Jeannie Longo's Olympic hopes are all but dead after she finished 12th(Image credit: AFP Photo)
French great Jeannie Longo rides in the top five(Image credit: CJ Farquharson/WomensCycling.net)
Missing out on competing in an eighth Olympic Games in London last year has apparently done little to diminish the spirit of 54-year-old Jeannie Longo who must still provide her whereabouts details to the French Cycling Federation (FFC) and national anti-doping agency, AFLD.
Longo failed to meet the standards at one of the critical qualification races last year in the lead-up to London, having to concede to a much younger field in the time trial, where she finished 5th and road race where she was 12th. The winner of 59 national titles was devastated after being so far off the mark and stated her Olympic dream "is over" shortly after the national championships.
She did however state she would not be walking away from the sport after struggling to keep up with the 20-year-old winners of the road race and time trial; Pauline Ferrand Prevot and Marion Rousse.
"I think that [retirement] would be wrong, that is why I relaunched myself this spring. As long as there is life, there is hope," she said last June.
French anti-doping authorities, intent on avoiding the apparent technicality that saw Longo's previous whereabouts violations case dropped, have stated the French woman must still provide details of her movements to the agency.
"The subject is obliged to provide information that surrounds her location," said a statement from the AFLD. "We have taken this decision following a report in relation to her previous failures to provide whereabouts details."
The case opened by the FFC and AFLD was closed in December 2011 after it was found that Longo had not been notified that she had been included in the out-of-competition test pool. Athletes are required to be given annual notice and while she was informed for 2010, she did not receive notification in 2011.
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Longo's most recent result of note was 8th-place in October's Chrono des Nations - a race time trial event she has won six times; 1987, 1992, 1995, 2000, 2009 and 2010.
Her next scheduled race is not yet known but she is often absent during the season from the major races but tends to head back into competition mode around major national events.
