Back Porch International Cycling

If you thought the broken collarbone suffered by Lance Armstrong at the Tour de Castilla y Leon in Spain on Monday was going to keep him out of the 2009 Tour de France, you would apparently be incorrect.

The seven-time winner of the premier cycling event will compete in France and possibly in the Giro d'Italia, according to the Astana team manager Johan Bruyneel.

"I don't think this changes anything for the Tour de France," Bruyneel said Tuesday. "A broken collarbone in the month of March does not at all compromise the start of the Tour de France or your performance in the Tour de France."

To Americans, Lance Armstrong is a hero. He's a man that not only beat cancer, but went on to beat thousands of cyclists for seven straight years at the Tour de France, a feat never accomplished before in the sport's biggest race.

To everyone else, Armstrong is a cheat. Countries see him as an American that found an edge that still can't be traced. They see him as a guy that has a little too much dirt under his fingernails that one day will be revealed, like a sports figure with a Joker jersey on under his cycling gear.

Because of that, Armstrong has professed fear for his personal safety if he decides to enter the 2009 Tour de France, the first time he would be competing in the event since his final victory in 2005.

"I don't want to enter an unsafe situation but you see this stuff coming out of France," said the American rider, who has many critics in France. "They're some aggressive, angry emotions. If you believe what you read, my personal safety could be in jeopardy."

It is worth noting that the country in question here is France (which, when speaking of violent acts, always brings me back to this video), even if the people do seem to get heated when talking about Lance and his dominance over their big sporting event.

The moment cycling's Tiger Woods announced he was coming back to race again, doping issues have exploded.

Will Lance Armstrong take substances to help train? Will he take substances during the races? What substances will he take?

Well, it turns out, the French anti-doping agency wants to take samples of Armstrong's urine from all the way back in 1999, the year rumors swirled that Lance's urine had failed portions of a drug test. Stupid urine, you can't pass anything anymore!

The French anti-doping authority has thrown down a challenge to the seven-time Tour de France champion, proposing he agree to retesting of his 1999 urine samples to see whether a French newspaper was right when it reported they contained traces of EPO, a banned blood-boosting hormone that enhances endurance.

A positive test from the samples could not lead to a ban that would thwart the 37-year-old's much-heralded return to cycling after three years in retirement. Too much time has passed for disciplinary measures to be taken and only part of Armstrong's samples were kept.

Even so, the proposal renews debate about one of the most contested questions surrounding Armstrong: whether he was clean when he won.

The Tour de France, c'est fini. The tour closed today with a whimper, not a bang, as 24 year-old Alberto Contador stayed securely in the peloton to cross the finish line in Paris as the nominal winner of what has been a scandal-plagued Tour de France 2007. Contador's individual accomplishments were meritorious enough: superb mountain stage performances, including a thrilling duel with Michael Rasmussen at the finish of stage 14. Contador ran an intelligent and ferocious race, biding his time on the flatter, more sprint-y stages and making his bones in the mountains. Events beyond his control have sadly diminished his accomplishments in sport's most grueling race.

Cadel Evans did Australia proud by finishing just 23 seconds behind Contador, and American Levi Leipheimer squeaked in just eight seconds behind Evans for third.

The controversy, not exactly fini. The fallout from the numerous high-profile doping cases exposed during the tour--most notably Alexandre Vinokourov's positive read for blood doping late in the tour--has unleashed a storm of invective from critics and the accused themselves. The Herald called their post-race analysis "a post-mortem;" the Independent called Contador's victory "hollow."

At least the International Herald Tribune kept its sense of humor, suggesting that the scandals provided entertainment for fans. Which had to be a joke. Right? Right?

And yet...a close race. Yet even with the catastrophic doping scandals, this should not be overlooked: this Tour featured a new generation of riders who, notable and openly punished exceptions aside, rode slower times than prior tours. The rule, suggests Richard Williams of the Guardian, is simple: as older "dope-generation" riders step down from the ranks, cycling will become a cleaner but slower sport.

Hard as it may be for those inside the sport to accept, standards will have to be lowered. The Tour is slower in overall terms this year, probably because fewer people are doping. Yesterday's 211km stage from Cahors to Angoulême, for instance, was ridden at an average of around 40kph, rather than the predicted 42-46kph.

