integral in the top position the team currently occupies and has held for years. "Firstly, this is like a family; we call it the Trinity squash family," he said. "He's very open and helps us with anything we need. So that makes us not want to let him down, and obviously we want to win as well, but we don't want to let him down. He does a lot for us, and we want to give back." Not surprisingly, Trinity has attracted a wealth of top-tier squash talent from across the world, and Assaiante has managed to maintain cohesion and transform the individual players into one working, winning unit. "We have international kids from all over the world -- South America, Asia, America, Africa, and everyone was the king of their own backyard," Vora said. "[Junior Baset Chaudhry] is our No. 1; he was No. 1 in Pakistan. The Swedish kid is No. 1 in Sweden. The South African kid is No. 1 in South Africa. So they come here and they all have their egos and their No. 1s … so what Coach does very well is blending the egos and making sure that we understand we are playing for one team and No. 1 and No. 3 on our team are the same person, there's no difference." All signs available quickly point to a rematch Sunday between the Tigers -- who were undefeated before Saturday's loss -- and Trinity with the national title on the line. Given how close they came to seeing the streak snapped, the Bantams know they will have their work cut out for them in order to extend their postseason success. "I would say based on the season, it will likely be a Trinity-Princeton matchup in the finals on Sunday," Assaiante said. "It's going to be a fantastic match, and we're excited to give it another try. We feel like we dodged a bullet on Saturday, and we didn't give Princeton our very, very best and we owe it to them to give them our very best and we look forward to giving them that." "I'm going to be honest: 95 percent of college squash teams want us to lose on Sunday," Vora said. "Everyone wants to see this end and everyone wants to see the underdog win, but that kind of stuff doesn't really bother us. We are going out to win and after four years of doing your job, you leave and let the next batch of players come in and do their jobs for four years. That's how it was laid out to us, and hopefully it will continue on Sunday." As for the streak? "The other day some guys from the New York Times asked me what's going to happen when the streak ends," Assaiante said. "And I said the sky will go dark, and the sun will turn black, and rivers will run red and frogs will fall out of the sky. Nothing is going to happen; we'll just get up the next day and start over."
Looking Back (Feb. 15) | Western conference 146, Eastern conference 119
When you play in conference, because the teams know each other so well, and because a lot of the coaches are mainstays, you're scouted a lot better and so teams are able to exploit your weaknesses. So in our conference games, opponents were able to exploit our biggest weaknesses, be that our transition defense or inability to keep the dribbler out of the middle our ability to lock into a one-dimensional offense. Whatever it might be for a particular game, teams were able to exploit that. The one game that I thought we played well and to our potential was the Cal Lutheran game. They were a very good team and we played well as a team, and we played great defense and we got the offensive input we needed from everyone. But that was the last time we played forty minutes of solid basketball. We're still essentially a young team. We had six juniors, but everyone was sort of playing a new role on the team. We had two of our three freshmen who played significant minutes for us. Other than Aaron and myself, no one was used to playing major minutes at this level and that really hurt us. That really hurt us in game situations because you can't simulate game intensity, unfortunately. That was a big thing. We just didn't play defense, and that's what the season really boils down to. If you don't find ways to get stops against good teams you won't win, regardless of how many scorers you have or how well the offense is playing. Losing Matt was huge. Matt is a great point guard and will be next year. He's also our only natural point guard. When he went down, the two replacements that filled his shoes, neither one of them had played point guard in high school. So to expect them to step in to a role they had never done before is a lot to ask, and understandably they struggled. So losing Galvin isn't an excuse for how we played, but it had an effect on the offensive side of the ball because it was a lot harder to get into the flow of our offense. This was a crushing season for me personally and for the team, obviously. Positively, we can look at the fact that we got the year of experience for all of the guys that weren't really expected to contribute before. They were forced into larger roles. We got some playing time out of freshmen that we didn't really expect. In terms of game experience, we gained a lot. And we stuck together as a team, regardless of all the trials that we went through, and the losing and not being able to get over the hump. We're still a great team, we're still great friends. There was never any finger pointing after games when the season was going down the drain. There's going to be a lot of changes. There