Hore set for hefty ban
26 Nov 2012
New Zealand hooker Andrew Hore has been cited for an off-the-ball incident which subsequently hospitalised Wales lock Bradley Davies.
Hore hit Davies off the ball during the initial stages of last Saturday’s Test in Cardiff. The incident was missed by matchday officials, but Hore has now been cited and looks likely to receive a lengthy suspension.
The time and date of the hearing, before the IRB’s appointed independent judicial officer, have yet to be fixed.
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen expects the hooker to be sidelined for some time. Hansen did not say as much, but has already called for a replacement ahead of the coming Test against England.
Dane Coles is expected to start at Twickenham.
30,244 Comments
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17 Jan 2013, 06:37 am
OPRAH IS WRONG PLACE FOR CONFESSION :
Lance Armstrong interview with Oprah Winfrey will be ‘completely stage-managed’, says David Millar :
Lance Armstrong’s 90-minute interview with Oprah Winfrey next week has been greeted with widespread scepticism and suspicion that it will turn into a “stage-managed” confessional.
will finally break his silence over the doping allegations, which led to the loss of his seven Tour de France titles and lifelong ban from sport, in a recorded interview which will be aired on American television at 2am UK time next Friday and simultaneously streamed on Winfrey’s website (oprah.com).
A spokeswoman for Winfrey, for whom the interview is a major coup, confirmed on Wednesday that Armstrong would not be paid for the interview and has no editorial control over the questions to be asked.
However, his decision to speak first with an interviewer famous for soft-handling celebrities caught up in scandal, rather than meeting anti-doping officials, has led to inevitable questions about his motives.
“Only Lance would get to have his moment of truth, if that’s what it will be, in front of Oprah Winfrey,” said British cyclist David Millar. “It is not sitting in front of a judge or a disciplinary hearing being properly questioned about the things he has done wrong.
“I doubt very much it will be a proper interrogation. My biggest concern is that it will be completely stage-managed, that he will just be ‘given the ball’, and that it will all be about his emotions rather that concentrating on exactly what he did wrong.”
17 Jan 2013, 06:39 am
Pass the sick bucket while Lance Armstrong ‘confesses’ to Oprah Winfrey :
Lance Armstrong’s doping ‘confession’ is likely to be pure Busby Berkeley: a coast to coast, globally-streamed epic of strategic contrition.
On any sensible reading of next week’s 90-minute Oprah Winfrey sit-down, tears will roll, victim status will be staked out and personal damage limitation will outweigh cycling’s need to know how far up the scale corruption spread.
If this sounds cynical, it is nothing compared to the industrialised deceit recorded in the US Anti-Doping Agency’s report into how Armstrong managed to ‘win’ seven Tours de France. Just as offensive as the drug use itself was Armstrong’s habit of bullying and intimidating anyone who stood in his way. Ask the two Sunday Times journalists, David Walsh and Paul Kimmage, who might have had their lives ruined by Armstrong’s malicious libel action, which was part of a pattern of hyper-aggressive denial.
The pharmaceutical offences are in one corner. In the other are Armstrong’s Machiavellian orchestrations, which evaded full legal scrutiny until the USADA published its devastating account. This is the side of him that will sit down on Oprah’s sofa for an interview that will be minutely managed to serve Armstrong’s purpose.
Notice that the word emanating from insiders is that Armstrong is eager to return to competitive sport, in sanctioned triathlons, from which his worldwide ban currently excludes him. Even this implies a purity of purpose that is hard to reconcile with his behaviour as the world’s top cyclist.
A more realistic interpretation is that Armstrong knows his commercial worth has been wiped out. The cost so far is thought to be £31million. His cancer charity had its moral foundations kicked away and is trying to press on without him. Better to take the full hit now, Armstrong might be thinking, than to stay stuck in a shadowland of accusation and denial.
This is no safe gamble. To confess will expose him to a possible perjury charge and other compensation claims. It will also greatly assist The Sunday Times in trying to recover their £900,000 libel payout. Unless he is credible – and humiliates himself on live TV, thus maximising his chances of picking up a sympathy vote from the terminally gullible – public forgiveness will be a long time coming.
Finally, he can see he is going to have to walk through a lot of fire if he is to escape pariah status. His calculation must be that he might as well get on with it, to bring the ending nearer, and manage the turmoil as best he can.
Choosing Oprah was an obvious first step. American network TV loves an apology opera and Armstrong had better not disappoint. A show of arrogance or dishonesty would send him back to the doghouse for good.
