Leaky-Gasps
We had much fun on this site last summer blogging the Tour de France. It’s time to get back to it! In this thread, please bring me up to speed, you expert Tour-ists. We’ll go from there. Teams, individuals, Americans (because I’m nothing if not a chauvinist when it comes to international sports), doping scandals – go for it.
Comment by Brian C.B. —
July 5, 2006 @ 8:36 am
I only regret that I stopped very serious road riding a decade ago, since today, in shape, I would have been drug free since…well, actually, I never took any drugs that appear on the anti-doping list, unless they were once distributed on the back of postage stamps. That appearance would have been a mistake. Or, a bonus, depending on your point of view. Anyway, my completely untalented, superannuated but very fit ass would have squeezed through the anti-doping straits with room to spare, an ability that seems to distinguish me from any professional cyclist, anywhere. I coulda been a contender, if only because all the other contenders were popping EPO-steriod speedballs with abandon.
On a serious note, I’ve followed this sport closely for thirty years, and during that thirty there has been one performance-enhancing pharmaceutical exposé after another. As sport has tried to wean itself from drugs, it’s just killed this thing. Americans who bitch about how Armstrong was always under accusation jingoistically assume it’s because he’s an American, rather than grasp that it’s because the general belief is that all pro riders dope and he’s tarred by being one of them. Jacques Antequil was famously quoted as saying that ”One doesn’t win the TdF on mineral water alone.” Yeah, but in a world where that sort of thing is more and more frowned on, it’s an unendurable strike against a great sport.
Comment by Andromeda —
July 5, 2006 @ 9:00 am
Okaaaaay! Grant said I’d be wanting to comment on this thread, and he was right *g*.
Where to begin? Most exciting Tour in seven years, because we *don’t know who’s going to win*. It was originally cast as a battle between Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso for the post-Armstrong throne; the day before the Tour was to start, both of them were yanked for potential involvement in the biggest doping scandal, ever. I’m not even going to try to summarize the whole scandal — books could be written about it and probably will be — but it’s resulted in two whole teams being yanked (Communidad Valenciana’s invite was withdrawn two weeks ago, and Astana-Wurth had so many riders yanked due to doping that the remainder of the team wasn’t large enough to start) as well as Ullrich, Basso, and some other riders. (Most notably Alexandre Vinokourov, also a podium contender, who is totally non-implicated, but had to withdraw with Astana-Wurth.) It’s important to note that there has been *nothing proven* against the riders at this point — a lot of circumstantial evidence people are still sorting through — but the team managers all got together and agreed to yank riders who were under clouds of suspicion.
What’s the upshot of this? Well, first, if we had no idea who was going to win before, seriously, hell if we know now. Accordingly, the maillot jaune has been held by 3 riders (Thor Hushovd, George Hincapie, and Tom Boonen) after four stages. Second, it’s awfully good for the Americans; Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer, Hincapie, and maybe Bobby Julich were all contenders beforehand, and now their competition’s been stripped away and I believe they’re all still on intact teams, which is a bit of a rarity this tour. (Actually, Leipheimer — #6 last year — is the highest-ranked 2005 competitor still in the race.)
One thing not affected by all this chaos is the green jersey competition; none of the yanked riders were big sprinters.
So far we’ve only had the 7km prologue time trial (brilliantly won by Hushovd, with Hincapie under a second behind) and a few basically flat sprint stages. They’ve been notable for their remarkable heat (99 degrees yesterday, asphalt temp 122 — that means the roads are probably melting) and their crashes; Alejandro Valverde (another top contender) had to withdraw with a broken collarbone; Erik Dekker and Freddie Rodriguez (”Fast Freddie”, American, sprinter Robbie McEwen’s leadout man) also had to withdraw with assorted carnage. Sprinter Stuey O’Grady broke a vertebra but I guess he doesn’t care since he started today. Anyway, the Tour is down to 172ish riders (it normally starts at 189 though it was short this year as the team managers agreed not to substitute for scandal-plagued riders).
Besides, of course, fanatically watching OLN, I recommend dailypeloton.com and cyclingnews.com for your cycling info fix. Dailypeloton does an excellent liveblog of the Tour stages and good recaps (the jambon reports are great). Cyclingnews has everything — doping scandal updates, rider blogs, interviews, etc. etc. I especially recommend cyclingnews if you’re looking for background on the doping scandals (they do a good job linking to previous related stories at the bottom).
Whew! I think that’s the basic overview. Anything else you’re looking for?
(P.S. It’s really annoying that this software automatically replaces emoticons with an img tag, and then tells me that my comment isn’t well-formed because img tags are illegal!)
Comment by Andromeda —
July 5, 2006 @ 9:02 am
(Oops, I believe they’re all on intact teams *except Julich*, who of course as a CSC rider is missing Basso. That’s what I get for editing half a sentence and not checking if the whole is still true. Heh.)
Comment by Grant —
July 5, 2006 @ 9:30 am
Andromeda pretty much covers it.
I should add that the only thing that could be worse for the sport than this doping scandal would be if some of the riders excluded were later cleared. Vinokourov is already livid (though he was a bit nuts to begin with) because he’s been excluded without even being implicated. If it turns out that top Tour contenders had their careers essentially ended by a bogus accusation and by their teams’ leadership cutting a deal with WADA, it will be a tremendous blow to cycling.
This is important because while some of the riders are implciated with relatively strong circumstantial evidence (photos in some cases), the evidence leaked to the press regarding some of the bigger-name riders has largely been unclear and speculative. ”Rider X must be guilty because the name of his pet dog appears as a code-name in this doctor’s records” is not the sort of evidence that inspires great confidence.
WADA has been very successful in pushing its ”guilty until proven innocent” philosophy on cycling. If some of the accusations are disproven, it will be a welcome rebuke to WADA but may well be a fatal blow to cycling; if all of them pan out, it will be a strong step toward extending presumption of guilt to other sports.
Comment by Doug T —
July 5, 2006 @ 10:20 am
The sport misses Armstrong already. Not only was he better than other riders on the bike, apparently he was also a lot better than them at avoiding clear evidence of his drug use coming out. Freaking amatuers.
Comment by Michael —
July 5, 2006 @ 11:25 am
I think we just need to get it over with and make syncronized doping a team event.
Comment by Ken Houghton —
July 5, 2006 @ 2:40 pm
Doug T’s comment, along with Andromeda’s comment about Leipheimer, leaves it to me to note the following:
Amazingly, the #2-#5 riders in last year’s Tour have all been implicated by the Spanish investigation. If one were looking for a reason why #1 has not been implicated, cleanliness would not be the default assumption.
Other than that, it is incumbent to note that 3 different leaders after the first four stages isn’t exactly unusual; it’s still Sprinter’s Week.
Comment by John Emerson —
July 5, 2006 @ 3:43 pm
I’ve always wanted to ask Sheryl Crow what it was like to go 170 miles a night for three straight weeks. Endurance is great, but that has to be rough on a girl. Especially on a unigonad.
Comment by Andromeda —
July 5, 2006 @ 4:00 pm
I have to correct Ken; it’s not fair to say that all of #2-5 are implicated. Last year’s #2-4 — Basso, Ullrich, and Mancebo — have all been yanked due to drug suspicions (Mancebo, in fact, has retired, and Ullrich may be too old for another Tour). But #5 is Vinokourov, who has not in *any way* been tied to the investigation; he had to withdraw because you must have at least 6 riders to field a team, and Astana-Wurth was below that given all the suspensions it faced.