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A tour in chaos

Associated Press

Latest comment posted at 6:12 PM EST 25/07/07

A positive test from an Italian cyclist for testosterone gets revealed a day after star Vinoukourov gets caught ...Read the full article

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  1. Mike Wrigglesworth from Sahara Desert, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya writes: What are these guys thinking? Haven't they noticed that someone might - just maybe - check them for drug use? How many people have to get caught before they give up trying? Honestly. . . . .
  2. Midtown Bob from Toronto, Canada writes: I'm not surprised at the cheating that is happening on the Tour. The Tour is so difficult ( todays stage has 2 Category 1 and 2 HC climbs ) that these elite need a boost to complete the race. Maybe they should run the Tour with an anything goes policy and see how much they can squeeze out of the machine we call the human body.

    Check this to see what chemicals can do:
    http://youtube.com/watch?v=S9UrOYzXfaI
  3. J Dear from Toronto, Canada writes: I can understand what Mike's saying in the first post, and agree that a sea change needs to take place. Midtown Bob then eludes to the main reason that this sport has become synonymous with blood doping and other forms of performance enhancement. Pro cycling involves spending hours and perhaps 75-80 percent of a race at or near your lactate threshold and VO2 max. One day classics average about 200 kms of racing, yet the three Grand Tours (Giro D'Italia in May, TDF in July and Vuelta in Sept.) involve three weeks of racing covering 3,500 kms (the Vuelta D'Espana is not quite as long, but still immense) and two rest days within that time. They'll cover approximately 11 flat stages of 200km /-, seven big mountain stages of 200km /-, plus a couple of individual time trails. Six or more daily hours of racing is commonplace. I don't agree with blood doping and I hope the sport can stop it, but I can see how it crept into the sport given the nature of the event(s) in the first place. The problem must have evolved when a few top riders started getting a bit of "help", and others followed. Unlike many others (often people that don't like or don't understand cycling), I don't feel anger or disgust for the athletes. I do recognize the need for more standardized testing and a cultural shift to rid the problem however. Vinokourov was tested randomly. I wonder who else "got away" with something that day - who knows? There's no disputing that these guys are warriors regardless. Take Vino: crashes in the first week and receives 60 stitches between one elbow and both knees and has road rash on his butt the size of a medium pizza. He continues in the mountains and wins a stage, plus the TT (at issue). What a waste for him and his team.
  4. asm oak bay from Canada writes: There is no excuse for performance enhancing drug taking in sport. It is morally wrong because of of the deleterious long term health affects and the unfair advanatage it gives the doper over the honest athlete. If the tour is too taxing, the obvious answer is to shorten the legs, particularly on the more onerous streches and ensure that rest days follow the long climbs. There is more to sporting accomplishment than mere endurance. Allowing the athletes to demonstrate their technique innate ability and high level of fitness over a reasonable distance only enhances the true measure of their accomplishment. As for those caught doping, a life time ban is warrranted for the athlete and all members of his team and sponsors.
  5. Steve Richards from Calgary, Canada writes: I'm a huge cycling fan, and it's always hard to hear these stories of doping scandals. It would be nice at some point in the future if we could watch the Tour De France and other races and see these amazingly gifted athletes perform these feats without thinking to yourself "I bet that guy's cheating."

    While I don’t condone doping, I do sympathize with the athletes that do it. If you&8217;re a B-level competitor that just can't seem to break into the winners circle, but there are a few techniques or a special substance that could help you out, then I can imagine it would be hard to turn that down, especially after you've dedicated your entire life to your sport. And techniques like blood doping are so hard to detect, all your doing is injecting yourself with your own blood.

    Having said that though, if there were stiffer penalties for cheating, I imagine it could be reduced. Some of these guys value competition more than their lives, so perhaps a life time ban from all professional sports would do the trick.
  6. Steve Richards from Calgary, Canada writes: And just to add, the tour has been running for more than 100 years, with blood doping only being a recent problem (last 25 years or so), so it is possible to complete the tour without cheating.
  7. JawBone Hamilton from Canada writes: Vino, dude, a "provocation"? Too much blood pooling in the hips and thighs? Puh-leeese.

    When there are two types of blood in your body, it means a transfusion has taken place. That's irrefutable.

    So Vino, unless you got a transfusion for your sore butt and wonky knees - or maybe you got bit by a vampire - give it up.

    The potential reward for winning the tour is worth the risk of doping for these cyclists and teams. If you get caught, you pull a Landis and deny, deny, deny. Then you blame the biased doping agency. Then you claim you must have taken something without knowing it (blame the trainer). Then you go on the talk show circuit to argue your conspiracy theory.

    Enough already.
  8. Graham Brown from Sarnia, Canada writes: Cyclists in the tour are the elite of the sport, competing at the highest levels. They are asked to put their bodies on the line day after day after day in an ultimate test of endurance. It is too much to expect that these guys, when performing at such a physical extreme, will always make the logical, rational, decision. Yeah, Vino has doped. So have others. It was a bad call in hindsight, but at the time it seemed to be the right thing to do.

