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Tour de France or Tour de Farce?
So I'm sitting here in a sleep deprived state having given half a night's sleep yet again as part of my annual attempt to rekindle passion for a sport I was once so addicted to. I go to sleep in awe of the ability the sports elite, feeling on a high from watching people push themselves to their limits and doing what seems super human things. I wake yet again to the news of yet more disgrace from these very same riders.
Talk about mixed emotions. Should I be feeling cheated that I devote so much preciouse sleep time to silently applaud their efforts only to find that its probably not their effort after all? Should I be doing backflips that "our Cadel" picked up another stage win courtesy of the now disgraced Vini's efforts on the time trial, should I be even happier that he has now moved into 2nd place outright, only minutes behind Contador? Ahh Contador, should I be watching his velodrome like acceleration at the end of a mountain stage 2 nights ago thinking is that humanly possible or do I take to heart the fact he was "left standing" not only by the now disgraced Rasmussen but also his own Team Disco rider? Rumours last night were that there has been another positive doping test, what will come of this? Hopefully not more disgrace from the top of the field, surely not "our Cadel". That I would be amazed at, if taking performance enhancing drugs can you leave you in the physically depleted state he aways seems to cross the line in then surely there is no point in taking them.
What I do know is that I continue to be mesmerized by the unfolding drama's. Quietly thinking to myself that, despite the continued battering this sports reputation cops atleast the cheats are getting caught. I long for the day when Le Tour makes headlines for three solid weeks because of the gut wrenching efforts of its elite's and not because of a dubious blood transfusion or lying to your own team about what country you were in when, and all this with the outcome of the Floyd Landers affair still unresolved in the US courts.
Vive le Tour!
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I may not stay up and watch it but I am always eager to hear of the news of what has happenned overnight. Its a sad day when we see a big win on a stage and then ask ourselves if they are doped up??? I think the time for zero tolerance is called for and there will be more doping allegations and positive tests to come lets hope that their fellow Tour De France athletes and managers and doctors can put pressure on others not to dope up.
I may be jaded and jacked off about the dopers but vive le tour! Bring on a tour that is drug free!
let us all take a moment to remember the poncey matching lycra wearing roadie, and celebrate with the viewing of how one does the tour de france properly
http://youtu.be/FA4N-NNNECo
that would probably be one of the first ever since they started it!
As far as I've read there has hardly been one where they weren't caught doping, even if it was 'only' Amphetamins in the early days.
These drug cheats are the real "scum". Imagine how ripped off our Cadel must be feeling knowing that he won the time trial & missed out on the presentation & all the other benefits of winning a stage.
To make things worse for Cadel, Rasmussen & Contador pushed each other pretty hard through the mountains increasing their overall time gaps, had it not been for Rasmussen, Contador would most likely not have had such a lead over Cadel!
Regardless of the bad press over drug & suspected drug cheating I will still be awake till the early hours of the morning cheering on Australia's best chance of a tour victory.
GO CADEL
Doping has been part of the pro cycling scene in Europe since the beginning. Jacques Anquetil once said "you don't ride the Tour on mineral water alone".
Paul Kimmage's book, "Rough Ride" is a worthy read about the doping culture in the peloton in the 80s. I haven't read Willy Voet's (the Festina soigneur in 1998) "Massacre à la Chaîne" but I believe it contains more of the same.
I get the feeling that the continental Europeans are not surprised and don't express shock and anger unlike the English speaking world. Well, based on what I know from my French colleagues anyway.
What pisses me off is the inconsistency in dealing with doping (or suspicion of doping). Why are guys like Contador and Valverde riding when people like Basso and Ullrich were suspended? All 4 riders have been linked with Operation Puerto.
This puts a certain Texan's victories into perspective, doesn't it? OK, I'll stop now before the Postal/Disco fan boys lynch me ...
that is absolute gold !!!!!!!
which year was that from?
