how low can the Tour go?

redmenace1

Hi all

As someone who dearly loves the sport but is just fed up with the doping over the years, have we got to the stage where the Tour and the major stage races will be critically wounded to a point whereby they are no longer viable.

And before anybody feels that this is an overreaction to the Vino scandal its not. I've felt very disillusioned with the sport since 1998 but keep hoping that things will improve. The truth is that things aren't getting better, they are getting worse and despite the pledges and confessions, doping is endemic in cycling and perhaps always will be.

Finally don't anybody try to justify what happens in cycling by saying "sure haven't all sports got drug cheats, it isn't fair to pick on cycling". That's not the point here. Cycling is in the dock & rightly so. It is a disgrace and drugs are KILLING the sport.
Your thoughts please from a shocked (again) cycling fan :x

cooper.michael1

Last night i was talking to my dad who is not a cycling fan, championing the guts of Vinokourov.....now i tell him he was doping.

To a non cycling fan, it is more of a turn off than it is to true fans like us. The popularity of the sport will never grow whilst this is going on.

Moose11

Good points but I still truely believe that cycling has all these scandles because it tests harder and more than any other sport.

Still, everytime someone high profiled is caught it is another step closer to a cleaner race. Of course we've been catching high profiled riders for nearly 10 years now and there has been no change but I do think it can get better.

Still, the racing is great.

Dorian Gray

Moose11 wrote:

Still, the racing is great.

That's the attitude many of us adopt, but the fact remains that viewership is falling. Cycling fans like you and I are addicted to the sport and we will follow it rain or shine. Potential new fans, however, are completely turned off by dopers. They view it, correctly in my opinion, as plain and simple cheating. They have no emotional investment in any of the personalities or teams, so there is nothing to moderate the impact of a positive test, as there is for us.

From the point of view of sponsorship and the success of cycling as a spectator sport, it's hard to deny that having no doping controls at all would be better than the present situation. But that would be tragic for the health of the riders and the desire of many cyclists to compete clean.

Not sure where we can go from here to be honest. A couple of weeks ago I foolishly believed this Tour would escape scandal. I still believe in riders like Wiggins, Millar, Moreau, Evans, Sastre, etc. Really though, the only reason I believe them is because they're not winning. Seems like anyone who wins sooner or later proves to have doped. Who's next? Fabian Cancellara?

overmars

As someone who hardly ever posts in "Road race" I'd say that on one level its deeply disappointing. I was chearing on Vino. Now to know that he cheated it just gets easier to spend time doing something other than watch cycling.
But I did enjoy the tour coming to London and I'm sure I would again. I'd just switch off when a scandal pops up.

mr_hippo

Instead of a two year ban for doping, ban them sine die without exception.

weyayeman

Its finished me,Im sick of trying to stick up for cycling with all my none cycling friends and Im afraid this is the straw thats broke the camels back.
Anyone for Darts

iainf72

Why is it many people seem to quite happily sit and watch it until there is a positive and suddenly that's the final straw?

If all positives were surpressed would that be better?

dave_1

The tour can go on and I will still watch...I wish they'd boot Rasmussen this morning. he has no right to be there with the headlines he's given, his evasion and the threat he poses to hundreds of jobs by being in that race! Surely the peleton can just ask him to leave? They should. They staged a strike at the 1990 Giro to get Thuenisse removed from the race as he'd racked up 3 or so positives for testosterone between 1988-1990 spring

Richie G

As someone who's only really got into cycling in the last 3 years, i find it difficult to believe that riders are still stupid enough to dope. Do they not realise that with each scandal they lose more potential fans, sponsors and ultimately their own livelyhoods? It is so frustrating that riders are still prepared to do this - because of this whenever anyone does anything exceptional the tendency is to assume doping. I had a fantastic day at the prologue, my first taste of being at a pro race - have been buzzing about this years Tour. I just wonder how many more scandals the sport can take. It's such a shame as i've to realise in the last couple of years what a fantastic sport cycling can be - is it doomed?

Moose11

Dorian Gray wrote:

Moose11 wrote:

Still, the racing is great.

