How to loose a sponsor
February 17th, 2007 |NYT:
Organizers of the Tour of California, who boasted after last year’s race that no riders tested positive for banned substances, have acknowledged that riders were not tested for what has become the sport’s most abused drug — the blood booster known as EPO.
That failure is more surprising because the lead sponsor of the Tour of California is Amgen, the California biotechnology company that produces the genetically engineered version of EPO, which is sold primarily to help cancer and dialysis patients battle anemia.
A spokeswoman at Amgen, which had marketed its sponsorship as a way to educate people against improper use of its drug, expressed outrage at the failure to test for it, saying that the company had been repeatedly assured last year that EPO testing was done.
Lie to them.
I wonder why they would not test for EPO?
The race is in February, about a month before things really start getting rev-ved up in Europe. A bunch of Euro pro’s coming over to participate in the race. No EPO testing.
How odd.
