This thing is a joke now. The only rider in the last twenty years to make it interesting was Lance. Now you have a bunch of doped up jokers chasing something that doesn’t even matter anymore. It’s like winning the NBA championship without having to go through Jordan. It just doesn’t have the same value. On top of that, you have a bunch of second tier riders who have to get juiced up to even come close to Lance’s performance. What a waste. Call me when you have enough top quality riders to put a good race together.
Um, I don’t know if you know this, but doping has always had been an issue. Tom Simpson, the Festina Affair, Telekom, etc. It is what it is and will bounce back. Also, how many baseball players and football players have been suspended this year for drugs? I’d bet on a per capita basis, it’s about the same as in cycling. Cycling is simply a much smaller community of preofessionals.
I attended Stage 4 into Joigny this year and thousands of people showed up 5-6 hours in advance simply to see 5 seconds of the race. The Tour isn’t going anywhere and if it gets cleaner, people will embrace it more.
And, say what you will about the cheats in cycling, but at least we’re not worried about the stars of the sport running illegal dogfighting rings and placing bets on the very race they are a part of.
Drama is as much a part of cycling and the bikes.
Bob
I’m not saying one sport is cleaner than the other. I’m simply saying that every single day you see another cyclist accused of doping. It just takes the fun out of it. I don’t follow cycling religiously, so for me, I will pick a guy to root for at the beginning of the tour and follow his progress. You can’t even do that anymore though, because every time you pick a guy, he’s accused of doping the next day. I would also bet that baseball is much cleaner than cycling. The reason that the vast majority of the players want random testing is to show that they are clean and the number of dopers are the minority. Football may be another story and Vick is another story altogether.
I think you are making some pretty broad and sweeping generalizations about cycling. You only hear about doping during the TdF. I doubt you could name two other cyclists suspended at other times. It’s the biggest race and attracts the most attention.
If baseball is cleaner than cycling, then my mom wears combat boots. C’mon, Bonds, Sosa, McGuire, HGH, the cream and the clear, ruffies, etc? C’mon…Baseball only started a half assed, hell, quarter assed testing system 18 months ago.
And the NFL? It doesn’t even test for HGH. C’mon…
oh how we miss the time when the top guys (Lance) could win without cheating (=getting caught) !
I would also bet that baseball is much cleaner than cycling. The reason that the vast majority of the players want random testing is to show that they are clean and the number of dopers are the minority.
LOL, I am sorry, but that is simply hilarious!! The reason the MLB players claim to want to be tested is that MLB doesn’t even test for the most prevelant PED used by the players. Ha! Ha! Ha! Man, that was funny. Thanks for the laugh.
I think you need to look at the stats. Over 30 players have been suspended this year in professional baseball for steriods violations. Baseball is far from clean. I don’t think any of us can even imagine the amount of drugs that have been used by MLB players in the past 10 years. I am betting it would drawf what the cyclists have used.
I never took it seriously to begin with, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a thing to behold. Regardless of the PED issue, the Tour is still a fascinating thing to watch and digest. The physical achievement alone is worth the viewing, but the strategy, the team competition, and the grueling uphill battles make it easily the best TV sports watching event going.
Personally, I assume that they’re all using some sort of enhancement method. Whether or not they’ve been caught is simply a level of proper dosage carefully timed with testing in many cases.
What else have you to keep track of in the month of July - Barry Bonds?
