You dope

Unless you are dead (or perhaps American, seeing as a certain L Armstrong esq. has retired from it) you can't have failed to notice that the Tour de France is in full swing. Now, let me say from the outset that I have nothing but the utmost admiration for these chaps because they ride something like 100 or miles per day every day (more or less) for about 3 weeks. Nothing gets in the way: Mountains, weather, spectators - it's just part of the race. But as it seems happens every year, numerous riders have managed to fail dope tests and have been disqualified (as have the teams in some cases), the latest being a pre-race favourite Alexandre Vinokourov *.

Call me old fashioned, or possibly just naive, but there's something funny going on in the world of long distance road racing. A quick search of the BBC News website for 'tour de france doping' provides at least 10 pages of results with storied for every year back to 1998 about cyclists testing positive and being disqualified or teams being disqualified for doping their riders. Google brings back more than two and a half million results and I'm sure they go back much further than 1998.

So with all this previous history, why the bloody hell do teams and riders persist in this activity? You'd have to be monumentally thick to think you're going to get away with it. So are the riders, team managers, doctors and all the rest really that dense? Are they all so convinced of their own genius that they believe they'll not get caught? Well, maybe some of them are but I can't believe that all of them are that dim-witted and narcissistic. I'm sure it can't be cheap to enter a team in the TdF which might have a realistic chance of winning so why risk it?

Of course, there's always the possibility that the testing system is rubbish and insecure, but you would think that by now that would have been found out if it were the case, so the only conclusion I can draw is that a not insignificant number of professional road racing cyclists and their teams are total dolts. I'm sure that one argument which might be put forward as justification for this cheating is that there's a limit to how fit one person can be (and for sure these guys are amongst the fittest on the planet, no question about that) so they have to try everything to get an edge on their rivals.

Sure, I'll go along with that but using performance enhancing drugs? Sorry but that's not how it works. Let's take that argument to it's ridiculous extreme, just for a chuckle:

Let's assume you took the German everyone loves to hate, Mr M Schumacher, when he was at the top of his game in Formula 1. He was nigh on unbeatable. Sure, there are technical differences in the cars but they are usually so small as a result of the stringent technical regulations (something that sterilises the sport and makes it dull) that they're not worth talking about. Especially if you compare Ferrari with, say Honda. They both have very deep pockets for their teams so there is no reason why one should be so much better than the other car wise (engine failure and the like aside). Now, let’s take Jenson Button, once billed as the next big things and the Great White Hope for British Racing (shame he turned out to eb an also-ran). There's no denying that they are both extremely good drivers - the top flight. But, as far as I'm aware, in a straight fight where both men finished the race, Button never beat Schumacher (F1 buffs please correct me if I'm wrong!).

How does this compare to TdF doping scandals? Well, what if, just to get an edge on their rivals, Honda had slyly added a nitrous oxide kit to Jenson’s car? Or maybe upped the cubic capacity on the quiet giving them another 100bhp? Would that be fair? No because it's against the rules and it wouldn't be the man doing the winning but the machine. But the crux of the matter is that Honda wouldn't do it. Oh, I'm sure that it would cross their minds if they were certain they'd not get found out but they know they will so it's a pointless thought which isn't entertained.

So why on earth do cyclists still do it? Only the riders and teams can answer that. Athletics used to be riddled with doping years ago but it ahs cleaned itself up and it is now very rare to hear of a top flight athlete being caught using performance enhancing drugs, but you can bet your last penny that when the TdF rolls around again, there will be at least one rider found to be doing something naughty. Perhaps cycling ought to take a leaf out of their book now and clean up its image before it's too late because eventually, the public will tire of it and what happens when the crowds don't bother to turn up any more?





* Worth noting that Vinokourov didn't actually take any drugs, it seems that the evidence points towards him having had a blood transfusion. I'm guessing more blood in the body means a better metabolism of oxygen and energy thus providing a performance boost.