Stage 17: It Doesn't Feel Right

In 1998, the peloton staged a protest over blood doping. They were protesting the gross violation of riders’ rights by French authorities. By 2007, they staged a protest against the dopers, or more accurately, themselves. Nine years later, the peloton has capitulated. No one gives a damn about their rights in the pursuit of blood purity.

I feel like I’m the only who is alarmed by Rasmussen getting booted from the Tour despite not flunking a drug test nor breaking any UCI rules. The Tour says they didn’t pressure Rabobank, but considering the theme of the last week has been the “joyless Tour” for the team, this is either naivety or a blatant lie by Tour officials. Given our past experience, I’d go with the second option. Rasmussen is getting punished based on nothing more than accusation and innuendo. I found the quotes to be rather disturbing, yet revealing:

"We would have made the Rabobank team face up to their responsibilities."

"My immediate reaction is, why didn't they do this at the end of June, when they had the same information. The team decided to pull him out - that's their prerogative. I can only applaud that. It's a zero-tolerance policy and it's a lesson for the future." – UCI chief Pat McQuaid

"Michael Rasmussen should not have started the Tour. Why? In a period of crisis, a champion has to be an example. In addition, his attitude, which we only know now, makes us believe that we should have refused his participation." -- Patrice Clerc, Tour official.

"We cannot say that Rasmussen cheated, but his flippancy and his lies on his whereabouts had become unbearable." -- Tour director Christian Prudhomme

Let’s break that down. The UCI chief pretty explicitly states there was pressure on Rabobank. And based on the same information, it was okay for him to start the Tour, but not finish.

The Tour officials are worse. They are suspending Rasmussen for flippancy? He shouldn’t have started the Tour because he doesn’t set a good enough of an example? Are you kidding me? They have no solid evidence against Rasmussen, but let’s just ruin his career anyway. They may be right, they may be wrong. But who cares about the rider’s rights?

Let’s be clear: Rasmussen broke no rules. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. And he’s getting booted from the Tour, having his name drug through the mud, and all in the name of cleaning up the sport. A pox on the Tour and the UCI. This isn’t about doping, this about bullying riders so they know their place.

The “cleanest” teams are the French teams, and even they had a rider booted. Moreni has at least admitted to wrongdoing. But it makes me fairly convinced a lot of this motivation is not to clean up the sport, which they are slowly destroying through their strong-arm tactics, but is partly motivated by the French’s desire to erase the memory of their losses over the past two decades. Oh, the only reason the French weren’t winning was because everyone else was cheating. We were robbed of our glory, and if we can only expunge the record of the last 20 years, we will be dominant again.

Look, there’s more evidence against Barry Bonds than there is against Michael Rasmussen. This is like the Giants kicking Bonds off the team. While I do think Bonds probably used steroids, I’m also a pretty big fan of due process. The riders get absolutely none. They are bullied and owed, and then ultimately ruined by the UCI which leads the persecution.

Let’s be clear, cycling’s doping problem is no worse than any other sport’s. Operation Peurto implicated over a hundred athletes, but only the cyclists got named. Only the cyclists had their careers ruined. This march to clean up cycling and save it from dopers has convinced me that there is nothing an athlete can ever do to clear his or her name from a doping allegation. Rasmussen’s case, an accusation is enough. Cycling has the perception as a dirty sport because it’s the only sport getting tough on the athletes. Has it cleaned up the sport? No. It’s just lead to an era of accusation and extreme collateral damage. What did Kloden do to deserve his Tour getting ruined? Or every rider on Cofidis?

I don’t have the answer to the doping problem in sports, but the cycling’s current answer to it is obviously wrong. Rasmussen didn’t ruin the Tour, the anti-doping zealots did.

Oh yeah, Bettini won an exciting stage today. Screw you, UCI.

That sort of takes the punch out of it

When I left for work in the morning the race was still about 40 km from the finish, so I made a great effort to avoid seeing the results online so that I could watch the replay and pretend it was live. Then, as Leipheimer and Contador sandwiched Rasmussen at about the 3km marker, Vs. flashed the news that Rasmussen had been withdrawn by Rabobank and fired.

So, I guess I can't dwell on what a great job Rasmussen did to defend his race lead, because up until that moment, I was really impressed.

