Doping at Le Tour is serious stuff...

[dd74]

Man! If you get caught with EPO or any other foreign enhancement inside your system during the Tour de France, you're immediately kicked out of the race, your team suspends you, and to make matters worse, the French police arrest you on the spot (in your spandex, no less ), and haul you off to jail for questioning (still while in your spandex, no less ).

Hmmm...fairly different from MLB in this country, where you're grandstanded like some sort of rock star in front of Congress to answer why your biceps have grown so large.

Well, at least Le Tour is cleaning itself up from days when this sham (supposedly) won...

[cantdrv55]

Floyd fought it til the bitter end, didn't he? I think the final verdict came down just last month that he's a doper and that he cast a dark shadow on the French testing lab unjustly. How can he afford to pay his legal fees as well as the other side's fees w/o sponsorship? It just doesn't pay to cheat on le Tour yet riders still try.

[rennch]

I don't necessarily agree that he actually doped, actually. He passed every single test he was given except the one they called him on, and that was really questionable. It's not like you can dope for a single stage and time it perfectly. I obviously don't know if he did it or not, but something seemed fishy there. It's not like the French love American riders after Lance whupped them so many times.

[dd74]

Funny you should say that. An American is poised to wup ass once again in this year's Tour.
Meet Christian Vande Velde from Lemont, Illinois. Current standing: 3rd place overall after 11 stages.

[rennch]

Oh, I know! I've been watching it every day. Christian stayed in Boulder for a while he was training last year.

[legion]

Originally Posted by emptyo

I don't necessarily agree that he actually doped, actually. He passed every single test he was given except the one they called him on, and that was really questionable. It's not like you can dope for a single stage and time it perfectly. I obviously don't know if he did it or not, but something seemed fishy there. It's not like the French love American riders after Lance whupped them so many times.

I see similarities between this and the FIA and ACO.

If you look through the history of any sanctioning body dominated by the French, you will generally see the rules stay the same when a French (or in some cases, Italian) team is winning and you will see them changed rapidly when an American, English, or German team is winning. You will also see large penalties accessed against "non-preferred" teams while the same behavior is ignored when done by "preferred" teams.

[einreb]

Originally Posted by dd74

Christian Vande Velde from Lemont, Illinois. Current standing: 3rd place overall after 11 stages.

I'm close to lemont and most of my regular rides take me through there. Its one of the few spots our the area with any sort of (little) hills. I have no idea if he rode locally at all as a youngster, but its neat to think so.

He's riding strong. The alps will be super interesting then the decisive long TT at the end. This years tour is a great layout. I had been rooting for Cadel (decent guy, ausie, etc), but that was before Christian was a contender. Also... Cadel cried when they put the yellow on him. You just dont do that. No crying. Hincapie did it right... he banged a podium girl. Thats how you do it.

As for the Landis thing. He doped. Testosterone patch. Its too bad the process was so ****ed up though.

[einreb]

jebus. Ricco tested positive for EPO.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Insane. For one the French will stop at NOTHING to humiliate the Americans. Especially either Lance Armstrong or Floyd Landis. They utterly hate the fact that a bunch of Yankees could come over there and utterly own "their" sport, instead of appreciating great athletes and training.

That said, ANYONE competing at that level (actually far lower levels) is taking things, injecting things and otherwise "modding" their body to be competitive. Whether or not it's considered "doping" or not is simply a matter of the way the rule book is written. Chemical "A" might be considered fine while Chemical "B" is not. Top-tier cycling teams have doctors on staff whose job it is (among other things) to "toe the line" of legality per the letter of the rule - in other words, recommend whatever chemical brews will give their guys the biggest advantage while not technically violating any rules. This is the unfortunate state of athletic competition - like racing, it's as much about a "battle of engineering" as it is about the guys out there competing.

Maybe I'm a sucker, but for one I believe Landis. I don't think he knowingly did anything wrong and he's unfortunately been the subject of a witch hunt by the French. They tried their damnest for YEARS to get something on Armstrong and never could. . . which frustrated the hell out of them. Landis (unfortunately) represented an easier target for whatever reason.

Here's wishing a Frenchman doesn't win the TDF for oh, the next 100 years or so. . .

[billwagnon]

The whole Floyd thing was fishy. IIRC he never failed a test before or after that one stage, and what he failed on was synthetic testosterone which would not have been any help on that stage anyhow. All the racers were tested all the time and he had no other positives?

The lab did not follow standard procedures, their work was shoddy, machine calibration was not performed appropriately, and so on.

If he did do it, he's a far better liar than I am, to boot.

[Jeff Higgins]

Why does anyone really care? I think a pro body builder by the name of Mike Christian put it best years ago: "People want to see freaks." There should be no testing at the pro level in any sport. We test based on some vague idea of keeping it "fair", or keeping the playing field level, or because "modern" doping was unavailable in days of yore to our heroes from the past. All nonsense. Make everything available to everyone, and quit with the "wink, wink; my guy isn't 'cheating' but yours is" crap. All it means today is your guy hasn't been "caught". Yet. Testing has turned into no more than a political tool to make sure some one's pet wins. Or loses...

