I am so completely disapointed in how the world cycling organization treats there riders.

They have kicked Jan Ulrich and Ivan Basso out of the race because of alegations that they might be blood doping. Hasn't even been proven!!! I guess inocent until proven guilty just doesn't work for everyone.

Well they just kicked the 2 top riders out of the race. Got wonder what is the point in watching?

Also to some extent I honestly don't care if they are cheating. Hate to say it they all do. Even Armstrong. You expect me to beleive that everyones hero Eddy Merckx didn't cheat??? He just never got caught.


Anyways I am very disapointed. I'll still watch of course but it's just not gonna be the same race.

It is some interest that neither of them have French names ................ The Cap'n

Looks to me they are implementing what the teams agreed to.
Eddy sends his regards ...


Marc Sergeant (Davitamon-Lotto) : "Renners op de lijst moeten eruit" Sportdirecteur Marc Sergeant is tevreden met de beslissing die hij samen met zijn collega’s nam. "De mannen die op de befaamde lange lijst staan, moeten eruit. Wij ondertekenden met de ProTourploegen een charter waarin gesteld wordt dat elke renner die in verdenking staat niet mag deelnemen aan een ProTourwedstrijd. Van de Guardia Civil kwam een lijvig dossier binnen waarvan ik eerlijk gezegd serieus geschrokken ben. Besloten is nu dat de renners die op deze lijst staan morgen niet vertrekken aan de Tour", gaf Marc Sergeant mee.

Maybe they'll get Lance pissed off and he'll come back a kick everyone's ass again. Silly French.

sorry, but that's not correct !!


T-Mobile Team suspended Jan Ulrich and Oscar Sevilla as well as Rudy Pevenage (Jan Ulrich's personal Coach)

CSC Team director Bjarne Rijs suspended Ivan Basso


these riders got kicked by there own teams !!!

Gustl

sorry, another correction ...

the doping investigations were forced by the spain organisation

Gustl

Wow, what a helpful post. Good thing we all speak German or Swedish or whatever that language is.

I thought just the same ...

I just can tell you that's not german - my guess would be dutch or belgium

Yeah because they were in no way force to by the organization who would take away there Pro ranking. Riis just must HATE Basso I guess

The gist, all competitors signed an agreement that only those riders that were not under suspicion could compete. Since they were under suspicion, they chose not to compete or were not allowed to do so.

Ok, so I could be wrong

I gave you the executive summary above ...
We do speak dutch in Belgium, yes.

WOW now Vino is out. I'm pretty disgusted by all this. I'm gonna have to just boycott the race.


If it's any consolation Landis and Hincappe are gonna be possible winners now.

Levi all the way baby - this is going to be a great opportunity for US cyclists once again. You go ahead and boycott. Plenty of great riders left who didnt get caught cheating who will make this a great tour.


Some less emotional commentary:

http://velonews.com/tour2006/details/articles/10185.0.html

And a list of those implicated:

http://velonews.com/tour2006/news/articles/10177.0.html

The revised team rosters:

http://www.velonews.com/tour2006/news/articles/9970.0.html

Oh and of course if you boycott the race you wont see this guy pissing off the French by saying "Tour day France"



Here's OLN site:

http://www.olntv.com/tdf/

...I'm a bit of a Tour nut

Yes they have ruined it, absolutely I say! At one time, it was about a bunch of crazy fools racing down a mudy hill and try to keep them damn things from flipping over the front to the finish line. WE got drunk and schmit and pissed ourselves donig it. Might as well call it, THe TOUR of Gay FranCE with Tight Fitting BALL Grabing Ass cracked Cloths. This is not a man's sport but rather a sport for the mangyna!

Just Curious what Belgium is? Wouldn't that be french, dutch or german?

Its too bad. Basso just came off a Giro win and Ullrich just won Tour de Suisse. It was gonna be a good one.

Thanks for the links, Grant.

I love Le Tour and will be watching as much as I can. And for the coded doping samples traced directly to Ulrich and Basso, among others.....too bad. Last thing I want to watch is sanctioned cheating.

...I'm a bit of a Tour nut
[/quote]



I hear ya.

I will be watching every minute of it. Le Tour is one of the greatest and most brutal athletic events ever.

It will survive yet another doping scandal and continue on.

I feel very sorry for Ulrich to end his carrer this way even if he is proven innocent.

The remaining contenders are going to be friggin' ferocious!

..

I never miss a minute. This just adds to the drama.

The scandal is a shame. However there are still 170 top riders left. Lots of good team work , individual efforts, etc. I did want to see Basso win a tour. However it will be great to see an American with a chance to win. I'm rooting for our local Nor Cal guy, Levi. His great tour performances have always been over shadowed by Lance.

Levi won the Tour of Germany and beat Jan Ullrich by 31 seconds last year. He also won the Dauphine Libere this year.

Ther sport of cycling has the strictest policy against doping, from what I have heard it was a sting against a spanish doctor that had bags of doped blood.

Armstrong was the most tested athlete in the world-bar none, they have never found anything and never will. What people don,t realize is he was a world class cyclist before cancer. He has passed every drug test ever given.

The reason to watch the tour is because usa has several top contenders, Hencapie, landis, leipheimer, the discovery team is stacked with real strong talent. That is reason enough to watch, they may take and keep the yellow without Lance.
Even with the top contenders out, it will be a great tour, if things play out like it should, it will go down to the wire.

with the tour Gay france comment. this is the toughest sporitng event in the world. The fact that you say that proves you have never ridden a bike at a competative level. Ridding a bike 100 mil;es a day aint easy.

I see a hell of a lot more ball grabbing and ass slapping in baseball and football.

isn't there "flämisch" too

anyhow, I'm not so familiar with theses countries having multiple languages

Gustl

It would be interesting to find out what constitutes "proof".

Blood doping can be done with synthetic erythropoetin or Procrit which is a natural substance. Or is can be done with Autotransfusion, or transfusing the riders own blood back in to the body right before an event.

So that brings me to my question. How do you "test" for a natural substance?

I guess a hemoglobin of 19gm/dl could be considered "presumptive" for doping, but it could also indicate a bit of dehydration and what are the chances one of these guys could get a bit dehydrated? Good I would think...

If the teams are suspending players based on bags of blood found at a doctors house was the doc stupid enough to have their names on the bags?

The only way I would think you could prove doping would be a confession from the athlete or videotape evidence. All other evidence would be presumptive.

This is why human growth hormone is so popular with the body builders and other athletes. It is a natural substance so tests are going to show it is present, and it has a half life of about 20 minutes so it is likely gone before it can be tested for.

It seems a little harsh to suspend such great athletes on presumptive evidence.

the teams have suspended the riders. If the riders are found guilty of doping the teams could be diquallified.

The "Tour de France" will start in Strasbourg ... and the two first day will run in Alsace region. See the map !

We will have fine weather this week end ... So lets play Porsche 914 on the Tour de France. Special report with pictures on tuesday

I started a new topic with this special report