Rasmussen has not failed any drug tests. He was kicked out by his team for being dishonest with his training locations.
Contador, on the other hand, is linked to Saiz and Op Puerto.
And Vino's B-sample has yet to be confirmed. If it does come back positive then it was an act of desperation instead of pre-mediated doping. He used someone else's blood for the transfusion instead of his own. So this means he wasn't stocking up.
Bloody hell. The last 2 years GC contenders have been disappointing. An overweight Ullrich would have crushed them all.
And it was on a Kona.
Petulance, only ever rumour about that Texan, never any suspicious samples returned if my memory serves me correctly. Just rumours spread by those who fail do understand how an "average" rider can become so great
Live through a life threatening illness as he did and see what that then does to your spirit. At the end of the day it is human spirit that sets the truely great apart from the sports elite, atleast thats what I believe.
As for Rasmussen, well its hard to fail a drug test if you're never around to take it
yeh its dave watson on a kona stab, 45ft gap! crazy bastard
thought it was 2003 though...
I can't believe some of you guys the way you compare some riders to others, "he is a drug cheat", "he is not". Although Cadel Evans is now currently running 2nd after the embarrassing events of last night, can anyone safely assume he is drug free???? Come on, you have got to be joking with me, or seriously deluding yourselves, if you think Cadel Evans is also drug free.
To be running second in and amongst all these other drug cheats SCREAMS to me that to keep up his level of performance, he must also be on the roids. Maybe not steroids (testosterone, etc), but some form of PHD's. Bruce, you have said it yourself, how is it possible for a rider to ride 20 something days straight at this level of performance, and not be supplementing the performance with drugs that increase strength and stamina? It is simply inhuman.
Surely, it is not the riders that are willingly taking the drugs, but the Teams that require a rider to take the drugs... to keep himself somewhere up the front... to stay in the media spotlight for their sponsors benefit... to be fighting for podium finishes... When a Team (i.e. your employer) tells you that to earn that multi-hundred thousand dollar salary (+ endorsements) you MUST do what you need to do to stay up the front (otherwise you're out on your arse), what are you gonna do???? Of course you'll take the drugs. It is rife, it is, as far as the employer Teams goes, sanctioned.
Although I have an interest in watching the TDF like others, and seeing an exciting spectacle like other sports, the whole underlying infrastructure of this sport is corrupt. Until the agencies have a way of testing every single rider for all forms of PHD's, we will continue to have the same disastrous headlines in this sport.
It makes it very hard to watch and appreciate a sport as thoroughly corrupt as cycling. In fact, me and my colleague sitting next to me could not think of a more corrupt sports for PHD's, with a close second place for track athletics.
Liam.
they are most likely all dirty.
makes you wonder what exactly they are competing for. who can take most drugs w/o being caught?
i also seem to remember that even the 'great american' has used illegal methods, but was not caught simply because they did not have the methods to determine the fraud. i think they re-tested a sample years later and it was not clean.
shame.
for some insight on the big man theres a book called BigTex.
ita all about teams and doping and how some riders got kicked off the team for not wanting to take drugs.
you will notice that when asked if he's been tested positive for drugs (lance) corrects them by saying he has not failed a drug test.
yes he has tested positive but he was somehow allowed to as he was making a comeback fro fighting cancer.
im not defending the man i think what hes has done is amazing with or without drugs.
i myself am anti drugs in sport.
Is always puffed up like a balloon at the end of each stage. He can hardly speak and looks like he's dribbling and close to tears. If he's using drugs, he may as well up the dosage. I've started watching the tour again for the first time in years, and again drug revelations make me second guess any great performances. And what about the bloke who jumped the gap. If he's not on drugs, he should be. Was that a parachute on his back. Did he forget to deploy.
seriously though, youd have to take serious drugs just to make road riding enjoyable for 1 day, let alone 20
do they test for L.S.D? hehe
Which is why it's all the better for him to be doing well.
