The Tour de France Goes Out With a Whimper
This year’s Tour de France was once again clouded with suspicion on which cyclists were using their own natural power and strength to continue the grueling journey throughout France, and which were steeped in artificial agents to help propel them ahead of everyone else.
When Alexandre Vinoukourov and his team were ousted, and then the next day Michael Rasmussen’s team got rid of him, and finally when Christian Moreni and his teammates left in much the same way all because of doping; I was beginning to wonder if anyone would be left to ride up and down the Champs-Elysées! No need to have worried, the people lined the avenue and 141 cyclists crossed the finish line, but somehow the spark seemed to be missing.
To begin with, why have teams in the first place, and why can’t each cyclists ride for himself? It’s completely insane to struggle through three weeks of pain and suffering just to push your team leader into first place! Take the case of Levi Leipheimer, when asked yesterday if he would try to pick up bonus time in the final race, he replied, (and I’m paraphrasing) No, Contador will win tomorrow and Cadel Evans doesn’t have to worry, I won’t try to pass him.
Why, you ask? Because the leader of his team, and the winner, Alberto Contador had the race in his pocket. Levi Leipheimer was only 31 seconds behind the leader and Cadel Evans 23 seconds behind! It could have been anyone’s race! And what a race that would have been if they had gone neck and neck fighting for the win, rather than cruising up the Champs-Elysées surrounded by their teammates to make sure no last minute disaster occurred.
It seems to me that not only do changes need to be made in drug testing these atheletes, they need to look at changing the way the race is won and let every man compete for himself!
Photo Credit: Flickr
Tags: Alberto-Contador, Alexandre-Vinoukourov, b5media, Cadel-Evans, Champs-Elysées, Christian-Moreni, cyclists, france, le-Tour-de-France, Levi-Leipheimer, Michael-Rasmussen, paris, Paris-Traveler, the paris traveler, the-Tour-de-France, the-tour-de-france-2007Related Stories
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6 opinions for The Tour de France Goes Out With a Whimper
GP
Jul 29, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Levi Leipheimmer has biked past our bed and breakfast here in montana during training. I also used to be inrelationship with a fellow on the swiss cycling team. What you see on tv, has been “pre-recorded” as it were.
It’s showtime folks
gp in montana
Lynn
Jul 30, 2007 at 2:28 pm
GP are you talking about just the final day of the race as being “pre-recorded” or are you talking about the entire race?
As I’ve mentioned in my 1st post, Le Tour de France, I’ve been watching this race (sometimes on the Champs-Elysées, sometimes along the route throughout France since the early 1970’s). If you watch the entire journey every single day, (in real time) you get a good idea of what these cyclists are going through.
In any case, I’d rather see each man race for himself as opposed to racing with the intentions of getting one’s leader into 1st place. What did your friend from the Swiss cycling team think about racing for the leader rather than himself? Or perhaps he was the team leader and then his perspective on things would be entirely different!
Alex
Jul 30, 2007 at 7:17 pm
The Tour has really become a sham. I wrote a few pieces on it last year and halfway joked that the cyclists should be allowed to take steroids. Considering the countless amounts of positive tests, allegations and flaws in the testing system it appears that this is the only way to have a level playing field.
And yeah the team racing is retarded, they should be allowed to bump like in Nascar, jk :).
Lynn
Jul 31, 2007 at 2:50 am
Alex, can you imagine the chaos if everyone could go around trying to bump each other off like you see in car racing! I don’t know if anyone would be left to race up the Champs-Elysées, but boy it sure would be an interesting race to watch!!! Hahaha!
Football Banter
Nov 12, 2008 at 6:01 pm
I think that the tour is always going to be dogged by drugs controversy. The name of the sport seems to have been permanenlty tarnished now - just my opinion :(
Lynn
Nov 16, 2008 at 5:33 am
I agree FB….I think the tour is just too strenuous for a lot of athlete to endure and they’ll take that chance of taking drugs and hope they don’t get caught!
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