But I'm not going to fail to mention the great efforts of athletes who have not been kicked out of the race.

1) Levi Leipheimer has now had his best two TdF stages in the same week. He was outstanding. I hope he gets the official credit for the stage win, because he's such a good rider having a great tour. Plus, he was a team player for Contador, who just didn't have the same explosion today as he did Monday.
2) Carlos Sastre went on a suicide mission. Naturally it didn't work, but he still finished 8th on the stage, just over 2 minutes behind. It's hard to keep a good pace once the breakaway has been snuffed out, but he was great.
3) Same thing for Soler, who did enough to overtake Rasmussen in the KoM points. With Rasmussen out, Soler is going to win the KoM, unless he gets disqualified.

As for Rasmussen, what we know now is that his own team pulled him from the race, saying that he lied to them about his whereabouts in June.

Huh?

I cannot believe that is all of the story. If Rabobank is willing to sacrifice their only yellow jersey ever because they are all about the letter of the law, well, then good for them. Let everyone know that the Dutch really are hard core disciplinarians. There has got to be more to this than lying about where he was training in June.

The race directors are quite pleased, but then, they've been railroading Rasmussen for weeks now. Of course, they'll be really upset when they realize that the credibility of the Tour has sunk to a new low.

As for the race...
1) Contador
2) Evans +1:53
3) Leipheimer +2:49
4) Sastre + 6:02

Evans has a fair shot at catching Contador in the time trial (he was 91 seconds better in the first TT). Leipheimer isn't likely to catch Evans unless Evans falls off his bike a couple times, but his podium spot looks secure. Of course, all of this is contingent on the dope tests of the coming days.

At least we have something to talk about on the rest day

In case you didn't already hear, Vinokourov tested positive for blood doping following his win in the time trial. The entire team Astana has withdrawn from the Tour. Naturally, Vinokourov denies that he cheated, and we're awaiting the B sample. Actually, I think he should not be expelled until after the B sample is tested, but the doping authorities don't do things my way. The testing procedure for this is something I'm familiar with, so I do have confidence in this sort of analysis.

Additionally, I must say that this is the dumbest form of doping. It's called homologus blood doping, but that's a misnomer. It's a blood transfusion from another person, and it's only homologus in the sense that the donor matches the recipient's ABO blood type. The problem is that there are lots of serotypes in addition to ABO, which is how the transfusion can be detected. It's the same sort of thing that Tyler Hamilton was caught doing a few years ago.

I say this is the dumbest form of doping because of the health risk. Blood transfusions are for vital medical procedures. Accepting another person's blood runs the risk of contracting infection and also of inducing illness due to immunological incompatibility. Athletes who do this are not only cheaters, they are stupid too.

Anyone else care to be dumb?
How about race director, Chris Prudhomme, quoted in an AP story?

Race director Christian Prudhomme said the case showed that cycling's drug-testing system doesn't work.

"It's an absolute failure of the system," he said. "It is a system which does not defend the biggest race in the world. This is a system which can't last."

Huh? If Prudhomme doesn't trust the lab tests, then this makes sense. If he does trust the results, then he should be extolling the testing system for catching a cheater. Maybe he is referring to the declaration not to cheat that the Tour forced all competitors to sign before the race. Well, if that's the "system" he means, then it is a failure, but everyone with half a brain knew that signing a paper would not end doping. It seems pretty clear to me: if your testing system accurately catches cheaters, it works and you defend the integrity of your event. If you fail to catch them, fail to act, or incorrectly condemn athletes, then you hurt the integrity of your event. Is Prudhomme every bit the clod that Jean Marie LeBlanc was? Maybe the AP writer wrongly attributed Prudhomme's comments to the testing system when, in fact he was referring to the UCI's pressure on riders not to cheat. So, maybe the AP writer is the moron here.

Oh, this helps Discovery immensely in the team competition. I feel bad for Kloden.

Tomorrow try to concentrate on Rasmussen vs. Contador.

Stage 15: Vino Again

The attack came late, but it came. Let's face it, the top two riders in the GC are not exactly time trialing whizzes, so both Contador and Rasmussen had the incentive to attack on the Pyrenees, even though they are technically the hunted. Contador didn't make his acceleration until the climb was almost over, but he made the move and only Rasmussen could respond. And the top two put another minute into the field.