I don’t think this happened during the tour… Cycling: Doping scandal erupts in Spain Samuel Abt International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2006
****A major investigation of doping in professional bicycle racing was under way in Madrid on Wednesday, according to the Spanish media. Manolo Saiz, the 45-year-old director of the Liberty Seguros team in Spain and a major spokesman for the sport, was released from jail Wednesday after he spent the night under questioning, the Civil Guard said. Four others questioned with him were still in custody, added the Civil Guard, a unit of the Interior Ministry. They included Eufemian Fuentes, a former doctor for Saiz’s teams, and Ignacio Laberta, an official of the Comunidad Valencia team, according to the media and the Civil Guard, as quoted by news agencies. The newspaper El País reported that the police had raided three apartments in Madrid and confiscated 200 bags of blood, many with coded designations that indicated a potential user. Blood doping, as it is called, involves a transfusion that increases an athlete’s endurance by providing more red corpuscles that carry oxygen to the muscles. If the blood used is the athlete’s own, the transfusion cannot be detected by any method now used. The practice is illegal in sports. Another newspaper, AS, quoted the Spanish sports minister, Jaime Lissavetzky, as having announced: “We said that we would fight doping in sports and that those who practiced it would pay the consequences.” He told the RNE national radio that the government was “committed to zero tolerance in its fight against doping.” Seemingly the first to report the arrests Tuesday, the Cadena Ser radio added that some bags of the blood were destined for use in the Giro d’Italia, which began May 6 and ends Sunday in Milan. Although the Liberty Seguros team is competing, without distinction, in the Giro, Saiz did not accompany his riders there. He has been busy at home with getting two of his star riders, Alexandre Vinokourov and Joseba Beloki, ready for the Tour de France. That is one race his teams - first sponsored by ONCE when he founded it in 1989 and by Liberty Seguros since 2004 - have never won despite such star leaders as Alex Zulle, Laurent Jalabert and Abraham Olano. Instead Saiz has led the team to triumphs in the Vuelta a España, most recently last year when Roberto Heras, a Spaniard, won for a record fourth time. Heras, however, was disqualified after he failed a doping test and, in ‘We would fight doping in sports and that those who practiced it would pay the consequences.’ February, was banned from the sport for two years. He is appealing the ruling by Spanish authorities. A rare team director who is not a former rider himself, Saiz entered the sport after he gained a degree in sports psychology. He is known for being close to his riders and for his outspoken, sometimes crude, manner. During the 1998 Tour de France, when the Festina teamwide doping scandal was uncovered, Saiz led the opposition to raids by the French police on team hotels and then sparked the withdrawal of teams in protest. A few years later he was elected president of the prestigious International Association of Professional Cycling Groups, a post he held until 2004. Basso closes in on victory Ivan Basso moved a day closer to overall victory in the Giro d’Italia on Wednesday as rain and snow changed a demanding course in the Dolomites, eliminating one major climb and shortening the other. The new course, over 125 kilometers, or 77 miles, did not quite amount to a Sunday ride with a bicycle club - too many men in the 163-rider pack were left far behind in the cold and rain for that - but presented few challenges for Basso. Not that the Italian leader of the CSC team, who is seeking to win the Giro and the Tour de France this year, looked as if he could not handle any trouble. He again was untouchable. Basso finished second in the stage, coasting behind the winner and offering no resistance in the grand lord of the manor style often employed by Miguel Indurain when he won five Tours de France a decade ago and sometimes by Lance Armstrong when he won seven consecutive Tours from 1999 through last year. The beneficiary of this largesse was Leonardo Piepoli, an Italian with Saunier Duval, who thus chalked up his second stage victory in the 89th Giro. Piepoli also won Saturday, with Basso second then too. Piepoli was timed in 3 hours 21 minutes 36 seconds at the finish at the Furcia Pass, 1,739 meters up in little more than a mist. Five hundred meters higher, at the Plan de Corones, the original finish of the stage, snow pelted down. Since the 5.3-kilometer road to the Plan de Corones was a dirt road that was somewhat paved only last week and since the riders protested the climb even before the Giro began May 6, the organizers decided Wednesday that prudence was called for and lopped the road out of the stage. An earlier climb to the Delle Erbe Pass was eliminated because of snow there. The changes because of weather, while not unprecedented, were rare in the sport, which usually prides itself on its demands. By finishing in the same time as Piepoli, Basso widened his lead on José Gutierrez, a Spaniard with Phonak, to 5:51. Gutierrez was third in the stage, 15 seconds late. The battle for the second and third steps on the final victory podium continued, with Gilberto Simoni, Piepoli’s teammate, moving into third place ahead of Paolo Savoldelli, the Italian leader of Discovery Channel and the defending champion. That battle appears to be the only one still raging. - Samuel Abt ** And yes, Bonds, Sosa, McGwire etc. Um, do you know how many baseball players there are? These guys make up a very small fraction. The majority of baseball players want random testing. Do your research, then get back to me.
uhm… brief summary? (to the 06 article).
as to your original question - no, i don’t, not right now anyway. watched the stage yesterday, thought it was great. don’t think i’m going to watch any more. that said, i like watching the mountain stages the most anyway.