has to be. We've won two conference games in two seasons. It's just not acceptable. Coach Sheldon doesn't find that acceptable, the rest of the coaching staff doesn't find it acceptable and I, as a captain, don't find it acceptable. There's going to be a lot of changes in both the things we do on the offensive and defensive side of the ball and just what we expect from people in the off-season. Everyone needs to go into the off-season with a commitment to them selves to get better. Hopefully, everyone's on the same page and I think they will be. The bottom line is that no one likes to lose. No one likes to go through a whole season where you don't play well, so keeping that in mind, that'll be all the motivation I will need as a captain. I can say 'think back on last season and how that made you feel, and what you're going to do to make us better for next year.' Beyel We did struggle with some of the little stuff. There was little things, concentration things and mentally we weren't focused for all 40 minutes of NESCAC games. It felt like every game we played we had a five or ten minute stretch where we just had a complete mental lapse where we wouldn't be guard on our man, we wouldn't be up on the wings, we wouldn't rebound, we wouldn't crash. It just seemed like there were a couple times where we would just zone out and we wouldn't have our intensity. I think those lapses are what killed us because we played even with a team, and go up, and we let them back into it, and go down ten, and then they would beat us by ten. I don't think there was ever a game where we played to our full potential, but we played pretty well at Cal Lutheran. I think that if we could have kept that up we would have had a much better second half to the season. For those of us coming back as seniors, it's our last year, so obviously that's a huge motivator. Also, it's good that we have a bunch of guys coming back. This year we didn't have many people used to starting and we had to work on that. Next year we have almost everyone coming back. Now, all the young guys that had to contribute this year will know what it takes to play in league games and play a long season. Personally, I plan on having a little different approach in terms of conditioning. But teamwise, we're still going to go with the lifting and playing pick-up. There isn't a whole much else we can do. When everyone is going their separate ways in the summer, its hard.
The Kansas City Royals have experienced so many lows in the last decade that it is almost unfair to declare one specific event the nadir of the organization. But if a choice must be made, it would have to have been during the team's spring training of 1999. After four consecutive losing seasons during which the organization had tried desperately to find starting pitching via every possible avenue, 37-year-old Mike Piechnik was given a non-roster invitation to spring training. Although Piechnik had never played professional baseball in his life -- he had made his previous career as a Canadian fast-pitch softball pitcher -- he nonetheless was given the opportunity to audition for the Royals, whose front office at least considered having him pitch in the 1999 season. Unfortunately, Piechnik balked every time he came to the plate, and the clever experiment died a quiet death. There are no Mike Piechniks at the Royals' training camp this year. Although the rotation still consists of Gil Meche, Zach Greinke and an assortment of interesting hopes and dreams, the desperation that brought Piechnik to spring training has largely evaporated. The Royals have recognized that their ineptitude will not be cured easily and are in the midst of a long and deep rebuilding process. They will not contend this year or next year or maybe not even the year after that. The "something, anything to save this ballclub" mentality that led to Piechnik and the infamous Jermaine Dye-for-Neifi Perez trade in 2001 has been replaced by a coherent plan under new general manager Dayton Moore. The Royals have committed money to the draft, the first step on the road to building a cheap team in a mid-size media market. They have signed their share of Scott Boras clients, who generally come with high price tags. In 2006, they drafted Luke Hochevar with the first overall pick. His signing bonus cost the Royals $3.5 million. Mike Moustakas was drafted in the first round in 2007 and received $4 million. The Royals paid Eric Hosmer, the third overall pick in 2008, $6 million. The organization is not being stingy in the one area that can give it cost-effective returns and is looking to build a solid base for success in the future. Moore, the man behind the Royals' future, worked in the Atlanta Braves' organization before interviewing for the Boston Red Sox' GM opening in 2005, subsequently withdrawing his nomination and replacing Royals GM Allard Baird in 2006. Baird, who now coincidentally enough works as an adviser for Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein, was responsible for trading away Dye, Johnny Damon and Carlos Beltran. The Royals posted three 100-loss seasons under Baird's six-year watch. Moore came in and talked the talk. He said he took the job because he had been handed complete autonomy and control over player personnel by ownership. He said the team needed to get younger and do a better job building