June 30th, 2006

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Sports
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The Disappointment of a Cycling Fan

Sarah has been very much looking forward to the Tour de France, and watching her favourite rider, Jan Ullrich, win. Unfortunately, a major doping scandal has surfaced:

I wanted him to win so badly, if only to stop the flood of negative press. I wanted to say I told you so to everyone who didn’t believe in him. He’s had a rough ride over the years. He was skewered when he was suspended for six months in 2002 after testing positive for ecstasy…But you know what? I don’t like Jan despite his faults; I like him because of his faults. He’s human and he fucks up.

Apparently over 50 cyclists have been implicated. I don’t watch cycling much, but that can’t help the sport’s reputation. They can take some solace in the fact that the World Cup final eight games started today, so it might not be the top sports news story.

Comments: 2 Responses so far

Sarah
June 30th, 2006
7:25 pm

Hi Darren,

It’s a very sad day indeed. I’m still choked up!

[Reply]

Ryan Cousineau
July 3rd, 2006
11:15 pm

Argh. I’m going to say only this: about a third of the athletes caught were cyclists. That leaves many others on the list, probably including some World Cup cap-earners.

The tension here is that this whirlwind has whipped through the peloton and taken a pretty random path; I doubt it got all the dopers. The real problem is figuring out how to get the rest of them, or drive them to cleanliness.

I do think this police investigation is a start, though: many recent doping tricks have proven hard to find through medical testing, but not that hard to find through these sorts of investigations.

Hoping for a clean race sometime soon,

[Reply]

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