[OT] - Tour de France 2006

Caduceus · #1 June 30th, 2006, 11:15 AM

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

Warshed · #2 June 30th, 2006, 01:19 PM

A part of me wants to say just let the atheletes do whatever drugs they want. If they end up killing their bodies with the drugs then so be it. It will be much more entertaining to watch drugged up super freaks compete than average athletes.

Yimboli · #3 June 30th, 2006, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Warshed said:
A part of me wants to say just let the atheletes do whatever drugs they want. If they end up killing their bodies with the drugs then so be it. It will be much more entertaining to watch drugged up super freaks compete than average athletes.

I've supressed that part of me in favor of celebrating the amazing potential of the *unaltered* human body through feats like the tour. It's amazing what we can do...

jeffel · #4 June 30th, 2006, 03:17 PM

The thing that bothers me is that this is a case of being found guilty before the proof is there.

The Tour Officials did the same thing last year(After the Tour) with Lance Armstrong.
A French newspaper with a history of attempting to smear a rider comes out with allegations, and suddenly the tour officials are "very dissappointed in Armstrong".

This year, a spanish paper publishes the names of several riders in conjuntion with a doping scandal and everyone starts suspending riders.

Maybe it's my American "innocent till proven guilty" bias, but it seems to be jumping the gun to have T-Mobile and others start suspending riders before the case has been prooven.

Caduceus · #5 June 30th, 2006, 04:15 PM

I don't believe that the cycling commission in France is taking this lightly. I believe that they have enough hard evidence to remove the riders in question. That's what makes it more disappointing.

The mentality from what I have read and heard for pro cyclists is "if I'm not doping, I'll lose to someone who is."

Operation Puerta (or whatever its codename) literally ripped the lid off a bunch of people doing illegal things to win races (and other events).

Fortunately, the American riders, for the moment, have been spared (aside from Hamilton, who has been out of the picture since last year).

Suicide Junkie · #6 June 30th, 2006, 05:52 PM

Not really unaltered...
Even regular training results in significant chemical and certainly physical alterations.

There is also all the equipment, and the clothing and the custom diet...

Even stone age warriors would have had drugs boosting them.

The question is really where do you draw the line, and then why did you allow X or not allow Y.

Atrocities · #7 June 30th, 2006, 06:09 PM

Man talk about a tough break for the sport.

ToddT · #8 June 30th, 2006, 06:55 PM

The type of blood doping Caduceus, mentions, has nothing to do with drugs, while this first time i heard mention of a secndary donor, usuall what happens is the. the athlete at some point prior to the event he's going to use this trick for, has his own blood drawn, and stored. then when the day arrives will have (i think primaryly the red blood cells) has the blood place back into his blood stream, resulting in a boosted oxygen carrying capacity. the only real give away would be his red blood cell count, just prior to the event and for a short period of time after. As far as I know, beyond that there are no residual tell tales. There have been cases in none cycling events where atheletes doing this where caught while the event was going on. (thier performance was noticably above what they were known for).

that said wasn't there another big scandle around 2000? (it was in france)

narf poit chez BOOM · #9 June 30th, 2006, 08:38 PM

Sportsmanship is dying.

Dizzy · #10 June 30th, 2006, 09:54 PM

Yeah, let em dope it up. Call it the tour de dope.

We all pretty much know the limits to which the human body can achieve 'unaltered'. But how far can it go if modified? I think that'd be real interesting. We could see all sorts of drug sponsors and how their drug would be better than another teams drug. Oh that'd be great to watch. Imagine the ratings...

Seriously, let em dope... Make it all public. Lets see how far the body can go b4 it breaks. Let's create super athletes. Lets use dna resequencing, chromosome altering, growth hormones in every area, all that stuff and lets see what kinda monsters we can create. It's high time to take human form to the next level... Hell, throw in some cybernetics too.