I wrote a slightly longer post on this topic but lost it to a rare browser crash. It included nice links to the news story of Floyd Landis’ lost appeal to the USADA, as well as to news of all the doping sanctions, accusations, and outright rumors of cheating, poor handling of athlete samples, and crazy, questionably legal investigations in to various bad behavior on the part of the riders, the teams, and the professional organizations.
The list of confessed, accused, or sanctioned dopers, current and past, continues to grow to the point I can’t keep track of it anymore. I’m tired of hyperbole, hysteria, and hypocrisy! I want to watch epic breakaways, hard-fought come-backs, and all-out sprints, and I don’t want to worry about whether the winner will be accused of doping soon after.
I cheered on TV as Floyd Landis salvaged his 2006 Tour with that incredible solo stage win, and I’m at least as suspicious of the motives and methods of the anti-doping organizations as I am of the riders, so to me, Floyd continues to be the winner of the 2006 Tour de France.