Dude, where have you been living ? Have you followed cycling lately ? Are you new to this forum ?
This article is the beginning of the infamous “Puerto” scandal !
I never took it seriously to begin with, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a thing to behold. Regardless of the PED issue, the Tour is still a fascinating thing to watch and digest. The physical achievement alone is worth the viewing, but the strategy, the team competition, and the grueling uphill battles make it easily the best TV sports watching event going.
Personally, I assume that they’re all using some sort of enhancement method. Whether or not they’ve been caught is simply a level of proper dosage carefully timed with testing in many cases.
What else have you to keep track of in the month of July - Barry Bonds?
This is exactly my feelings on the TdF. I can’t imagine how the human body could possibly go for 100-120miles/day for two weeks at speeds of 25-30mph without some sort of supplementation. Once you concede the fact that they are all on some sort of doping regimen, everyone is on the same page and you can go on happily watching the tour for the race it is.
I think tend to forget the fact that cycling is a team sport and we get wrapped up in individual cyclists as who they are as people (or at least how versus portrays them as people in all of those montages). We are all then severely disappointed when when the aw-shucks mennonite farm boy tests positive for synthetic testosterone and we say “The Floyd I know wouldn’t dope!..its a conspiracy!” As much of a nice guy I’ve been told that Floyd is in person, the evidence is still damning. I think the same could be said for Rasmussen, Vino, Tyler Hamilton, etc., etc.
There is the reality that is fed to us from the TV and then there is the “real” reality of the situation.
My 0.02.
Dude, I know. That’s the point. It didn’t happen during the TDF. As one poster stated, that’s the only time doping is known to people. Catchin’ on now?
I having a hard time taking the cycling authorities seriously…A guy thinks he saw him in Italy - that is the evidence he lied to UCI. How about check his passport/atm recipts/credit cards…
Michael Rasmussen has given reporters his reaction to his exclusion from the race. He has pleaded his innocence, despite his succession of missed tests and the fact that team manager Theo de Rooy said last night that the Dane had admitted lying to the team.
“I’m shattered. I’m on the verge of tears,” said Rasmussen today, quoted in the Danish tabloid BT. “I was not in Italy. Not at all. That’s the story of one man who believes he recognised me. There is no hint of evidence.”
He was referring to former professional Davide Cassani, who said he saw Rasmussen training in the Italian Dolomites on June 13th and 14th. Cassani said that he is “100% certain” that it was Rasmussen. This was at a time when the rider had told the team and the UCI that he was in Mexico.
“My career is ruined,” he told Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad. “I have no idea what I should do or where I will go. This is an enormous blow for me, and also for all the guys from the Rabo team. They’re devastated.”
Much the way people watch NASCAR hoping for a crash, those who watch cycling will watch for someone to have a really great day, and then get kicked out.
I guess he shouldn’t have missed those 4 tests. Then there wouldn’t be a problem for Mr. Chicken.
I have had a difficult time believing the riders have been clean for the last 10 years. I wish the riders had union like Football and Baseball so at least they could spin it more effectively…keeping the fairytales alive.
I take the Tour *more *seriously now. They are proving they are serious about trying to clean things up. Good for them.
Most clueless post of the year.
Though I hate to agree with the French, it doesn’t appear that I am so clueless… (From a story on ESPN’s main page)
“Some French newspapers Thursday declared the Tour dead and said it should be stopped after the startling announcement Wednesday night that Rasmussen’s team was sending the Dane home.”
“(From a story on ESPN’s main page)”
It MUST be true, then, since it came from that bastion of intellectual prowess.