from within. Moore has certainly walked the walk, especially with his drafting and building of a deep farm system. But Moore has not been able to get out from under the old Royals malaise. The Royals finished 75-87 last season, fourth in the AL Central. For a young rebuilding team, it wasn't a terrible showing. The team has serious problems, however. Only four hitters posted a double-digit value over replacement player (VORP) last season. One of those four, Mark Grudzielanek left the team in the offseason; another was rookie Mike Aviles with an unsustainably lucky .325 batting average. The team posted a collective .320 on-base percentage, good for 12th in the league. Any good general manager goes out and targets his weaknesses, and Moore swore up and down that the Royals would make moves to improve their on-base percentage -- but then traded for Mike Jacobs. Jacobs' career OBP is .318 and he has power but no eye to speak of. He also has a sizeable platoon split that renders him nearly useless against lefties and is only average defensively. Competing for playing time at DH and first base are youngster Billy Butler and prospect Kila Ka'aihue. Butler posted a very respectable .291/.353/.456 line last season for the Royals. Ka'aihue led the minors in walks, splitting time between the Double-A and Triple-A, and has extreme raw power. He earned himself a September call-up to the majors, where he did not look out of place. Between Butler, a solid right-handed bat, and Ka'aihue, a potential lefty powerhouse, it seems that the Royals should be all set at first base and DH for the 2009 season. For some reason, Moore saw it fit to throw in another left-handed bat and add weight to his bottom line. Jacobs makes $3.25 million, which is enough money to sign at least one over-slot draft pick in the 2009 entry draft, but he is not a piece of the Royals' future. For a team that didn't keep its superior players in Dye and Beltran, it's highly unlikely that they would keep a one-tool first baseman for millions of dollars. The only things that he will manage to accomplish in his brief tenure with the Royals will be smacking roughly 20-30 dingers, posting an OBP barely above .300 and taking away from the development of Ka'aihue and Butler. It's no wonder that the team hasn't made the playoffs since George Brett led the 1985 Royals to their first and only World Series title. The trade for Jacobs shows a lack of strategic planning. A guy that hit 32 jacks last year was available for the low, low price of one lightly-used Leo Nunez and $3.25 million. Moore pulled the trigger seemingly without considering how Jacobs fit into the Royals' future. That's a good way to make sure that your team doesn't reach the playoffs for another 25 years.
The breast cancer awareness campaign in which the NESCAC women's basketball teams participated over the weekend raised upwards of $5,000, according to Colby coach Lori Gear McBride, who organized the fundraising efforts.
In a nationally televised news conference attended by many of his New York Yankees teammates, Alex Rodriguez admitted injecting a performance-enhancing drug for nearly three years as a member of the Texas Rangers from 2001 to 2003.
As the old saying goes, the third time is often the charm. Unfortunately for the women's squash team (6-14), this adage didn't prove true over the weekend, as the Jumbos were downed 7-2 by Amherst on Sunday in the final of the Howe Cup-Walker Division Championship for their third loss to the Lord Jeffs this season.
A 4-5 record at the annual Trouble in Vegas ultimate Frisbee tournament over the weekend of Feb. 6-8 left the women's ultimate A team, known as the EWo, in 25th place overall but not completely unsatisfied.
The women's basketball team (20-3, 7-2 NESCAC) extended its win streak to three games last night, taking down the Lancers of Worcester State by a score of 58-47 in its last game of the regular season. While the score was close through the game's opening minutes, Tufts started a 10-2 run at 12:32 to take a 19-9 lead. But the Lancers stormed back, knotting the score at 19 apiece with 3:22 left to go in the first period. Thanks to junior forward Julia Baily, however, who chipped in with the next seven straight Jumbo points, Tufts entered the break with the lead and never looked back. Baily led the Jumbos in scoring with 21 points, going 8-for-12 from the floor and converting on all five of her free throw attempts. She also led the team with six rebounds and contributed an assist and three steals in her 35 minutes of playing time. The 21-point performance shot Baily into the team lead in points scored this season, with 284, as former leader sophomore Colleen Hart, the team's starting point guard, scored 10 points in the game to bring her season total to 279. As a team, the Jumbos didn't shoot with incredibly high efficiency, hitting only 23 of 60 field goal attempts for a mark of 38.3 percent, and 20 of Tufts' 23 baskets were scored by the starting five. Nevertheless, the Tufts gained another win to eclipse the 20-win mark for the second straight year, relying on a strong defensive performance to give them the victory. It was the sixth time this season Tufts held its opponent under 50 points. The Lancers were 16-for-44 from the floor for a percentage of 36.4. No Lancer recorded more than 10 points or three field goals.