That's the attitude many of us adopt, but the fact remains that viewership is falling. Cycling fans like you and I are addicted to the sport and we will follow it rain or shine. Potential new fans, however, are completely turned off by dopers.

Oh I totally agree with you in that sence and it isn't helped by media who do not cover the tour at all yet mention this in thier headline news.

Fortunately the show must go on.

peejay78

saying "the racing is great" or blaming a "media witchhunt" is as clear an act of denial as i've seen for a while.

Moose11

peejay78 wrote:

saying "the racing is great" or blaming a "media witchhunt" is as clear an act of denial as i've seen for a while.

Em clearly its not :roll:

The racing has been great. The media witch hunt is a joke. I dont mind it coming from sources that follow the sport at all times but when I turn on Sky Sports news this morning to see them going on about it and talking about it being the death of cycling when they cover the sport in no form whatsoever at any other time bothers me. Where were they after some of the great rides in the Alps. I have people in work come up to me talking about the drugs scandle they heard on the news yet they cannot tell me what team Vino rode for, where he sat overall and who had won a single stage this year. They forget that cycling has these issues because it tests more than any other sport.

If you read my post correcly you would see it wasn't blaming a media witchhunt on the problem in cycling I was just saying It bothers me the sources it comes from sometimes.

pete236uk

I am gutted and like others its hard to defend these guys I sat watching the tour that I recorded the other night wife was sitting there watching the country side and Vino was on the attack I getting excited thinking who he fought back etc the wife does'nt know much about racing said I bet he is on something then !!! I said no cant be they test them etc etc eat my words !!!

Ride clean

bigdawg

Moose11 wrote:

Oh I totally agree with you in that sence and it isn't helped by media who do not cover the tour at all yet mention this in thier headline news.

Fortunately the show must go on.

The BBC have been covering the tour briefly every morning since London, ive been quite enjoying it, but now what does this tell the guy eating his cornflakes waiting for beckham news... One step forward five back.

Personally as soon as the prologue was over I new we were looking at a doped tour, I said it then and Ill say it again, the only races Ill be interested in for now are the ones that find me on the start line, at least I know Im not doped (unless the chez dawg's pizza has been tampered with..!)

ricadus

iainf72 wrote:

Why is it many people seem to quite happily sit and watch it until there is a positive and suddenly that's the final straw?

Perhaps cycling attracts people with a pessimistic-fatalist view on life, who get a perverse kick out of being perpetually disappointed.

It might at least explain the appeal of time-trialling, anyway.

ddraver

i watch the england rugby team too........

Eurostar

Nothing can kill the Tour - it will go on for as long as France exists.

Like Dave_1 I'm disappointed that the peloton doesn't kick the dopers out. The protest this morning doesn't bode well, neither does Matt White calling the French riders 'muppets' for being involved in it. He's implying that you can't have a united peloton when the French are in it. He could be right.

Ste_S

iainf72 wrote:

Why is it many people seem to quite happily sit and watch it until there is a positive and suddenly that's the final straw?

If all positives were surpressed would that be better?

Is anyone that follows pro cycling suprised that Vino tested positive ? I'm not, but what does that make me for watching it in the first place while having strong suspicions about most of the GC riders ? Head in the sand ?

lucretius

Maybe after all the sponsorship goes they won't be able to afford high tech doping and they'll have to stop.

jibi

More news expected

From L'Equipe ( translation )

Information The Team: After Alexandre Vinoukourov, positive to the homologous transfusions, the international Union cyclist (UCI) very quickly will announce the existence of a new positive case on the Lathe of France. Exogenic testosterone traces were found in a urinary sample taken at the end of the 11th Marseilles-Montpellier stage. This positive control, established by the laboratory of Châtenay-Malabry, was carried out thanks to the use of the technique of the IRMS, isotopic technique which makes it possible to distinguish the exogenic origin (external) or endogenous (produced by the organization) from the hormone. The testosterone, hormone androgen anabolisante, are currently employed by the sportsmen in negligible amounts, in the form of patches or of freezing, so, in particular, accelerating recovery. Patrik Sinkewitz (T-Mobile) had been controlled with this same substance at the time of a training course preceding the departure by the Turn by France, last June.


so who could it be?

george