The Tour de France & Doping

The Tour de France begins in two days. My favorite sporting event but… But it’s been a tough year for the fans of the sport. Operation Puerto has cast a long and wide shadow over the sport. Blood doping, anabolic steroids, hormone injections - whatever happened to Wheaties - the Breakfast of Champions? It would be one thing if a few riders were involved, but it seems only a few are not involved. So many are involved that you wonder if it is only a matter of time before the rest of the peleton is sucked into the scandal.

Armstrong has claimed for years not to be a doper, and he has never tested positive; despite rigorous and random testing, yet his denials seem less credible now; and the random testing Armstrong has based his credibility on seems less convincing than it did before Operation Puerto. Every attempt to label him a doper has been tainted by unfair and to my mind unethical conduct by the Dick Pound, WADA’s Chairman, and the Tour de France organization. Even Greg Lemond’s attacks on Armstrong seemed to be the ranting of a bitter has-been. Yet now, with so many dopers competing; a fair question is: how could Armstrong so consistently beat them without doping?

I hope it is not true, but especially after the Lloyd Landis affair at last years Tour and the history of previous members of Armstrong’s team testing positive; Armstrong’s seven victories seems less impressive and more suspicious. Roberto Hera tested positive after the Vuelto de Espana; Taylor Hamilton tested positive at the Olympics; and Lloyd Landis tested positive at last years Tour de France - all Armstrong associates. Frankie Andreu, the team captain during Armstrong’s first TdeF victory in 1999 has recently admitted using EPO during the 1999 Tour

While the Discovery Team has not been involved, in fact no present member of the team was named in Operation Puerto. Almost every other major cyclist has become involved. I always assumed that Armstrong victories were a result of his cancer rehabilitation. I assumed that his natural abilities and physiology were enhanced and fine tuned by the mediation and re-building he underwent as part of his efforts to recover from cancer. What other rider had the chance to completely re-build his muscular based on the requirement of long distance cycling?

Armstrong remains innocent, but...

So this year’s Tour does not have the luster of previous Tours, my mood is subdued, cautious. They are promoting the tour as a clean Tour – just as they did last year, but it seems more like the Tour of those that have not been caught. It begins on Saturday with the Prolog in London. I’ll watch, I will not abandon the peleton, not so much out of belief in the competition, but out of love for cycling and the beauty of the countryside. Yippee!

On a separate note, it now seems that there was no murder at the World Cricket Cup in the West Indies. The final reports classifies the death of Bob Woolmer as natural. He was not murdered he just mysteriously died naturally. Woolmer is famous in the world of cricket. At the time of his death he was the coach of the Pakistani national cricket team.