Tour de France 2007

[Dodge]

More damaging maybe but overall drugs are less...

[Bluebeard]

Check the link - it is for the 2008 Tour...

[Pauro 76]

Really disappointed in how its turned out. Was at the London prologue and was proud to be there, fantastic atmosphere and everyone really got into it. It's been my second favourite sport and it just annoys me when people say it's just a sport for cheats.

[Bluebeard]

I think that all we can do is hope that this is the turning point. It seems that the important players in world cycling who can change things (the teams, the sponsors and the TV companies) are making a few points about the situation in pulling out and expelling their members. There is at least a suggestion that there is punishment, regardless of who you are. There are even talks of Barne Riis being retrospectively stripped of the 1996 Tour.

[Closed Account 2]

It does look bad, I mean to be honest now everyone is just going to presume whoever wins is on dope too. As a sport now it's lost a lot of credibility, and you wonder if they should just let the cyclists take what ever they want, they can't seem to stop them. It could be like the WWF Wrestling, were everyone knows there is a pretty much open door on steroids..

[Macy]

It does look bad, I mean to be honest now everyone is just going to presume whoever wins is on dope too.

Yeah, yet they think whatever sport they follow is 100% clean, which is the thing that really bugs me about all this media outrage. When it's put to the sports journalists they just totally ignore any other sports to get the digs into cycling - how the fook do these knobs know what goes on in cycling anyway, since they only report on it 3 weeks per year?

[Stuttgart88]

Anyone see the Jens Voigt interview last night? He was almost relieved & could only see the positives.

The race leader & the most popular rider being thrown out of the race? Great. As said above, cycling seems no longer to be burying its head in the sand. Only idiots would continue to dope in the current environment.

[Dodge]

Just on that...

Christian Prudhomme (director of le tour): “Today the general classification is more credible than yesterday. The departure of Rasmussen is the best thing that has happened to us these past few days. The most important thing now is that we give the Tour back to the hundreds of thousands of people who follow the race and love it. Now the Tour continues with riders who love their sport and are prepared to practise it with respect to the rules.”

“When I see riders sitting down to protest against doping at the start of the race, it’s completely different to what happened 10 years ago. It’s the absolute opposite because, at that time, they were protesting against the [doping] controls. That means that we have a part of the path [to a clean sport] has been forged."

[Pauro 76]

Slightly off topic. Pat McQuaid, Tour de France general manager or something similar. His name has cropped up the last while. Didnt he commentate with Jimmy Magee on RTE's coverage way back when Roche and Kelly were on the Tour?

[Dodge]

yeah he used to commentate. He's president of the UCI (the Sepp Blatter of cycling)

[geysir]

Anyone see the Jens Voigt interview last night? He was almost relieved & could only see the positives.

The race leader & the most popular rider being thrown out of the race? Great. As said above, cycling seems no longer to be burying its head in the sand. Only idiots would continue to dope in the current environment.

Up to now they have been burying their heads and denying that they have been.
"My immediate reaction is, why didn't they do this at the end of June, when they had the same information," Pat McQuaid said. "The team decided to pull him out; that's their prerogative. I can only applaud that. It's a zero-tolerance policy, and it's a lesson for the future."

Note that his expulsion was ordered by the Dutch team sponsor.
I agree that the expulsion is 100% 'positive' for the sport but is has been effected in spite of the efforts of cycling's governing body

[Pauro 76]

yeah he used to commentate. He's president of the UCI (the Sepp Blatter of cycling)

that's what i thought alright. thanks!

[pete]

I would guess real danger of Cycling being kicked out of the Olympics as the IOC do not like doping scandals as it scares off the sponsors who pay for their junkets.

Its no surprise that Cycling & Athletics are the big dope sports as they generally rely on power & pace more than any field sport where skill is also a big factor.

It could be argued that Cycling has a strict drug use policy but that has only emerged due to previous scandals where everyone knew riders were cheating but they never tested positive.

The Tour de France still gets loads of media attention but very little of it for the sport itself now.

[TheBoss]

Looks like Contador has it won now.

[Stuttgart88]

William Fotheringham wrote an interesting piece in yesterday’s Observer.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sport...137296,00.html


A few things stood out for me:

• The exact circumstances behind the revelation that Rassmussen was in Italy, not Mexico.
• That Rassmussen has NEVER been tested out of competition.
• Rassmussen is a habitual liar. One lie (only missing one Danish test, not two) too far maybe explained why the Danish Union dropped him mid-tour, not beforehand.
• Rassmussen was one of a few riders high up on UCI’s list of doping suspects (ok, this is unsubstantiated)
• McQuaid would have been within his rights to invoke a rule removing Rassmussen from the Tour (45 days suspension upon missing a test). McQuaid didn’t think this was appropriate.
• The Tour justifiably taking the high moral ground over the UCI & McQuaid.

[the 12 th man]

I heard a French cycling Journalist this morning saying for next year the Tour organisors are considering one of the options is to have it as a national team event with the teams being made up from pro & amateur cyclists.

[Macy]

McQuaid seems like a spoofer on the anti doping stuff to me, tbh. How can a rider not have had any out of competition tests! Hadn't heard that was the way it panned out on the Rasmussen lying though - that the commentator had said it before there was even a issue.

Going back to national teams would be an interesting development. It'd probably be a very open, uncontrolled race.

Its no surprise that Cycling & Athletics are the big dope sports as they generally rely on power & pace more than any field sport where skill is also a big factor.

I don't agree with this - how many times do we here about people having "great engines", or having to play "the full 80"? Lots of asthmatic pro footballers and rugby players cleared to use salbultamol because of their apparent condition. Very few sports actually test for blood doping - easy to never have postives/ non-negative results when you don't test for them.

[Dodge]

Depends on the drugs. The likes of EPO would be excellent (you know what I mean) for footballers and that has very little to do with power and pace

National teams is a complete non runner as it would mean limiting the amount of French, Spanish or Italian riders and thats not going to happen

[the 12 th man]

National teams is a complete non runner as it would mean limiting the amount of French, Spanish or Italian riders and thats not going to happen

In certain sports they allow say France 1,France 2,etc so that might be a way around it.

[Dodge]

Yeah, true enough. Still can't see it happening as it'd mean sopmeone from the smaller countries couldn't win it as he'd have no support. Britain's top finisher in le tour, (Charlie Wegilius (sp?) has been banned from competiting for Britain or England again when he refused to help their leader (Roger Hammond) in last year's world championship and instead he rode for his team leader, an Italian..)