Here I was, thinking I was being original by coming up with this headline. Too bad for me that a writer at the Australian paper The Age beat me to it – with a damn good article, too!
I had closely followed Le Tour since about 1989 or 1990, I forget when exactly. Spent way too much time in front of the TV. And that was before OLN (now Versus) took over, with several hours of coverage every day.
After last year’s doping scandals, I vowed to not watch it this year. I have been following online and in the paper – and admittedly sneaking a small glimpse on the TV once in a while. But no more than about five minutes a pop. I almost can’t believe how dirty the sport of cycling is. Is nobody clean?
That rhetorical question leads me to a real question: how much of an advantage do these riders get by cheating? Is it even quantifiable? How could you even realistically check? You’d have to have the same rider under the same conditions, both clean and doped up. The chances of someone being able to perform at exactly the same level on two different days (likely to be spaced far apart so the dope would have time to work its “magic”) is highly unlikely. Oh, well. It’s not a problem that I have to solve, luckily for me.