International competitive cycling (most obviously, the
Tour de France) clearly needs to take stock of itself and where it's headed. Far too many of the top tier cyclists seem to feel it's an acceptable risk to engage in
blood doping and/or drugs, and that just encourages more of the competitors to follow suit.
Last year --
Floyd Landis (still not yet formally stripped of the Tour de France 2006 overall win title) was the most notable, but not the only,
high profile names in cycling to linked to doping in that year.
This year's Tour had already been marred by news of big name contender (and still-as-yet winner of Stages 13 & 15),
Alexander Vinokourov's doping, resulting in he and his
entire team Astana withdrawing from this Tour. But now the overall race-leader,
Michael Rasmussen, kicked off his team for alleged doping evidenced by failing to report for required pre-race drug testing? Where does it end?
The only thing left to thoroughly kill competitive cycling at the international level would be to find out one day that, indeed,
7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong had indeed doped, as well. I hope that's never, ever the case, and I suspect he's been a target of allegations for so long because so many people have been cheating that it seems a foregone conclusion to them that EVERYONE is cheating (
fallacy of the majority/bandwagon). Nevermind that an American dominating the "foreign" sport for seven straight years has clearly created wounds that run deep...
Nothing justifies cheating in professional sports. People need to suck it up and compete on their own merits or be
banned from the sport for life (vs. the current 2 year maximum ban), and swiftly not with the dilly-dallying that's going on in Floyd Landis' case (among others).
I am pleased to say that some riders are saying enough is enough and staging their own form of protests by delaying the start of at least one stage of this year's Tour by standing with their bikes, immobile, as the start was called. Further, this quote speaks volumes as to the severity of doping or even the mere perception of widespread doping on the international sport of cycling:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Sports Illustrated.com
"All this talk of doping prompted Jean-Francois Lamour, vice president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, to suggest the sport should be yanked from the Olympics. German public broadcasters have stopped airing the race, and one of Switzerland's biggest newspapers stopped writing about it." -- SI article |
It's extremely sad to see the actions of a relative few (one hopes) bringing the spirit and viability of a 100+ year old race to its knees.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Deutsche Welle
"On Thursday, French newspaper France Soir ran a mock obituary for the scandal-tainted race on its cover. It said the Tour died Thursday "at age 104, after a long illness."
-- DW-World.de |