a sporting conflict of the nicest kind
Jul. 29th, 2007 01:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aruanJanuary through July is like a dead zone for me. Aside from the Vancouver Stargate convention and MegaCon, nothing interesting happened between New Year's Eve and that magical first week of July, when le Tour de France set out.
We reach Paris later today, and the last three weeks have been a blur of everything else (Deathly Hallows notwithstanding) wedged between hours and hours of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in a little booth commentating on a race that has no business being as riveting as it is.
Explaining the appeal of the Tour just doesn't work, because at the end of the day it is just men jockeying on bikes. But the whole thing is so epic - hauling themselves over the mountains, chasing down the breakaways on the flats, pulling out a win in the bunch sprint in a few strategic seconds, all through the crush of insane fans close enough to nudge their bikes along and artistic farmers who haul out their equipment just to depict a perfectly proportioned bicycle - even Phil and Paul continue to be impressed.
But it's debatable whether this past week has overshadowed the rest of the race. In a matter of three days, almost the entire leaderboard was demolished - the amazing comeback of Alexandre Vinokourov tainted by a positive blood doping test. The relentless dominance of Michael Rasmussen, two-time polka-dot jersey winner and likely to stand at the top of the podium this year, disqualified after rumors about why he missed several pre-Tour doping controls got to be too much for Rabobank. Dennis Menchov seemed to collapse under the weight of it all midway through Stage 17.
But the problems began even before the start. Sprinting ingenue Eric Zabel admitted to using EPO in the '90s while riding for Telekom in May. Bjarne Riis, a former Tour winner turned CSC manager, didn't even start after admitting that he doped his way into the yellow jersey in 1996. On Stage 8, T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz collided with a spectator and withdrew; just days later, it came out that he tested positive for doping back in June. On Stage 15, with the expulsion of wunderkind Vinokourov, the rest of his Astana team, including another race favorite Andres Kloden, withdrew. The next day, a large group of Tour riders protested with a 13-minute delay at the start. By the end of the day, after one of the most intense stages ever, former Italian champion Cristian Moreni was led away from the team bus in handcuffs after testing positive for testosterone, taking with him the entire Cofidis team, including Tour favorites Bradley Wiggins, Stephan Auge and Sylvain Chavenel. No one rode in yellow on Stage 17.
There are people who think this Tour has become a sham, that it shouldn't even ride into Paris.
But I agree with those who point to cycling as the example to follow among sports. What other sport goes after its participants so often, and so stringently, about drugs? What other sport pulls out entire teams when one person is found to be cheating? What other sport pulls a player in the middle of a game and bans them for two years, instead of levying a moderate fine and sitting out a couple matches? The teams and Tour organizers may have waited to pull certain people, but they didn't flinch away no matter how high it went.
But besides the cloud of doping, this Tour has certainly had plenty of real drama.
-World time-trial champion Fabian Cancellara pwned everyone for the first five stages, first with a 13-second beating of his closest rival in the time trial, then a ballsy win on Stage 3 after crashing the previous day, with time enough for a cocktail before anyone else crossed the line.
-Robbie McEwen's COME FROM NOWHERE win on Stage 1 despite a nasty crash that later saw him withdraw from the race as it rode up into the Alps. He wiped, then clawed his way up the entire peloton with 5 kilometers remaining and Boonen saw him coming but could do NOTHING.
-Doping or not, and who knows when he started that, Vinokourov was amazing to watch as he kept riding through his hideous injuries from Stage 5, his arm and both legs wrapped not unlike a mummy.
-My boy Boonen's win in Stage 6, overshadowed only by Wiggins' 190km solo breakaway caught almost on the finish line.
-The huge and unexpected win of Tour novice Linus Gerdemann in the first mountain stage.
-T-Mobile lost three men on Stage 8 with Michael Rogers crashing into a guardrail, Sinkewitz colliding with a spectator riding back to the hotel after the race, and Mark Cavendish, the boy who's had no breaks in his "baptism by fire" introduction to the Tour, abandoning after two bad crashes.
-Mountain stage staple Stuart O'Grady goes down and is out of the tour in a neck brace on Stage 11, but Robbie Hunter ascends, finally getting the win he's been just shy of several times, and the first one ever for a South African rider.
-Christophe Moreau's heartbreaking crumble on Stage 12 after he looked so good going into the Alps.
-The drama of watching everyone claw and attack their way to the top on the second uncategorized climb of Stage 14.
-The fight for every grueling inch of the mountains on Stage 16, especially the mind games between Rasmussen and Alberto Contador.
-On Stage 18, Frenchman Sandy Casar hit a dog en route, but still managed to take the win, his first such accomplishment in the Tour.
-Levi Leipheimer's near inhuman individual time trial, which leveled the field for all three leaders for a rare real race up the Champs Elysees.
-Both the King of the Mountains and the heavy favorite for the maillot jaune, Contador, will be first-time Tour de France contenders - incredible. This year's green jersey has all but been awarded for the first time to Boonen, finally, after he's held it for pretty much the entire race.
As to Le Monde and its alleged Operation Puerto documents with Contador's initials in it, he's said the UCI has investigated and cleared him of any involvement. I'm thinking the UCI hasn't been shy about exposing riders during the rest of the Tour - they're not going to let him take the podium if they've had evidence for more than a year that he was dirty.
If Contador is clean, his victory shouldn't be cheapened by others who weren't, nor the taint of association. The sport has survived for 104 years - it will neither end today, nor will the accomplishments of those who upheld the sport's ethics be forgotten. Cycling is in no darker a time than baseball or wrestling or whatever sport will be busted tomorrow. However, cycling has done a lot more than any other to ensure that it remains an honorable contest. I for one will watch the conclusion raptly, and impatiently wait another year to hear the theme music that makes summer worth living through.
