CRIMINY!!!
Huge blood-doping scandal on the pre-stage first day of the Tour. 9 riders are out, including the men who were the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place finishers last year, and the Spanish team is gutted with 5 members dismissed from the race.
Ivan Basso is OUT!!! *cry* I *so* thought he might win this year. He was the only rider who could keep pace with Lance in the mountains last year and he's just coming into his cycling prime. Who knew he was doping? *cry*
I'm so disgusted with all the stuff going on with the UCI and all that. On sooo many levels. I won't air it here. I think we're just going to keep riding our bikes in our local races and say to heck with the rest of it.
I'm rooting for Floyd Landis (I think that is his name) -- but whoever wins -- I hope the press doesn't discredit the value of the win because so many were disqualified.
Who knows how long they have been using performance enhancing drugs. Supposedly not if they underwent testing in previous years... but it sure makes you wonder!
Kate in MI
are out, including the
team is gutted with 5
the only rider who
into his cycling prime.
I hope the press
We'll have to see how it goes. These early stages, the GC contenders are gonna lie low to conserve their strength for the mountains. Though George Hincapie made a slick move getting the 2 second sprint bonus.
How horrible for Thor Hushovd! At least race officials went ahead and banned those stupid hand things from the arrival zone. Those boys are going in excess of 40 mph when they sprint for the finish so even a blunt edge can open a huge gash, as today's accident proved. The Sports Illustrated website is reporting that Hushovd needed stitches but he will be racing Monday. Thank goodness. It would have been horrifying to have his race ended by a green cardboard hand.
Supposedly not if they
Oh ya. Fortunately none of the American riders were implicated in the Liberty Seguras scandal. Team Discovery is riding full strength.
Scary thing is the investigation is still proceeding and I heard that as many as 20 more riders could be dismissed. Of course all the riders already dismissed are protesting their innocence. Maybe some of them are. There's no way for the average cycling fan to know.
well all it takes is 1 or 2 poppy seed bagels to make it look like you have been taking drugs so who knows what they may have innocently taken and is looking like a positive - brand X vitamins maybe?
It wasn't a matter of false positives. This is a sting operation on a known doping doctor in Spain and a finding of lists of patients and cyclists that he supplied with blood doping products. The evidence was strong enough to cause the dismissal of 9 riders the day before the Tour began. It's a really big scandal in the cycling world.
It throws the Tour wide open. Not a single man riding has ever won the TdF before, and I suspect the battle in the mountains and time trials will be fierce. George Hincapie has a real chance and a strong team behind him. I have doubts about Floyd Landis, his team isn't as strong as Team Discovery and he cracked in the mountains last year; his wins this year have been races not nearly as brutal as the TdF. Bobby Julich has a real chance too but he's 35, which is kind of old for it. T-Mobile has been decapitated and Ullrich might be too old to recover his career even if he's cleared. Levi Leipheimer -- dunno, he's usually a GC contender, but like Landis his team isn't as strong as Discovery and I've heard little coverage about him. Possible he's not really on the radar this year, but who knows. Poor Vinokourov -- his team got gutted so he couldn't even start. He might not be enough of a team player to ever win the tour though. He's got a little too much fire in the belly.
But still, it's anybody's guess who'll win. I'd have placed real money on Basso but he's out in the scandal. He had the biggest win in the Gyro in 42 years, it was huge.
Yay for Thor Hushovd, he's riding and a few minutes ago he took his two seconds back on a sprint bonus. He and Hincapie have the same time again, but Hushovd's prologue win will mean he'll have the yellow jersey if the stage win bonuses don't change the standings. Har.
Addendum: Hushovd just snagged another 2 seconds. He should end the day in yellow.
Note that while seconds count in these early stages, the sprinters who win them now will be falling behind and barely surviving in the mountains. Hushovd isn't a GC contender by any stretch of the imagination.
aha - just goes to show that I don't watch much TV at all - I thought it was another trumped up false positive
taking dope is not sportsman like in my book.
If you want to get really depressed about the state of competitive sports, read "Game of Shadows". The press has hyped it as a Barry Bonds expose', and Barry figures quite prominently in it, but it's mainly about how widespread and lucrative doping is in sports today. Great read, but I also sigh a lot as I'm reading it.
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