El Diablo Rojo

These guys are still the best bike racers on the planet, drugs or no drugs. I couldn't hold their wheel on my best day if they were all suffering from the flu! This will still be an exciting Tour but some of the names up front my be new and unknown. I watch the Tour not because of any one rider but because of all the riders. Every one of them are talented athletes, this year we may see one win on shear natural talent alone.

I started a thread a few weeks back "Why the French Suck". In it I theorized that the French haven't done well in cycling since the Festina Affair because France really cracked down on doping. Wouldn't it be interesting if the French have a great Tour this year?

Hambone

but they still suck, right? Just they suck and (in your scenario) do well in the '06 Tour.

(By "they" I don't mean the farmer from Cambria, the truck driver from Orleans or the regular Joe (Jean?) I really mean those damn smarmy Parisians. Every one of whose grandfathers were both heros in "the Resistence.")

O-Town

Correct me if I'm wrong here...

Didn't Spanish authorities confiscate blood? If so why don't they just do DNA testing to see who's it is. Riders would have a hard time explaining this to the authorities.


A list of new rider jerseys a friend of mine just e-mailed to me:

Red with lightning bolts and devil’s head logos – for the overall leader (regardless of whose blood he’s running on)

White – for the best rider actually using his own blood

No jersey at all – for the best rider actually using his own blood – and who didn’t transfuse his own stored blood from the winter back into his system right before the race

Yellow – best rider who takes nothing stronger than a multi-vitamin

Question Mark Jersey – best rider who can prove the weird blood markers in his samples are the result of being a chimera in the womb

Green and Brown – best rider who can finish the Tour even though he frequently collapse on climbs foaming at the mouth and barfing a la Jesus Manzano

Inverse Polka Dot Jersey – best rider who has never roomed with Richard Virenque or David Millar

furiousferret

The problem I have with the people saying, 'why watch' is if history were turned back and no one doped, would the guys being implicated still be on top? Lets not kid ourselves, the ratings will be great in the U.S. if several riders are in contention for the GC.

I also have a problem with the accusations in MLB. Half the substances on the 'banned' list you can legally buy at a GNC. In fact, the steroids BALCO produced were technically 'legal' as they didn't match the legal definition of steroids. Second, you can get pretty big strong being perfectly legit. Every player who hits the gym clean now and raises his stats is effectively accused of juicing. Now, I'm not saying Bonds didn't dope, but what he did was legal or against the rules of baseball at the time he did it.

Baseballs numbers are through the roof because of weight training. Steroids is a byproduct. Not every player juices.

In a sport where hall of famers are celebrated for corking the bat, spitballs, and ampetamines I think its hypocritical for them to come down so hard on these guys. Especially when steriods is 10x more rampant and even encouraged in the NFL.

Baseball should just ban the substances and quit pointing to the past. I'm tired of 110 pound sportswriters acting as if they were experts on sports medicine and training.

ggusta

If they were cheating it was because they couldn't keep up with lance in the first place.

They tested Lance so often it's a wonder he had enough blood and water in his body left to compete with.

ChezJfrey

Agreed. One problem I see with this situation is that much of the public will assume that whoever makes the podium is clean. They only busted one doctor and his clientele doesn't necessarily comprise the entire pro peloton. In other words, there are other doctors a racer can visit...so yeah, it makes this a race of maybe some "clean" riders against the ones not yet caught.

Grasschopper

I don't care who you are...that's funny right there.

Helmet Head

Do you think they tested Ullrich and Basso less often? Yet they were always "clean" too.

slvoid

Ah crap I got hdtv and dvr just to watch the tour this year on my big screen TV and The Jan won't be in it!!

jjmolyet

Is the tour broadcast in HDTV? On OLN?

Dubbayoo

That sucks..................so, since you won't be needing that tv next month, hook a brotha up!

NickExxon

FWIW, I caught an NPR (Nat. Public Radio) update at 12:00. The broadcaster added to the news of the suspensions that Ivan Basso had resigned from CSC.

That's what they said...

DRLski

if Basso and Ullrich isn't in the tour this year it's not even worth the watch. This is complete BS, the whole pro sport has gone to hell in a hand basket.

Hambone

Just playing devil's advocate here but do you think they test the blood of a European on the second step as rigorously as they test the blood of an American on the podium?

BlastRadius

I've always liked Simoni even though he seemed like a cry-baby at times. I guess when he said Basso was extraterrestrial, he may have been onto something.

Moochers_Dad

Imagine how you would feel if your tour-prep doctor faxed your wife a bill for services to your hotel for tens of thousands of dollars. And then you were kicked out of The Tour! You'd really feel like you spent your money foolishly.

cooker

Which includes the risk of being outed and banned.

TRaffic Jammer

I say wipe em all off the pro circuit, if they weren't doing it they were complacent in someone else doing it. Start all over again, no pro cycling for a few years. Wait for the trickle down effect to the amateur levels as they are more than likely already firmly entrenched in the latest doping technologies.

EURO

Every rider implicated in this scandal has been tested multiple times, using the same techniques as Launce. Tests are useless, the doctors are always ahead of them - it is AS LIKELY that Armstrong doped as Basso, Ullrich, Mancebo, Virenque, Pantani, Brouchard, Jalabert, Hinault etc etc etc.

This is the key problem with the Lance fans. They've not been in this sport long enough or deep enough to accept that they are ALL cheating, and that Lance is no different (apart from the fact that he does TV adverts saying he doesn't dope and made millions out of a book that proclaimed a clean lifestyle).

TRaffic Jammer

Yea the revolving door is pretty gross. Let's cut em all off.... get a whole new batch of pros, new pro organizations and sponsors that will police their charges. I still think creating a pro cycling town and isolating them while they are under contract isn't such a crazy idea.

Thats what they do with amateur Keirin racers. Cloister em at a remote Keirin school....pound in to them the importance of honour....let em loose to makes skads of cash for themselves and the bettors. Ever hear of a scandal involving Keirin riders? No? Thats because they would have to commit Sapuku if there was ever the slightest whiff of corruption or scandal.

The embarrassment of riches is now simply an embarrassment.

ggusta

Are you joking?

EURO

But he was doping, of course. Like the rest of them.

cooker

Take a sample of blood in a slender glass test tube. Spin it in a centrifuge so all the red cells sink to the bottom and the clear plasma rises to the top. The red cells should take up less than 50% of the tube. That percentage is the hematocrit. If the cells take up more than 50% of the tube, that is strong evidence of EPO usage. It means the person's blood can carry more oxygen, which helps them output power at a higher and longer level, but it also means that the blood is thick andy syrupy and might clog up the narrow coronary arteries, causing a heart attack.

EURO

Lance was tested more because he won the Tour seven times, and because everyone in the sport knew he and everyone else at Postal/Discovery was doping.

ggusta

No matter how cynical I get, I just can never seem to keep up.

And kudos for the little condescension kicker, sensei.