With one more climbing stage after the rest day and then a time trial, it looks like our podium is almost set: Rasmussen, Contador, and Evans. Probably in that order. Contador might be a better climber than anyone, even Rasmussen, but he's not likely to make up 2:23 on the climbs. And his time trialing skill is only slightly better than Rasmussen's. It's a tall order and he really needs Rasmussen to make a mistake, something he has not been doing. Rasmussen responded to Contador's every move.

Evans, on the other hand, needed to minimize his losses in the mountains and then blow Rasmussen away on the ITT. He's lost 3 minutes in two days, and will probably lose another minute or so on Wednesday. He needs a Vino-esque ITT as well as both Rasmussen and Contador to collapse. It's not an impossible dream, but he is clutching at straws.

Vino, for a guy having a lousy Tour, is racking up the stage victories. He dominated the ITT, absolutely annihilating the field. And now he picked up another stage win, beating the field by a huge margin again. He is having the ultimate Jekyll and Hyde Tour. He goes back and forth between the best rider on earth and terrible. If only he hadn't crashed...

Oh, David Millar is claiming Rasmussen has ruined this year's Tour because he missed a drug test, which violated exactly zero rules. I'd like to tell Millar, a guy who actually has flunked drug tests, to shut the fuck up.

Rasmussen holds, Disco flexes

Stage 14 did not disappoint in terms of having a great race.

It was Vinokourov, not Rasmussen who could not recover from the previous day's time trial. Vino blew up on the penultimate climb and finished almost 30 minutes behind the stage winner. Rasmussen finished a bike length behind the stage winner.

Kloden and Evans cracked on Plateau de Beille, and each dropped in the standings. While Alberto Contador and Rasmussen matched each other attack for attack, Soler, Leipheimer, and Sastre were just a few seconds behind them.

Stage results:
1. Alberto Contador (Disco)
2. Michael Rasmussen (Rabobank) s.t.
3. Juan Mauricio Soler (Barloworld) +0:37
4. Levi Leipheimer (Disco) +0:40
5. Carlos Sastre (CSC) +0:53
6. Andréas Klöden (Astana) +1:52
7. Cadel Evans (Lotto) +1:52
8. Antonio Colom (Astana) +2:23
9. Andrey Kashechkin (Astana) +2:23
10. Yaroslav Popovych (Disco) +3:06

Popovych was a superdomestique again. The guy was dropped on the first climb, but rode back to the yellow jersey group. On the final climb he set the pace that dropped Kloden, Kashechkin, and Rasmussen's teammates. After he stepped aside for Contador and Leipheimer to attack, he kept a good pace to finish fast enough to give his team the lead over Astana in the team competition. Popovych was superb. Today Discovery showed the same sort of dominance that they had in the Armstrong years.

The standings also show how deep Astana is. With Vinokourov out of it, they still had three men in the top 9. Kloden and Kashechkin are still in the top 10 overall, and the team is only 2 minutes behind Discovery.

Blah, blah, blah. No one can drop Rasmussen in the mountains, and today his lead is greater than yesterday.

Overall standings:
1. Michael Rasmussen (Rabobank)
2. Alberto Contador (Disco) +2:23
3. Cadel Evans (Lotto) +3:04
4. Levi Leipheimer (Disco) +4:29
5. Andreas Kloden (Astana) +4:38
6. Carlos Sastre (CSC) +5:50
7. Andrey Kashechkin (Astana) +6:58
8. Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel) +8:25
9. Alejandro Valverde (Banesto) +9:45
10. Yaroslav Popovych (Disco) +10:55

At this point Rasmussen has a comfortable advantage on everyone but Contador and Evans. That could change if he cracks or if someone goes wild and steals a lot of time on one climb. But what Rasmussen needs to do is build margin for error in the Pyrenees. Today he did that on everyone except Contador.

Finally, in one of the more amusing Tour tidbits involving two guys we love to mock, the Saunier team drove the peloton up the penultimate climb of the day. In fact, David Millar's pacework knocked Vinokourov out of the peloton and gave Popovych problems. It was, apparently, an effort to support an attack by Iban Mayo. Or perhaps no one told him. Mayo was a non-factor and finished almost 10 minutes behind Contador. Doh!