In just one day's time, scenic California will play host to the biggest cycling race held in the United States: the Amgen Tour of California (AToC). In its fourth year, the nine-day AToC is shaping up to be more hotly contested than ever before. One of the biggest races of the early season, the AToC will have special meaning in 2009 as it helps kick off a year already marked by big comebacks. In addition to pre-race favorites like Team Astana's two-time defending champion Levi Leipheimer (USA) and 2008 Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre (Spain) of Cervélo TestTeam, four other important contenders will be looking to get their seasons started with a bang. American Tom Danielson of Garmin-Slipstream once showed the potential to develop into Lance Armstrong's successor. In 2005, Danielson won the now-defunct Tour de Georgia and took seventh in the Vuelta a Espana. The next year, he took second and sixth in those same races, respectively, as well as eighth in the AToC. Since then, however, Danielson has been plagued by nagging injuries and various illnesses that have left both him and his fans disappointed. After regaining his health and confidence by adding more races to his schedule last season, Danielson looks poised to crack the top ranks of the sport once again, and the AToC will be his first test in 2009. Also on the start list is Italian Ivan Basso of team Liquigas, who returned to competition late last year after a two-year suspension for doping. Having won the Giro d'Italia in 2006 and stood on all but the top step of the podium at the Tour de France, Basso is one of the foremost stage racers in the world and one of the most threatening riders on any challenging mountain stage. Like Danielson, Basso did race last season, but only in the closing months of 2008, and the 2009 AToC could be his opportunity to make a new and cleaner name for himself. American Floyd Landis is also on his way back. Landis won the 2006 Tour de France, but after a failed doping control for synthetic testosterone, he lost his title and was suspended for two years. Although Landis never admitted to cheating and has, in fact, fought to overturn the ruling against him for the duration of his suspension, he has been out of the sport until now. Winner of the inaugural edition of the AToC in 2006, Landis is no stranger to the roads that he will be covering over the next week. And if there is anyone that has something to prove in the peloton this year, it is Landis. Finally, there is, of course, Armstrong. While he already suited up this year at the Tour Down Under, Armstrong hasn't yet had a chance to show just how good he still is. The real question, though, will be whether or not he is competing to win, as the possibility that he is only there to support teammate Leipheimer is very likely. Although Armstrong does not have the advantage of having competed in the AToC before, his résumé simply speaks for itself, and when Lance wants to win, he usually does. The simultaneous return of all four of these accomplished racers to the professional scene guarantees that the 2009 AToC will be one of the most exciting yet. The list of favorites for the overall classification goes on, however, and includes team Saxobank's Frank and Andy Schleck (Luxembourg); Columbia-Highroad's George Hincapie (USA), Michael Rogers (Australia) and Kim Kirchen (Luxembourg); Garmin-Slipstream's Christian Vande Velde and David Zabriskie (USA); and Rock Racing's Tyler Hamilton, the American professional road race champion. Clearly, the start list for the tour is incredibly deep, and the competition would be fierce regardless of the course. But the race organizers did not want to be left out of the excitement, so they have put together what promises to be a grueling race that should not disappoint. As usual, the AToC will open with a prologue, a short individual time trial that will determine who wears the leader's yellow jersey on the following day's Stage 1. Unlike previous years, however, this year's prologue will not be a climb but rather a pancake-flat 2.4-mile course that should result in absolutely blistering speeds. Look for time trial specialists like Saxobank's Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland), Bissell Pro Cycling's Tom Zirbel (USA) and American professional time trial champion Zabriskie to really light up the pavement on the opening day tomorrow. As for the rest of the course, the word on everyone's lips is "climbing." With the exception of the time trial on Stage 6, every single stage features some amount of climbing that could shatter the peloton and determine the final outcome. Although the course has changed markedly from previous years, it still includes many of the climbs for which the race is famous, like Stage 3's 1,930-foot Sierra Road climb. Any given day could prove to be the most crucial. But if climb after climb after climb is not enough to shake up the overall classification, Stage 6's Solvang individual time trial (ITT) should do the trick. The 15-mile course is similar to previous years, and if those editions are any indicator, this year's ITT will not be overlooked by the main contenders. Last year, Leipheimer entered the ITT with just a 13-second lead over Cancellara, but with a convincing win, he extended his overall lead to 49 seconds and held it all the way to the finish. Even the final day could factor into the overall outcome. With the 11.7 miles and 21 switchbacks of the 4,200-foot Palomar Mountain standing between them and the finish line, none of the yellow-jersey hopefuls will be able to rest until they finally cross the line in Escondido. And that's not to mention the three other climbs on the menu for Stage 8. Going up?
