How do they do it? How does a cyclist go day in and day out cycling difficult terrain in France? Riccardo Ricco (in the photo above) was wearing the polkadot jersey being the "King of the Mountains", but now he's King of the Fools after testing positive for erythropoeitin (EPO). His whole team (Saunier-Duval) has left the tour. I'm not sure why the whole team left since there's a new rule this year that permits a team to stay on even if one of their members tests positive. Nonetheless the whole team is gone which makes me suspicious of the entire team.
There are two teams in the tour this year whose mission is to be at the top of the sport and ride "clean." Garmin-Chipotle is one of these teams (with a Canadian rider on the team which is very cool) and Team Columbia. These two teams suggest a shift in the sport that aims for not only victory, but to resurrect the sport as a legitimate one. However, the sport is so tainted now that even these teams that claim their mission is to race clean makes me suspicious. That's pretty sad. This points to how tainted the sport is itself if I can't even believe in clean teams. I'd like to believe they're clean. I'm trying to believe they're clean. Time will tell I suppose.
2 comments:
It must be very difficult for a young racer who wants to compete clean but knows that all the winners are doped up.
I didn't really get excited about the tour until Sastre's climb up alpe d'huez, which was great, and was nice to see somebody other than Cadel win (I just find cadel boring).
Even though they were probably both doping, its hard to beat how exciting that Rasmussen vs. Contador "climb climb attack attack" stuff was last year. It's a shame that great drama like that is ruined with the drug allegations.
Post a Comment