Tour de WTF!!

I know my 2 readers have been eagerly awaiting my Tour de France wrap-up with baited breath since the race ended on Sunday. Well, without further ado, here it is.

One of the most controversial Tours in some time saw two prominent riders and two teams kicked out of the race for doping related problems. Surprisingly(Not!!) the anti-doping agreement signed by all riders before starting the race didn't keep anyone from doping. First Vinokourov won stage 13 and also stage 15, before finding out that he had tested positive for a banned blood transfusion after stage 13 and being kicked out of the tour. His team, Team Astana, withdrew shortly after. Vinokourov has since hired Floyd Landis' lawyer to defend him.

Prior to stage 16, several teams, including Team Confidis, protested the doping in the Tour by holding up the start of the tour. At the end of the stage, Confidis rider Cristian Moreni was arrested for doping while still wearing his red team jersey. Team Confidis withdrew from the race as well. Moreni confessed to using testosterone boosting drugs.

But then the big turd hit the fan. Team Rabobank kicked their team leader, and the overall Tour leader, Michael Rasmussen off the team and thus out of the tour. Rasmussen had been accused of lying about his whereabouts during missed drug tests earlier in the year. It was only the second time in Tour history the overall leader
had been kicked off by his team.

Because of the scandals in this years Tour and the last few years, Tour director Christian Prudhomme is considering going back to national teams. The Tour used national teams between 1930 and 1961, and then were brought back in 1967 and 1968 before they were abandoned for the current corporate sponsored teams we see now.

In one of the more controversial articles I've read, Oxford ethics professor Julian Savulescu called for the Tour to allow restricted doping, claiming it's "part of the spirit of Le Tour." While he makes some interesting point, but fails to explain how exactly allowing some doping would prevent riders from continuing above and beyond to still illegal levels. The riders that dope now do so to gain a competitive edge. If everyone else is doping, some riders will still find ways to push it farther in order to regain that competitive edge.

Despite the doping scandals, the Tour was still an exciting one this year, with the narrowest margin of victory in nearly 20 years. Fellow Montanan Levi Leipheimer was finally able to finish on the podium and he also picked up his first career stage win. The fact that it was his first ever stage win came as a bit of shock to me, since Levi has been one of the strongest and consistent riders for the last 5 years. Nonetheless, the Tour was probably a bit bittersweet for the Butte native. He entered the race one of the favorites to win and as leader of one of the strongest teams he's ever ridden with. In the Pyrenees however, teammate Alberto Contador (a favorite to win the young rider classification) proved himself to be riding stronger in the mountains and Levi relegated himself to a position of "super domestic" in order to give Discovery Channel the best chance for a Tour win. After overall leader Michael Rasmussen was kicked out, Contador was in an excellent position to win. Although Levi nearly pulled into the lead in the final time trial, he fell just short, 31 seconds behind Contador. Contador's 23 second lead over second place Aussie Cadel Evans was the narrowest margin of victory since 1989 when American Greg LeMond won by a mere 8 seconds.

In the end, Alberto Contador won both the overall and the young rider classification, while the Discovery Channel Team took home the team victory. Levi finished in 3rd, and a third Discovery rider, Yaroslav Popovych, finished in 8th. Contador and Popovych also finished 2 and 3 in the king of the mountains classification, while Leipheimer was also in the top 10 at 9th.

Longtime Discovery Channel rider George Hincapie, who goes back to the Lance Armstrong days when the team was the US Postal Team, also set a record by riding for his 8th winning team. In addition to this years Discovery win, Hincapie was a member for all 7 of Armstrong's Tour wins.