Just for the sake of argument, what if ingesting the very best currently developed performance enhancers is no longer thought of as "cheating"? If everyone in the current game has access and can decide for themselves to take advantage of them or not, how could it be "cheating"? Nutrition and training are better today than ever before. Both have been developed to a level of refinement unheard of in generations past. It's not like the top athletes can forego any of that just because of some substance they are ingesting. A couch potato will never wake up one day and win the Tour because he's been on EPO for a week.

What about commonly available, over the counter, health food supplements? We can ingest protien, carbs, amino acids, vitamins, and a plethora of other beneficial "natural" nutrients in quantities that vastly exceed those obtainable simply by eating normal foods. Is that "cheating" as well? We are extracting performance enhancing substances and greatly concentrating them, allowing athletes to consume them in entirely unnatural quantities. Where does it cross the line into the realm of "doping"?

[dd74]

Originally Posted by einreb

jebus. Ricco tested positive for EPO.

I'm not surprised. He was way, WAY too strong to be believed, particularly in the mountain stages. And cocky as hell - a real media darling. Winning two stages has its share of humiliation for the other riders. Too bad, though. Ricco was sleighted to win next year's Tour.

I bet the powers that be are looking very closely now at Cavendish.

[dd74]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Why does anyone really care? I think a pro body builder by the name of Mike Christian put it best years ago: "People want to see freaks." There should be no testing at the pro level in any sport. We test based on some vague idea of keeping it "fair", or keeping the playing field level, or because "modern" doping was unavailable in days of yore to our heroes from the past. All nonsense. Make everything available to everyone, and quit with the "wink, wink; my guy isn't 'cheating' but yours is" crap. All it means today is your guy hasn't been "caught". Yet. Testing has turned into no more than a political tool to make sure some one's pet wins. Or loses...

Just for the sake of argument, what if ingesting the very best currently developed performance enhancers is no longer thought of as "cheating"? If everyone in the current game has access and can decide for themselves to take advantage of them or not, how could it be "cheating"? Nutrition and training are better today than ever before. Both have been developed to a level of refinement unheard of in generations past. It's not like the top athletes can forego any of that just because of some substance they are ingesting. A couch potato will never wake up one day and win the Tour because he's been on EPO for a week.

What about commonly available, over the counter, health food supplements? We can ingest protien, carbs, amino acids, vitamins, and a plethora of other beneficial "natural" nutrients in quantities that vastly exceed those obtainable simply by eating normal foods. Is that "cheating" as well? We are extracting performance enhancing substances and greatly concentrating them, allowing athletes to consume them in entirely unnatural quantities. Where does it cross the line into the realm of "doping"?

I agree. What's the saying in NASCAR? "If everyone's doing it, it ain't cheating." Doping has been around in Le Tour and other big bike races for its near century long existence.

The big "doping" drug in the Tour's earliest days was - if you can believe it - arsenic. It killed the competitors nerves and pain, and allowed them to ride harder.

[JavaBrewer]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Why does anyone really care? I think a pro body builder by the name of Mike Christian put it best years ago: "People want to see freaks." There should be no testing at the pro level in any sport. We test based on some vague idea of keeping it "fair", or keeping the playing field level, or because "modern" doping was unavailable in days of yore to our heroes from the past. All nonsense. Make everything available to everyone, and quit with the "wink, wink; my guy isn't 'cheating' but yours is" crap. All it means today is your guy hasn't been "caught". Yet. Testing has turned into no more than a political tool to make sure some one's pet wins. Or loses...

Just for the sake of argument, what if ingesting the very best currently developed performance enhancers is no longer thought of as "cheating"? If everyone in the current game has access and can decide for themselves to take advantage of them or not, how could it be "cheating"? Nutrition and training are better today than ever before. Both have been developed to a level of refinement unheard of in generations past. It's not like the top athletes can forego any of that just because of some substance they are ingesting. A couch potato will never wake up one day and win the Tour because he's been on EPO for a week.

What about commonly available, over the counter, health food supplements? We can ingest protien, carbs, amino acids, vitamins, and a plethora of other beneficial "natural" nutrients in quantities that vastly exceed those obtainable simply by eating normal foods. Is that "cheating" as well? We are extracting performance enhancing substances and greatly concentrating them, allowing athletes to consume them in entirely unnatural quantities. Where does it cross the line into the realm of "doping"?

Agreed. IMO all these guys dope in some way or another, including the successful Americans like Lance and Greg. The physical demands are too great to overcome without some *help*. I did some amateur bike racing back in the day and it was infinitely more difficult than any other sport I tried (cross country, football, wrestling). Like all sports the pro's make it look so effortless you sit there and think "Hey, I can do that". Not.

I recall a late night TV host, Carson maybe, asked Greg LeMond if he ever had to walk his bike up some of the hills. LOL.

[Porsche_monkey]

It was ever thus. Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis, Lynford Christie, et al. Lots of cheaters, one or two scapegoats.

[creaturecat]

The French actually couldn't give a rat's ass about the USA. Get over yourselves !
Floyd wasn't cheating? More revisionist American history?