Anyone hear HG on Triple J this morning? Said that Cadel is now on the virge of an historical finish. Now all he needs is for the guy in front of him to be busted on drugs as well. And maybe 4 or 5 behind him, and he should win by about 20 minutes. Classic.
About not being around to fail a test. This reminds me of a Chinese language test I skipped in Year 3/4 ... all my friends who sat for that test failed. I just got marked as "Absent".
As for the Texan, if memory serves me correctly ...
(1) there were traces of EPO in his test during the 1999 Tour. However he got a medical exemption for that because the cream he was using to treat his saddle sores had trace amounts of EPO
(2) L'Equipe published the leaked results of a test on frozen samples from 1999 and they definitely contained more than trace amounts of EPO
(3) There was no test to detect EPO before the Sydney Olympics in 2000, so this could make me a bit mistaken about point (1)
(4) Even if the "great one" wasn't doping, 3 of his US Postal team mates have been busted (Heras, Hamilton and Landis) after leaving the team. Which could mean that he won using doped up team mates.
Ah well ... I dislike US Postal/Disco with extreme prejudice so whatever I say about them will be biased.
which sounds like someone is holding the family jewels in a grip, if he is using drugs I would start listening for a deeper, more manly voice ...
(I'm referring to Cadel, not the Texan)
was a 2 time former World Champion mountain biker
(i.e. Rasmussen)
It should also be noted that lance donated a lot of money to the anti doping authorities
either he was serious about clean racing, he was trying to buy them off or he was hoping they were looking for the wrong drugs......
I prefer to think the former
Seriously though, get out and try it sometime. The thing about roadbikes is they are fast and fast is good.
Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. My concern is you seem to also be getting a response which means you also have the second sign (que twilight zone music)
sorry Stuart, I don't understand your post.
Was it in reference to my post about Cadel's high pitched voice?
one of your posts with another one of your posts, generally within a couple of minutes of each other.
I do it too, but usually in my head is all
um what about the drugs the dude must have been taking (of the non performance enhancing kind) to jump over peleton?!?!
the tour is cool as far as the extent of which the human body can be pushed and the engineering of light bikes etc but other than that im not really a fan mainly because most people spend all their time tallking about the drugs behind the scene...
my mate (who knows heaps more than me about it) said that the drug agencies are actually worried about the sport as a whole because it seems to have been engrosed by excessive speculation about drugs.
"there's a time and place for drugs....and thats college"
I find this whole topic to be quite farsical.
It is impossible for any of us here to accuratly comment on this issue because none of us are elite cyclists that have experienced that level of competition.
How many professinoal cyclists have been caught cheating this year compared to those who haven't? Not a great amount. Yet it seems a great way to do the 'Aussie' thing and cut those bloody tall poppies down a few notches.
To say that there is no drug culture would be as equally ignorant as saying that everyone must be cheating based simply on the fact that we can't relate to how a person can absolutley trash themselves one day, and then come back and win a stage the next day.
It is also quite humorous how riding for a couple of hours on a weekend makes someone feel like they're experts on the cycyling community.
Quote: "um what about the drugs the dude must have been taking (of the non performance enhancing kind) to jump over peleton?!?! "
So that's where I am going wrong.
Note to self - The NoBMoB site should not be relied on as a totally serious and knowledgeable source of in-depth commentary into cycling and its associated social issues.
i heard Rob is good with the drugs
see pic http://nobmob.com/node/170
found this on farkin.net, funny stuff
Kazahkstan Pie
To be sung in time with Don McLean's "American Pie"
Kazahkstan Pie:
A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How le tour used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those pedals dance
And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.
But Vino made me shiver
With every lie he'd deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step.
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his epic ride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day le tour died.
We were singing bye, bye Kazahkstan Pie,
Doped some homologous blood, but the blood wasn't
mine,
Them Kazhakstan's are drinking EPO & Wine,
Singing this'll be the day le Tour dies,
This'll be the day le Tour dies..
