It’s been a tough week at the Tour de France. First Alexander Vinoukorov and his Astana team were sent home for a blood doping violation. Now, today after an amazing performance in this morning’s Tour action, Michael Rasmussen is on his way home as well.
This has been an unprecendent time for cycling. Over the last year so many great cyclists have been caught using, admitted using, or just caught up in drug scandals, it’s become just plain hard to keep track of them all.
Rasmussen’s trouble stems from rules violations this past June, when he apparently was not in Mexico training as he told drug testing officials. The Danish cyclist was dismissed from the Danish National cycling team last week after an investigation.
Tour director Christian Prudhomme was quoted on VeloNews.com as saying, “What I regret more than ever is that we didn’t have this information on June 29, or on the following days before the Tour started. We would have made the Rabobank team face up to their responsibilities.”
What does this mean for the Tour de France? Well, in racing action, it means that the lead rider is out of the race and that moves everyone up a spot. But more importantly, it means that the drug problems in the sport just continue to be systemic. Cycling seems to have a drug problem that it just can’t kick.
Someone asked me recently if I had ever thought about taking performance enhancing drugs. I thought about it for a minute and here’s the answer I gave: “No. It never crossed my mind.” Never once did I ever even think about it.
Many people have expressed sadness at the continuing problems with the sport. I’m sure that we’ll hear even more of it now. It’s really time to stop. If not, there may not be a future for the sport at all.
For a story on Rasmussen’s exit on VeloNews, click here.
Coach Joe
Running Wild with Coach Joe – a blog focused on marathon, triathlon and ultra-endurance racing, training and motivation. Bookmark us at http://coachjoeenglish.wordpress.com or use your favorite RSS feed reader to get the latest news and articles. Running Wild is also now available on Facebook and My Space.