The tour may not be dead...but it's definitely slowing down, a possible testament to doping standards actually working.

And the jerseys are... Alberto Contador wins the yellow jersey of the leader, as well as the white jersey for the best rider under 25. Tom Boonen takes the sprinter's green jersey for the tour, and Juan Mauricio Soler takes the polka-dotted King of the Mountains jersey. Amets Txurruka takes what we have to argue is the most fun ceremonial award of all, the "Most Aggressive Rider" award, for which he gets to wear a special number on his jersey.

That's a terrible song about doping in sports, a bit of Euro-pop with a Carlos Santana guitar solo and unfortunate "A WOOGA WOOGA WOOOGAAAHHH" chorus that will stink up your brain for at least the next three hours. You're welcome.

Doping is yet again the story of the tour, prompting outrage ranging from Greg Lemond's suggestion that no one be awarded the yellow jersey this year to French papers' assessment that "Le Tour Est Mort." None of these seem to take into account the real love for the race itself and the fun surrounding 20 summer days spent rolling around the most beautiful parts of France: the tour will go on, and with the controls in place, Alberto Contador of Discovery Channel is the winner. Give the man his champagne, albeit not before testing it for synthetic testosterone and amphetamines.

The Tour, in truth, is fighting a battle against technology, particularly pharmaceutical technology. Cheating remains one step ahead of enforcement, even with the draconian standards put in place by some sports. (Take college football, where giving three cups of coffee to a player could, in theory at least, place a coach in jeopardy of a "providing an unsanctioned supplement .")

The Debriefing is a column that runs every weekday at 9:00 a.m. here on FanHouse. It goes deep into one issue and then bounces around to a plethora of smaller ones ... and does it all in a way that will make you feel like the prettiest girl at the cotillion. Bookmark this page, and visit daily.



You could squeeze the entirety of my cycling knowledge into Eddie Gaedel's jock strap. The Tour de France is not a sporting event of major interest to me ... and most writers would probably see these things as good reasons not to write about the Tour.

But that's a large part of what I do here in The Debriefing ... I make bad decisions and follow through on them with the gritty determination and flamboyant panache of Johnny Weir ice dancing to Cher's Believe.

I try to check in with the results of the Tour daily, even if I don't know who the various riders are. It's a big international event, it just feels like something I should do ... even if I don't know Michael Rasmussen from Dennis Rasmussen, or Cadel Evans from Lee Evans.

But I do learn at least one new rider's name every day ... because that seems to be about the rate that they're getting picked off for doping violations.

The Tour de France seems to have a choice here. They can keep trying to clean up the sport, test the hell out of everyone in the most stringent way possible, and give us a Tour with a new "Schwinn McArmstrong Disqualified for Doping" headline every day ... or they can just forget about testing, let them dope their brains out, and we'll all just turn our heads. You can't tell me if it wouldn't be more fun that way.

The Tour de France has already spit a flat tire with the booting of Alexandre Vinokourov for blood doping this week. If that was a flat tire, the entire event has just been sideswiped by a French cigarette, cheese, and foie gras delivery truck going 80 mph through a red light: Tour leader Michael Rasmussen has been withdrawn from the Tour by his team, Rabobank for lying about where he was during training sessions for the tour earlier this year. Rasmussen has also been fired from the team completely.

Comments by Italian television commentator Davide Cassani prompted the move. Cassani said he had seen Rasmussen in the Dolomites in Italy during a stretch this June; Rasmussen had told Rabobank he was training in Mexico at the time. The fuss over where he was is more substantial than it may seem, since Rasmussen is already riding with the pall of an Olympic and Danish national cycling ban over his sketchy reporting of his training methods that many equate with blood doping and illegal supplement use.

The move may also be a preventative one for Rabobank. If they caught wind of impending trouble heading his way, Rabobank would be associated with yet another tainted Tour winner. (Rasmussen was in the yellow jersey as of today.) The team cuts ties now and saves shame in the long run if that's the thinking.

The yellow jersey now goes to Discovery Channel's Alberto Contador, who rides with the rest of the peloton in stage 17 of the tour tomorrow. That's assuming a lot--at this rate, the race may by won by whoever keeps their urine and blood clean for remaining four stages.

Today's Tour de France Update is brought you without the aid of synthetic testosterone. We swear that we are writing this using only our own blood, and not someone else's pumped into our veins.

