There have been some more revelations from the Tour de France aside from the usual nonsense. Alexandre Vinokourov, one of the premiere riders. tested positive for homologous blood doping and the team he rides for, has been invited to go away by the Tour de France organizers and to take Vinokourov with them.
Cycling at the professional level requires a level of physical fitness that you and I can only dream about. The Human, being a reasonable efficient machine, on a bicycle, also a reasonably efficient machine, can perform remarkable things. It is competition of the most elemental, aside from boxing, and that is the attraction of watching the Tour de France. The riders are amazingly fit, fast and fluid, using every last erg of energy in their bodies to propel a bicycle up a hill, down a hill, or around city streets for hours at a time.
Previous winners, like Lance Armstrong, Greg Le Mond, Floyd Landis and the rest, have always been surrounded by unproven allegations of Better Cycling Through Chemistry. It seems impossible for mere humans to survive the Tour de France without some kind of assistance. Homologous blood doping, the charge against Vinokourov, is merely another method to jack up human performance.
Science and money, being what they are, make sure that the human machines are as effective as the science and the money can make them, within the rules. Wednesday, rider Cristian Moreni and the entire Cofidis squad took to the international departures lounge at the nearest airport and pulled out too. Moreni failed a doping test.
Then earlier today, the Maillot Jaune, the leader of the Tour de France, Michael Rasmussen got the gate from his team, Rabbobank. Rasumssen was already in a mess with the Danish Cycling Federation as he wasn’t telling them where he was, every hour of every day, missing what are called out-of-competition tests.
Aside from the daily embarrassment of having to piss for the doctors and give them vial after vial of blood, the riders, depending on their status or standing, have to diary their location and ask for permission to go places. The idea is to keep riders away from countries like Mexico, Panama, the Czech Republic or other countries where the controls on performance-enhancing chemistry are the punch line to a bad joke.
So far, with three riders and two teams out of the Tour, it is looking like the beauty of professional cycling has taken another half-dozen shots to the scrotum from a foot encased in a steel-toed boot. Does this mean the Tour de France is now Officially a Crock of Manure?
It is getting to the point where any competition is going to be considered bent if more than one person is entered. Professional Wrestling is starting to look like the last bastion of ‘pure’ competition. Pure, meaning Pure Theatre.
RoadDave 