Mark Jenkins

It's pretty clear that the amount of self-righteousness and hand wringing
among the Tour organizers at ASO is inversely proportional to the
credibility of the race.

Does it seem to anyone else that ASO in recent months has backed off of
Armstrong? Could it be that in the wake of the Riis confession that they
were faced with the possibility that if Armstrong cheated -- as they
believed -- they would have no clean winners back to 1996? Riis, Ullrich,
Pantani, Armstrong, Landis. All of a sudden they very badly need Lance
Armstrong to be clean.

If they had been successful in bringing Armstrong down, that would have made
the Tour officially the least credible race on anyone's calendar, and
possibly the least credible major event in sports . So instead, they're all
over taking Riis's yellow jersey (pathetic) and squabbling with UCI
(absurd).

How can it be otherwise? The sport has a problem, and this is the highest
stakes race in that problem sport for everyone involved -- sponsors, riders,
teams. And on top of everything else, the race itself is brutal. Now you
have UCI and ASO saying publicly they hope Rasmussen doesn't win. What a
disaster.

On 7/24/07, Erik Voldengen wrote:
>
> On 7/24/07, Malcolm, Gary wrote:
> >
> > Then four sketchy Rasmussen training disappearances make the press, My
> > beloved Vino mixes up blood bags (don't they label those things?), and now
> > I'm thinking, "Why is Contador SOOOO much better than anyone else?"
> >
>
> I think it was only two missed checks, and UCI and Dutch Federation were
> using the same database? Four warnings, but only two offenses. It takes
> three to get suspended. Not that I think he's squeaky clean or anything,
> I'm just sayin...
>
> Regarding Contador, how quickly we forget who he was riding for last year
> (hint - Spanish guy caught with a briefcase full of money and some frozen
> bags of blood). Not that I think he's dirty or anything, I'm just saying...
>
>
> -Erik
>
>
>
>
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