We reach Paris later today, and the last three weeks have been a blur of everything else (Deathly Hallows notwithstanding) wedged between hours and hours of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in a little booth commentating on a race that has no business being as riveting as it is.
Explaining the appeal of the Tour just doesn't work, because at the end of the day it is just men jockeying on bikes. But the whole thing is so epic - hauling themselves over the mountains, chasing down the breakaways on the flats, pulling out a win in the bunch sprint in a few strategic seconds, all through the crush of insane fans close enough to nudge their bikes along and artistic farmers who haul out their equipment just to depict a perfectly proportioned bicycle - even Phil and Paul continue to be impressed.
But it's debatable whether this past week has overshadowed the rest of the race. In a matter of three days, almost the entire leaderboard was demolished - the amazing comeback of Alexandre Vinokourov tainted by a positive blood doping test. The relentless dominance of Michael Rasmussen, two-time polka-dot jersey winner and likely to stand at the top of the podium this year, disqualified after rumors about why he missed several pre-Tour doping controls got to be too much for Rabobank. Dennis Menchov seemed to collapse under the weight of it all midway through Stage 17.
But the problems began even before the start. Sprinting ingenue Eric Zabel admitted to using EPO in the '90s while riding for Telekom in May. Bjarne Riis, a former Tour winner turned CSC manager, didn't even start after admitting that he doped his way into the yellow jersey in 1996. On Stage 8, T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz collided with a spectator and withdrew; just days later, it came out that he tested positive for doping back in June. On Stage 15, with the expulsion of wunderkind Vinokourov, the rest of his Astana team, including another race favorite Andres Kloden, withdrew. The next day, a large group of Tour riders protested with a 13-minute delay at the start. By the end of the day, after one of the most intense stages ever, former Italian champion Cristian Moreni was led away from the team bus in handcuffs after testing positive for testosterone, taking with him the entire Cofidis team, including Tour favorites Bradley Wiggins, Stephan Auge and Sylvain Chavenel. No one rode in yellow on Stage 17.
There are people who think this Tour has become a sham, that it shouldn't even ride into Paris.
But I agree with those who point to cycling as the example to follow among sports. What other sport goes after its participants so often, and so stringently, about drugs? What other sport pulls out entire teams when one person is found to be cheating? What other sport pulls a player in the middle of a game and bans them for two years, instead of levying a moderate fine and sitting out a couple matches? The teams and Tour organizers may have waited to pull certain people, but they didn't flinch away no matter how high it went.
But besides the cloud of doping, this Tour has certainly had plenty of real drama.
-World time-trial champion Fabian Cancellara pwned everyone for the first five stages, first with a 13-second beating of his closest rival in the time trial, then a ballsy win on Stage 3 after crashing the previous day, with time enough for a cocktail before anyone else crossed the line.
-Robbie McEwen's COME FROM NOWHERE win on Stage 1 despite a nasty crash that later saw him withdraw from the race as it rode up into the Alps. He wiped, then clawed his way up the entire peloton with 5 kilometers remaining and Boonen saw him coming but could do NOTHING.
-Doping or not, and who knows when he started that, Vinokourov was amazing to watch as he kept riding through his hideous injuries from Stage 5, his arm and both legs wrapped not unlike a mummy.
-My boy Boonen's win in Stage 6, overshadowed only by Wiggins' 190km solo breakaway caught almost on the finish line.
-The huge and unexpected win of Tour novice Linus Gerdemann in the first mountain stage.
-T-Mobile lost three men on Stage 8 with Michael Rogers crashing into a guardrail, Sinkewitz colliding with a spectator riding back to the hotel after the race, and Mark Cavendish, the boy who's had no breaks in his "baptism by fire" introduction to the Tour, abandoning after two bad crashes.
-Mountain stage staple Stuart O'Grady goes down and is out of the tour in a neck brace on Stage 11, but Robbie Hunter ascends, finally getting the win he's been just shy of several times, and the first one ever for a South African rider.
-Christophe Moreau's heartbreaking crumble on Stage 12 after he looked so good going into the Alps.
-The drama of watching everyone claw and attack their way to the top on the second uncategorized climb of Stage 14.
-The fight for every grueling inch of the mountains on Stage 16, especially the mind games between Rasmussen and Alberto Contador.
-On Stage 18, Frenchman Sandy Casar hit a dog en route, but still managed to take the win, his first such accomplishment in the Tour.
-Levi Leipheimer's near inhuman individual time trial, which leveled the field for all three leaders for a rare real race up the Champs Elysees.
-Both the King of the Mountains and the heavy favorite for the maillot jaune, Contador, will be first-time Tour de France contenders - incredible. This year's green jersey has all but been awarded for the first time to Boonen, finally, after he's held it for pretty much the entire race.
As to Le Monde and its alleged Operation Puerto documents with Contador's initials in it, he's said the UCI has investigated and cleared him of any involvement. I'm thinking the UCI hasn't been shy about exposing riders during the rest of the Tour - they're not going to let him take the podium if they've had evidence for more than a year that he was dirty.
If Contador is clean, his victory shouldn't be cheapened by others who weren't, nor the taint of association. The sport has survived for 104 years - it will neither end today, nor will the accomplishments of those who upheld the sport's ethics be forgotten. Cycling is in no darker a time than baseball or wrestling or whatever sport will be busted tomorrow. However, cycling has done a lot more than any other to ensure that it remains an honorable contest. I for one will watch the conclusion raptly, and impatiently wait another year to hear the theme music that makes summer worth living through.