But enough about him. What can the sport gain from any mea culpa? Nailing other cyclists is probably not on his agenda (oh, to be at one of his pre-broadcast PR run-throughs). We already know cycling went through a long spell of systematic doping – of decadent imbibing. What we need to know next is who facilitated this culture beyond the peloton itself.
Here we are drawn back to the $100,000 (£62,000) Armstrong is reported to have donated to the International Cycling Union, which opened the sport’s governing body up to the charge of taking hush money.
It denies that charge and completes an internal investigation in April. This week it emerged that Armstrong also tried to donate $250,000 (£155,000) to the USADA, which declined the offer and exposed him eight years later. The doping trail runs from cyclists to doctors to team officials and off in all sorts of directions. The most pressing need now is to see whether any of the sport’s rulers were involved, through complicity or cover-up.
For that reason Oprah is hardly the right priest for Armstrong to be ‘confessing’ to.
The interview panel should start with police and state attorneys. There should be chairs for those whose lives he damaged and the whistle-blowers he tried to frighten into silence. Instead this is confession as TV drama, as attempted sin-and-redemption. Armstrong will probably try to wrench it round to his own “pain”. He denied it far too often – and too aggressively – for anyone to watch it without a sick bucket close by.
17 Jan 2013, 06:41 am
HAVE YOU ENOUGH TO READ?
Lance Armstrong ‘offered £155,000′ to United States Anti-Doping Agency who eventually banned him :
Lance Armstrong faces a fresh and damaging allegation that he once offered a $250,000 (£155,000) donation to the United States Anti-Doping Agency, the body which eventually banned him for life and stripped him of his seven Tour de France titles.
17 Jan 2013, 06:50 am
WITH THIS I FINALLY BID YOU GOOD NIGHT. GOLDEN SLUMBERS AWAITS E.T.
Lance Armstrong panel could quit over UCI’s refusal to allow commission to offer cyclists amnesty. :
The independent panel set up to investigate the Lance Armstrong scandal is in danger of unravelling as arguments rage over calls for it to include a ‘truth and reconciliation’ process to help expose cycling’s doping secrets.
The three-member panel was established by the International Cycling Union to investigate claims that Armstrong bribed its officials to cover up his doping. The panel called on Wednesday on the UCI to allow it to widen its brief and set up a truth and reconciliation commission, but this was rejected. The Daily Telegraph understands the independent panel believes that it is only by offering an amnesty that witnesses will come forward with information, including possibly Armstrong himself.
By blocking this process sources have indicated that the UCI has left itself open to the risk of losing the services of the three highly respected figures put in charge of the independent panel. Sir Philip Otton, a former appeal court judge, is chair of the commission, which also includes Baroness Grey-Thompson and Australian lawyer Malcolm Holmes QC. They will not want to face accusations of a whitewash by completing a report without having had sufficient power fully to investigate allegations.
The panel established its own terms of reference when it was formed but has since been urged by the World Anti-Doping Agency and the United States Anti-Doping Agency to widen its scope. Both organisations have serious concerns over the cycling authorities’ handling of anti-doping and it is understood Wada and Usada offered to fund the truth and reconciliation hearing, estimated to cost around $500,000 (£415,000).
Wada, Usada and the pressure group Change Cycling Now, which includes Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, on Tuesday withdrew their co-operation with the commission, citing “a number of serious concerns” over neutrality after learning that the panel’s powers would not be increased and that its final report would be sent to the UCI first.
The commission responded on Wednesday morning by calling a public meeting in London for this month to discuss the setting up of a truth and reconciliation process. “The commission is of the view that a truth and reconciliation process is desirable for the purposes of this inquiry, and that such a process would ensure the most complete evidence is available to the commission at its hearing in April 2013,” it said in a statement. “Such a process would be in the interests not only of the inquiry, but of professional cycling as a whole.”
During a day of lengthy statements, the UCI issued its own response, noting that the panel was established to investigate allegations of corruption and “not to act as a doping confessional”. It also stated that any amnesty would contravene the Wada code, leaving witnesses open to punishment from “the IOC, national anti-doping authorities, sponsors and indeed criminal authorities”. It said it would offer an amnesty if Wada changed its code.
Once his interview with Oprah Winfrey has been screened tomorrow and Saturday it is believed that Armstrong will begin the formal process of working with the authorities in return for a reduction in his life ban. He is expected to reveal which officials and team managers helped him to dope.
