Le Tour de Dopage

As a causal fan of Le Tour de France my interest in it this year was a little higher. Lance Armstrong will not be there and for me that is a good thing. I never much cared for him and I have been constantly frustrated how the race would seemingly be handed to him year after year (that is another strory). The whole doping issue did nothing to endear himself to me either. I have not use for athletes who will boldly and loudly claim they have never “knowingly” taken performance enhancers. It’s BS. I find it very hard to believe that any elite athlete from the past 20 years is truly clean. Why don’t you just admit it, take your lumps and move on? I am sure there are some athletes who are clean but those are few and far between and my feeling is that Armstrong is not one of them.

That brings me to the recent news that Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso, the two biggest favorites for this year’s race, have been banned for their association with blood doping. I am not sure what to think about this yet. It is good to have a no tolerance policy but you need to have clear evidence of an infraction first. What would happen if Major League Baseball took on this policy?

In any case this decision sends a clear message to the riders and I have not doubt that this will be an effective deterrent to the remaining competitors.