    I don' t know how you prevent people from doping. More vigourous oversight and penalties I guess. Too bad the UCI/ProTour couldn't find more common ground.
  9. Jonnie BE GOOD from St Kitts, Canada writes: Cheating in sports has been around since someone started to bet on races --- the high level of sophisticated cheating in this era just it makes it seem worse---- if they really cared they would cancel this race
  10. Bill from Port Credit from Canada writes: I personally don't care if these machines cheat. It's still an amazing feat to complete their daily tasks. I'll watch the Tour de France regardless if there's doping, same philosophy I have with every other sport.
  11. Bière Freud from Vienna, ON, Canada writes: Steve Richards from Calgary writes: "...so it is possible to complete the tour without cheating." It's 2007, Steve! Completing the Tour means nothing, winning the Tour is what these freaks are trying to do. It's the prize money and the endorsement money that drives this thing. These guys are not riding around France so they have some stories to impress their grandchildren with.
  12. Michael Palmer from Waterloo, Canada writes: It is impossible to eradicate doping - so let's embrace it. Make it totally legal and get big pharma involved. I look forward to seeing the athletes with 'Roche', 'Merck' and 'Genentech' labels on their shirts and helmets.
    Since no pharma company will be keen on having their athletes appear on TV lying dead on the ground, they will have to develop sophisticated programs that maximize performance and minimize risk - a major investment, comparable to that required of car manufacturers that become involved in Formula 1. However, the profits from marketing their scientifically founded, patented doping formulas to the eager minor league athletes around the world will ensure bountiful ROI.
    Doping will finally be good for the athletes, good for the show, good for the economy - good for everyone!
  13. Jonnie BE GOOD from St Kitts, Canada writes: who banned these drugs anyway ----- everything you ingest is natural - somtimes nature made it - sometimes humans made it--- ALL NATURAL - if it exists its natural --
  14. Eric Kuelker from Canada writes: I love cycling, but am so disgusted by these drug-users. I am increasingly turned off of any sport, as the suspicion of drug use robs the excitement of watching people in any athletic performance.

    I encourage other news networks to not report on the Tour de France, other than the doping results. The race results are meaningless, with such rampant cheating.
  15. Bière Freud from Vienna, ON, Canada writes: I encourage the Toronto Maple Leafs to look around Shopper’s Drug Mart, or wherever you buy this kind of stuff, for some goal scoring enhancing substances. zzzzzz
  16. Mitch Sprague from Ottawa, Canada writes: Come on, the guy was a buffoon. He was 56 minutes plus behind the yellow jersey and no where close to any of the other categories. As far as allowing anything to go, what would the point be in watching that? The reason we watch is to see people do amazing athletic feats not to dope themselves up and fly over the mountains on red bull wings. Vino sounds like Landis with his half baked excuses. I don't feel sad to see them go, good riddance to the cheaters. Maybe they should create a Tour de Drugs and let the cheaters race against each other, that would be fun to watch...NOT.
  17. Larry Robinson from white Rock, Canada writes: On one side we have biotech and physiological research leaping forward (bad term) and on the other we have a huge sporting event that features athletes expending energy the equivalent of world class marathons daily for over three weeks.

    Uh, is this too hard to figure out?

    Everybody is doing something. The only issue is the techinical definition of "legal" and who gets caught.

    Any maximum endurance or strength event is simply not possible at today's level of competition without bio-engineering the competitor.

    I'd say let it go wide open but then we'd have a lot of dead people within a few years. The human body does have a limit.
  18. Larry Robinson from white Rock, Canada writes: And then there is Gary Player aghast that ten pro golfers use creatine, HGH and steroids.

    High School football players use creatine, HGH and steroids are readily available and testosterone supplements are sold in pharmacies south of the border.

    10 out of 250-300 golfers is a testament to the sanctity of the sport in today's world.
  19. Steve Richards from Calgary, Canada writes: Bière Freud:
    I totally agree with you, I was only making the point because some people were arguing that the tour was too long forcing the riders to cheat.
  20. Wet Back In Canada from Canada writes: Drugs in sport reflects drugs in society and, in Canada, drugs are protected by the judiciary.

    In a fixed case, Bev McLachlin at the Supreme Court of Canada, acquited Martin Chambers, the Lex Luther of organized crime in western Canada and the cocaine dealer to the legal and judicial profession in Vancouver, on the bogus claim he did not join the drug gang to traffick in cocaine but to win back the affections of his girl friend.

    The BC judiciary, compliments of Judge Gordon, allowed cocaine smuggler Ajitpal Singh Sekhon to walk after he was caught bringing 50 kilos into Canada.

    It is time to start dope testing Canadian judges.

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