I kinda wanted to write something about the Tour de France as it came to a close about how great it had been.  After the first couple of weeks that was definitely on, it had been one of the greatest races in recent memory and I was looking forward to an article about racing.  Then in the last few days that was brought to a sad halt when two of cycling’s big names Vinokorov and Rasmussen let us and even more so their sport down.

My opinion?  Cycling deserves credit and should be praised; it shouldn’t be ridiculed like some areas of the uninformed press have been doing.  Why you might ask?  Because cycling is yet again taking the fight to the dopers and refusing to let it go on.  It tests more than any other sport and it’s not (unlike other big sports) afraid to expose its top stars.  I also believe it’s carrying the flag that other sports should follow on how to fight against the cheating.  If other sports such as football, rugby, tennis and ice hockey tested their athletes to the same level cycling does, cycling would not be alone in a world of drug scandals.

 
This Tour de France is reminiscent of the 1997 Tour when after starting in Dublin the race fell into chaos when team Festina were kicked out for systematic doping within the team.  But in reality the sport has came a long way from them days.  Now the majority of riders are in favour of more testing, they are in favour of cleaning up their sport and the doping appears to be more an individual thing than a systematic team thing.  That itself is proven in the fact that two teams have been asked to and willingly withdrawn their entire teams when a rider from each team failed tests in the past week including Vinokorov.  Riders known to be clean such as Bradley Wiggens who has busted his ass for two plus weeks around France has had an idiot teammate let him down and ended his challenge of finishing the Tour.  Some people think this is harsh on guys like Wiggins but it needs to get very harsh to beat the problem.  Maybe when more clean guys are punished because of their cheating team-mates they may be more inclined to speak out in advance if they know of anything going on.  A lot of guys jobs are on the line this winter, it’s a shame some individuals cannot see it.

As for the Rasmussen affair, it was incident we all hoped wouldn’t come along after Landis last year but somewhere deep down we were all waiting for it.  I remember when the news of Vino’s positive broke I said, “Well at least he’s well down overall and it’s not one of the leaders”.  The words had barely left my mouth when…

Rasmussen wasn’t kicked out of the tour, nor was he asked to leave; his team in fact sacked him.  He missed four off-season tests; two by the UCI and two by his own federation and how you can do that is beyond stupid in my opinion. Had he missed three from one of them federations he would have been banned.  ASO the Tour’s organisers have since said had they known he had missed four before the start of the Tour they would have asked Rabobank to withdraw him before the start.  How did he really think he could get away with it . . . ?

How indeed . . .

People have asked why Rabobank let him ride this long with this hanging in the air, but it wasn’t for this he was fired it was because he appears to have lied about his whereabouts claiming he was in Mexico when he was actually spotted in Italy.  Mix that with the missed tests and being linked with the “Men in Black” and it didn’t look good for Ras.

Of course Rasmussen can make his team and everyone else look very silly if he produces his passport and flight documents to indeed show that he was in Mexico as he has been continuing to say he was.  If that was the case I think I would actually feel quite sorry for the guy who continues to possess a face that just looks confused, but until that happens he hasn’t got a leg to stand on.

Rabobank deserve some credit.  Sure the pressure may have came from the sponsor, but it could have been easier to have left him in and take the Tour win.  They gave up their first Tour victory.

As Jens Voigt said after today’s stage;  “Cycling’s image is already damaged enough and they may as well take it all the way in order to clean it up and kick out the dopers”.  We would all love it if it happened sooner rather than later but it’ll likely take time.  Fast-forward twelve months from now and lets hope I can write an article about the race being a great race for cycling reasons.

P.S.  Did Contador look awkward on receiving his yellow jersey tonight or what?  Prediction’s now open on how long it lasts before the scandal on him opens.  Still, Saturday’s time-trial has potential to be very exciting.

Comments and thoughts welcome below…

Category: Stories » |

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