Did you write the book of Lance,
And do you have faith in Tyler & Floyd,
If the UCI tells you so?
Do you believe in David Millar,
Can T-Mobile save your mortal soul,
And can you teach me how to pedal real clean?
Well, I know that you've never tested positive,
`cause I saw you dopin' in the gym.
You both took off your yellow wristbands,
Man, I dig those lies again.
I was a lonely teenage junior racer,
With a yellow jersey and a pickup truck,
But I knew I was out of luck
The day le tour died.
We were singing bye, bye Kazahkstan Pie,
Doped some homologous blood, but the blood wasn't
mine,
Them Kazhakstan's are drinking EPO & Wine,
Singing this'll be the day le Tour dies,
This'll be the day le Tour dies..
Now for ten years we’ve been believin the hype
And Pros pedal fast on EPO,
But that’s not how it used to be.
When Merckx & Indurain were King,
In a coat of Yellow, Polka Dot, or Green
And a voice that came from Phil Ligget cried,
We were singing bye, bye Kazahkstan Pie,
Doped some homologous blood, but the blood wasn't
mine,
Them Kazhakstan's are drinking EPO & Wine,
Singing this'll be the day le Tour dies,
This'll be the day le Tour dies..
Dan Repella
USA
Tuesday July 24 2007
You are kidding yourself if you think the sport is close to clean, or even half clean. How many more of the top riders of the last few years need to be banned or carted from a ride "mid-competition" before you see the truth?
The truth is obvious and right there on the TV screen, if you choose to see it. You may be watching the stages, but are you seeing anything? What if, say, by the end of the '07 TDF, the top 5 riders have been banned due to illegal drug use? We have already had close to the top 3 (out of the top handful) banned after only a week of stages. How many more will it take? Another couple? Would that be enough proof?
And as far as having an opinion goes, we are all quite entitled to expressing one on this forum, just like you have done. We all have an interest in cycling and can express a half-informed opinion about it. Just like anyone can rant about how poor the Dragons footy club is despite never having played a game of professional Rugby League. It all fits mate.
This post is not designed to be offensive to you at all. Just trying to make you see plain reason. The sport is as dirty as any in the world.
Cheers,
Liam.
In the words of John Stevenson "They haven't been able to stop people taking drugs for fun how are the going to stop people taking them for profit?"
What do you think, is the war on performance enhancing drugs winnable or is it a waist of time and money?
John goes on to argue that there is a double standard in peoples attitude towards drugs. Sport, he says, is just another form of entertainment. We are more than happy to go to a rock concert knowing fully well that the performers are going to be stoned. We are happy to admire drug inspired art work from people such as whitely and call them brilliant.
So what is is about sport that makes us so passionate about the anti drug stance?
Personally I'd like to think the sport was a test of human spirit and will power, that we are seeing the true limits of human strength/speed/endurance not the skill and bank account of the team chemist/doctor.
And while the top athletes are surrounded by team doctors monitoring every little change and glitch and so are probably safe it's the up and coming riders who may not know the side effects and what to watch out for yet still feel the need to take the drug to get the results that I worry about.
Maybe we need a two tiered approach, the clean athletes and those openly doped to the eyeballs.
But ask youself this, if there were drugged and natural categories which one would you more be likely to watch? what would make the better TV?
As anti doping as I am I'd have to admit I'd probably watch the supercharged fools hoping to see one blow up. Not sure what that says about the future of the sport.
Oh and the one good thing to come out of the scandle this year?
Finallly we have a wide open tour as they come into the final stages.
For the first time I can remember they'll be racing into Paris. Normally the Gc is well and truely decided by then so the peloton cruises in together. This year hopefully they will be going for broke
that such a great sport continuously gets such a bad name. I really hope that cycling in all forms (mtb, road, track, etc)will one day be better known for the fun & enjoyment of the sport rather than drugs.