In case you haven't heard, the two top seeds for the Tour de France are out. Jan Ullrich (GER) and Ivan Basso (ITA) have been punted to the curb, along with several others, because of allegations stemming from a massive investigation of a physician, which centers around "blood doping".
Blood doping is taking blood from another individual and then transfusing it into the athlete. This increases their oxygen capacity (especially in high-altitude stages). This is the infraction that American Tyler Hamilton was accused (and subsequently suspended from the sport for 2 years) of and this is his second missed Tour for that suspension.
The most annoying things about this are:
1.) The Tour starts tomorrow.
2.) Basso won the Tour of Italy (Giro de Italia) about 2 months ago. That casts doubt on that event as he won by about nine minutes.
3.) Ullrich won the Tour of Switzerland 2 weeks ago.
4.) This physician may also be involved with other sports, soccer/football most notably and no action was taken against players prior to the World Cup soccer matches starting.
5.) The individuals in the Tour cannot be replaced by another rider for the team. I.e. you lost two riders, that means your squad will be two men short for the whole race.
I am a runner and cyclist. This really upsets me a great deal on many levels.
On the upside, the remaining American riders - Leipheimer, Landis, Hincapie have obviously had their chances of winning increased exponentially. At the very least we'll see a top three podium finish from one of these guys.
Cyclists suspended
[OT] - Tour de France 2006
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