Cycling's Darkest Days
The Tour de France race, beset by scandal, has some wondering if it can survive.
July 27, 2007 — -- The latest scandal from the Tour de France? Turns out the dog hit by the T-Mobile rider tested positive for Kibbles 'n EPO. Naturally, the dog is fighting the result, claiming his urine sample was tainted because the testers mislabeled the fire hydrant.
Meanwhile in real Tour news, with no rider apparently capable of preventing Michael Rasmussen from winning the event, the race leader abruptly was kicked off his Rabobank team Wednesday. So if you're scoring at home …
The leader of the 2007 Tour has been thrown out of the race.
The winner of the 2006 Tour, Floyd Landis, tested positive for performance enhancers and is awaiting an arbitration decision on his case.
The winner of the 1999-2005 Tours, Lance Armstrong, never tested positive but a recently published book nonetheless claims he took performance enhancers (an allegation Armstrong vehemently and litigiously denies).
The winner of the 1998 Tour, Marco Pantani, is dead of a cocaine overdose.
The winner of the 1997 Tour, Jan Ullrich, retired this year after being banned from last year's race in the Operacion Puerto doping scandal.
The winner of the 1996 Tour, Bjarne Riis, recently confessed that he won the race while on EPO and other performance enhancers.
That about covers it ... wait, no, almost forgot. The pre-race favorite to win this year's Tour, Alexandre Vinokourov, was kicked out of the competition Tuesday after testing positive for blood doping.
Other than that, the Tour is in fine shape. Did you see the Versus network had some spectacular scenery from the Alps and Pyrenees stages?
What a mess. Rasmussen was so comfortably in the lead after winning the 16th stage Wednesday morning that when he broke away in the final kilometer, Versus broadcaster Phil Liggett announced, "Michael Rasmussen is free to fly and will win the Tour de France."
Or maybe not. Hours later, officials with Rasmussen's Dutch Rabobank team announced they were him kicking off the squad for violating its rules. While that means Rasmussen won't win, it also means that he accomplished the even more difficult feat of getting kicked off two teams from two countries during the same Tour (the Danish national team dumped him last week).