The Tour shambled on today in spite of the withdrawal of the Astana team. Astana pulled their whole contingent after they were "invited to leave" the race in the wake of Alexandre Vinokourov's positive test for blood doping. This year's scandal has sponsors thinking about dropping sponsorships with the team and writers clucking over the ruination of a potentially courageous performance by a rider working through pain.

Blood? Never heard of it. Vinokourov, of course, denies everything.

Great. Dane. Michael Rasmussen continued to push his overall lead by outlasting some quality strategy on the part of the Discovery Channel team and blowing away Levi Leipheimer and Alberto Contador for the stage win in the last kilometer of the stage. Discovery riders savagely attacked Rasmussen all day, but the Dane would not crack, outlasting the harassment and staking a 3:10 lead on the field.

Colombian King? One should not ignore, scandals be damned, the vicious riding of Juan Maricio Soler, the Colombian wearing the King of the Mountains jersey for the tour. Soler rides ugly, as Phil Liggett is fond of pointing out, but he is an unabashed terror on climbs, crushing gears to powder through the mountains. He's also only 24, meaning he will and should be a serious contender in Tours to come.

Bombs. Meh. Two small bombs did explode today on the Spanish section of the course. The riders had already passed by, and there were no injuries. Basque separatist group ETA claimed responsibility. Being European, they said "So what" and have kept the race going.

Most Americans are aware that pro cycling took yet another severe credibility hit when the Floyd Landis scandal broke after the 2006 Tour de France. That was far from the most damaging scandal in cycling in 2006 though, as Operation Puerto in Spain recovered more than 1000 doses of anabolic steroids and over 100 packets of blood products - a veritable performance enhancing factory. Many of the biggest names in cycling were implicated, including superstars like Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich, decimating the field of the 2006 Tour de France before it even began. Puerto has been front page news all over Europe for the better part of the past year, and has done nothing but further the perception that the peleton is more of a rolling laboratory than a collection of athletes. With important sponsors such as T-Mobile and Liberty Seguros bailing out and the financial future of the sport in serious danger, even tougher anti-doping measures were put in place and promises were made that the doping culture that pervades cycling was going to be eliminated. 2007 was going to be a new year, a year that would show off the tremendous collection of new young talent in the the pro ranks and put a fresh (and clean) face on cycling.

Instead, 2007 has seen nothing but a continuation of the bad news from 2006. More cyclists either admitted to doping or were caught doping. The bad news continued to pile up. Great races during the classics season and the Giro d'Italia were seemingly buried under a continual storm of allegations, confessions and positive tests in the press. The final blow came not long before the 2007 Tour de France when 5 former Telekom riders confessed to past doping. This included stars Jorge Jaksche and Erik Zabel, as well as former TdF winner and Team CSC owner and coach Bjarne Riis. Along with the arrest of Liberty Seguros director Manolo Saiz in 2006, this made it two of the biggest directeur sportifs in cycling who had been directly tied to systematic doping in the past year. It was as if Lou Piniella and Bobby Cox were tied to steroid rings being run in their team clubhouses, and has made it impossible for cycling to pretend that the doped up riders were just renegades breaking rules on their own.

Do not fall out of your chairs when reading this, but Alexandre Vinokourov, the prerace favorite to win the Tour de France who enjoyed a massive comeback in winning two stages over the last three days, may have done so with his veins pumping someone else's blood.

From the Beeb:

Pre-race favourite Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive for blood doping after winning Saturday's stage of the Tour de France, his Astana team have announced.

Vinokourov had been injured in a fall in stage four of the Tour and had lagged behind badly going into this weekend's time trial and the final mountain stages in the Pyrenees. Vinokourov then suddenly found a zip in his pedals he hadn't had in previous stages, winning two of the last three stages in impressive form. The test results show that Vinokourov received a transfusion immediately before Saturday's stage, meaning his blood vessels were stuffed with oxygen-carrying red blood cells from a compatible donor.

So what could have been the best feel-good story of the tour yet goes sour again with the taste of a doping scandal ruining the whole dish. And it may not be done yet. Tour leader Michael Rasmussen remains under suspicion of involvement in doping, so much so that the Danish National Cycling Union dropped him from the team for some suspicious absences earlier this year. The pharmaceutical fun could just be beginning.