Armstrong is finally to be stripped of the Olympic bronze medal he won in Sydney 12 years ago. The International Olympic Committee has been wrestling with several legal issues concerning the return of the medal, as the 2000 Games falls outside its eight-year statute of limitations, but The Daily Telegraph has learnt the problems were ironed out before Armstrong filmed the two-hour confessional on Monday.
The official directive ordering the return of the medal – which will not be reallocated at this point – has been sent to Armstrong’s legal team.
Livestrong, the cancer charity set up by Armstrong, said on Wednesday it expected him to be completely “truthful and forthcoming” in his interview with Winfrey and “with all of us in the cancer community. We expect we will have more to say at that time.”
Armstrong said on Wednesday night viewers can judge for themselves how candid he was in his interview. “I left it all on the table with her and when it airs the people can decide.”
I TOLD ALL YOU MORONS THAT ONE DAY SOON THE BANKS WOULD BURST ON THIS LANCE SAGA. THAT DAY HIT ON MONDAY AFTERNOON.
17 Jan 2013, 06:55 am
All this for your on-going education from the Professor.
It elevates the level of morality of the very many cheaters in the country, hopefully.
Too much cheating and too much begging pains the soul/sole.
17 Jan 2013, 07:01 am
@ET.-25104:
you are you bidding good night?
you do realise you’ve been all alone for the last hour, right?
17 Jan 2013, 07:03 am
There is a new musical about to hit the stage, it is called Snow white’s seven cheats for dope and the rope.
.
It stars DopeyZim and his sidekick, doggydope- s h i t food(straight from her ‘Coloured’ township, Dirtbinville).
Line up one and all for the opening at the Baxter Theater this Friday evening.
17 Jan 2013, 07:05 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25106:
I am never less alone than when alone.
But you are to dump to comprehend that.
17 Jan 2013, 07:06 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25106:
you are you bidding = who are you bidding
17 Jan 2013, 07:11 am
@ET.-25108:
are you good in company too?
do you hold a crowd in thrall at social gatherings?
17 Jan 2013, 07:11 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25109:
I am “bidding” all who read some of this ,dummy, like you NOW.
17 Jan 2013, 07:14 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25110:
I hold them captivated and enthralled. Gift of the gab.
Simply ask all the people I spoke to in the townships and all the many beaches I stopped them.
17 Jan 2013, 07:15 am
Still trying to understand the profound retort?
Let me save you.
I am never alone, when seemingly alone, as I have all my billion thoughts to accompany me.
‘Ek is slaaperig nou.’
17 Jan 2013, 07:15 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25106:
Moenie worry nie Bakkies, hy hou die H.ore thread lewendig
17 Jan 2013, 07:22 am
@ET.-25111:
yes, but i have not read the articles, at least not yet.
i literally only read the hard to miss capitals where you bid a non existent crowd goodnight.
i then scrolled back to see who it was you were so heavily engaged with for who knows how long, only to find you’ve been posting all on your own for an hour..?..
very strange that.
17 Jan 2013, 07:23 am
@ET.-25112:
You had to stop people for a chat…
Hardly a willing and captive audience is it now?
17 Jan 2013, 07:30 am
@ET.-25112:
well look, i wont go that far but will take your word for it.
i have difficulty paying attention for long periods of time and often find myself falling asleep at events i really have no interest in, like shows and so on.
anyway, thanks for the update on the Lance Armstrong saga. i will make an effort to watch a bit of the Oprah interview all the same. i dont think it will change my opinions of him though.
@victoriabok-25114:
hehe more Vic,
ja, dit doen hy beslis.
ET’s so pompous and full of himself at times, he makes me larf (no offence ET, i’m only kidding).
17 Jan 2013, 07:35 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25117:
well, i’m not kidding i do think you are pompous and full of yourself, but i mean it in the nicest way possible.
17 Jan 2013, 07:43 am
@ET.-25113:
goeienag en lekker slaap, ET.
hoe laat is dit nou daar?
17 Jan 2013, 07:58 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25118: You are my favourite Keomedian Bakkies. Wry is the word that comes to mind
17 Jan 2013, 08:07 am
@ET.-25108: If you’re going to call someone ‘dumb’, make sure you spell ‘dumb’ correctly.
17 Jan 2013, 08:24 am
Golden Showers await ET.
17 Jan 2013, 08:41 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25119: It’s the same time as what it is here Bakkies. He is no more in the USA than what you are in Thailand at present…..
