OMG Mega doping scandal on Tour de France

[huge]

Hey two wheel lovers. :lol:

Looks like the two favourites for this years Tour de France are out!

Basso and Ulrich have been refused entry because they have been using illegal performance drugs.

The scandal looks to be quite big. At present there is no hard detail on who is in and who is banned.

Jeez you couldn't make it up :oops:

[Peter Henry]

Have you not been watching what has been happening here in Spain? There has been a major scandal going on for the past couple of months with leading teams involved.

Some cynics say that it is impossible to be a top cyclist these days without being "dirty".

Notice the French still trying to get Armstrong despite him winning that case against Le Monde and L'Equipe a week or so ago? :?

Read this:

http://www.eurosport.com/cycling/tour-de-france/2006/sport_sto916732.shtml

Basso following his performance last year was my favourite for the Tour this year. Looks like he goes to work on more than an egg hey? :?

[huge]

Yeah I had been watching the Spanish stuff rumble on but the unspeakable has really hit the fan now!

Amazing how some French people cannot let Armstrong go? How many times does the guy have to win to make the point?

[SpankyHam]

Ulrich again ? how stupid is that kid.

He already got caught once.

[huge]

Was Ulrich involved in the Festina scandal a few years back?

[Peter Henry]

The truth is the French only want a French rider to ever win their tour. It is as simple as that. :?

[huge]

Hey Peter how long are they going to wait? lol

Thankfully not all French people such d***heads

[SpankyHam]

Was Ulrich involved in the Festina scandal a few years back?

2002 it was if i remember right.

[huge]

Festina scandal was in 1998. Was it that?

[SpankyHam]

no definatly 2002.

[greeno76]

Ulrich has blown the chance he's been waiting for for 7 years!

Nothing new on the Tour. They've been doping in one form or another since the Tours inception in the early 1900's

Anyone read French Revolutions by Tim Moore? Very funny book with some interesting facts along the way.

Drugs or no drugs. It's an amazing feat!

JG

[huge]

And they are cycling past the grave of that English guy who died on the Tour from amphetamine abuse this year.

Plus ca change eh? :lol:

[greeno76]

Tom "Put me back on the bike" Simpson!

[Jools'SV Now]

anything proven yet?

or just lots of smoke?

btw. Armstrong was the most tested athlete in history.

I reckon he was clean. won on guts alone.

[Gazza77]

Someone should teach them that if they want to go that far and fast on a bike, they need an engine. :roll: :D

[philipMac]

Was Ulrich involved in the Festina scandal a few years back?

2002 it was if i remember right.

Ok, to be fair, he wasnt really caught doping. He was out, on a bender, hammered drunk and on E, and he crashed his car into a shop. They tested him, and suprise suprise, he was positive for speed. He wasnt on E to make him ride his bike faster, that's for sure. He got caught though, and was suspended.

This thing though, well, all that say Jan or Basso have been directly implicated in is intention to blood dope.
Blood doping is basically drawing off blood, spinning it down to get rid of some of the plasma, and freezing it. You do this a load of times, you keep training away, and then you have a nice bank of blood i nyour freezer. Then every night during the tour, you run the new blood into yourself, and your bloods abilty to carry O2 is upped.

There were drugs also found... but, no one tested +ve, so you cannot say they were doping. Very very suspect though.

Yeah. I mean, the whole thing is horrible beyond belief. I am not even going to go into it. I used to be a (crap) amatuer rider, i knew/ know some good ones now. I am mates with Lance Armstrongs Ex soigneur's brother, http://velonews.com/race/int/articles/6257.0.html and there are things that I have been told that really shock me.
The thing is, its not the riders you need to look at. Its the people who run the team. I still feel that to a large extent the riders are victoms a lot of the time with this doping business.

Oh yeah. Cycling is hard. Unbelievably hard. Seriously, you cannot believe how hard it is until you get flogged in a few races. Even then you just get a sniff of an idea. What pro riders go through is plain stupid. You suffer, you sleep eat and suffer. There are plenty of memorable quotes etc, one was something like, "I knew i had to slow down when the snow went black". Thats where they go, you go until you cant see properly anymore. Riders will have to be flown away from the end of a stage, breathing oxygen, to spend the night in a hospital, and then arrive back the next morning to race.
And, then you are told, here is something to make the pain a little more bearable. Everyone else is on it. You will be fine...

[Biker Biggles]

Tour de France riders in doping scandal?I really can't believe that.Whatever next? :roll:

[Jools'SV Now]

Why is putting your own, clean blood in your own body illegal?

I seem to remember a team of pursuit cyclists at the olympics doing it and it was fine.

No dope, no problem. surely

[philipMac]

Why is putting your own, clean blood in your own body illegal?

I seem to remember a team of pursuit cyclists at the olympics doing it and it was fine.

No dope, no problem. surely

Its illegal for the same reason that EPO is illegal. The powers that be have decided that it is. I was doping when I was riding, technically, since when I was young I had asthma, and the meds for that were considered dope.

The UCI has decided that it gives you an unfair advantage, and banned it. It can be dangerous if you spin the blood down so much it becomes thick to the point that it can give you a heart attack.

[huge]

Well as a normal fan of cycling the doping scandals are depressing.

Cycling needs to clean up its act.

I have so much respect for professional cyclists - they have to be soooo tough.

I hope that the upshot of all this is a cleaner sport.

[philipMac]

I have heard a lot of theories why pro riders are involved with so much doping.
I think its because of where the sport comes from, its a working class sport. The riders have to tough it out to get a pro contract. There is nothing at all glamorous about becoming a pro.
You are fed from team to team, and they treat you like cattle.

Because the riders are treated so much like pieces of beef, they are slightly dehumanised, and ethical issues dont quite apply so hard to a piece of meat as they do to an ordinary human.