“It stars DopeyZim and his sidekick, doggydope- s h i t food” – this comes straight from the Neilanate/Jokers collection of one liners, tapped on a keyboard somewhere in the Cape when internet access allows
It’s funny Bakkies. On the interweb, people can be who and what they want. It’s strange that so many people (or alters) choose to be stupid…..
17 Jan 2013, 08:54 am
@playtheball-25120:
hehehe
cheers PB, its certainly not intentional (i think) because i’m pretty sure i do not possess the mental faculties which make wryness.
17 Jan 2013, 08:54 am
@ET.-25108: “But you are to dump to comprehend that.”
To dump? Remind us again of your dizzy academic heights.
17 Jan 2013, 09:02 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-25123:
hahahaha
he is an enigma old ET, my feeling is he fails himself by attempting all too often to box way above his intellectual weight, especially when he ‘uses his words’ to its fullest extent the way he does.
17 Jan 2013, 09:04 am
@katman-25125:
17 Jan 2013, 09:05 am
Why is Extraballas so obsessed with Lance
17 Jan 2013, 09:05 am
@katman-25125:
He worships at the ALTER OF TRUTH, remember.
17 Jan 2013, 09:06 am
@gunther-25122:
no no no no no
that is a terrible mental association to make, Gunner.
i had to do a mental reboot.
17 Jan 2013, 09:07 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-25123:
I would love to administer ET. the Thematic Apperception Test.
Especially his response to 13 MF.
17 Jan 2013, 09:12 am
@Dawn-25128: ET was going to retire on the proceeds of a shipment of knock-off Livestrong bracelets he bought off a Chinese/Nigerian website. Invested his entire life savings, and now Lance has buggered him from behind with all this doping nonsense. The bitterness runs deep.
17 Jan 2013, 09:14 am
@WP-Forever-25129: So does Skoppie, apparently. I wonder if his and ET’s are the same altar, or if it’s a chain, like McDonalds.
17 Jan 2013, 09:15 am
@Dawn-25128:
because ET thinks ‘his’ scoop on Lance is better and closer to the truth than Oprah’s.
funnily enough i picture ET as a male version of ‘Felicia, Felicia…Felicia..!..’ (corny talk show background music blaring).
17 Jan 2013, 09:17 am
25000. Finfan
24000. Sheriff
23000. Transformation
22000. Transformation
21000. The Sharks rugby pedigree is
packaged as dog food
20000. CharlesM
the class of 20grands are just a bunch of great bloggers, innit?
17 Jan 2013, 09:20 am
@Transformation-25135:
i see Cheeky got stuck trying to drive his SUV through a dam, what was he thinking?
that’s a mill in its moer.
17 Jan 2013, 09:22 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25130:
‘mental reboot’
17 Jan 2013, 09:22 am
i’m pretty sure insurance liability does not extend to acts of willful stupidity.
17 Jan 2013, 09:23 am
@WP-Forever-25131: I would prefer to administer the amyl nitrate test
Would love to see how the various alters deal with the fast incoming high. Neilanate will probably try to s-h-a-g ‘Jokers’ which would leave ET with his pencilwilly pulled tightly between his legs royallyfuckinghimself…..
I would pay to see that……
17 Jan 2013, 09:23 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25136: Was it a farm dam? Because they’re notoriously racist.
17 Jan 2013, 09:23 am
@Transformation-25135: Pure CLASS.
17 Jan 2013, 09:23 am
Jir this is one m0erse long thread!
It’d be a shame if I didn’t add at least one post.
So ja.
17 Jan 2013, 09:25 am
@katman-25140:
hehehe
here’s the link courtesy of Victoriabok:
http://www.dispatch.co.za/daredevil-cheeky-to-the-rescue-in-day-of-drama/
17 Jan 2013, 09:26 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25136:
Was alcohol involved?
17 Jan 2013, 09:28 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25130:
You were probably due one anyway Bakkies.
17 Jan 2013, 09:28 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-25139:
Oh dear.
17 Jan 2013, 09:30 am
@WP-Forever-25144:
well, he was on his way to a ‘sponsors meeting’ and we all know what goes down when boardroom brekers are in action.
17 Jan 2013, 09:30 am
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-25143: Ha ha. I bet he’ll be driving a new one by next week. I mean, no one fought in the struggle to be stranded without a ride.
17 Jan 2013, 09:30 am
@WP-Forever-25144:
No it was the old “meeting with sponsors” routine on a farm.
17 Jan 2013, 09:31 am
@gunther-25145:
hahahaha
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