Doped

There has been quite a lot of talk about sports here lately, the main focus being Formula 1. Some of you might argue that you can’t really look at Formula 1 or even perhaps motor sports in general as a sport per se, as they are just driving their vehicles - it’s not really physical.

Except for the fact that driving a car at extremely high speed around a tight track is a huge strain on the body, both physically and psychologically, I agree with you to some extent. Running a marathon could probably be seen as more of a sport than driving a go cart. I’m not sure if you really can define if a it’s a sport or not based on the level of physical activity, but for the sake of the argument, let’s say that’s the way we do define a sport. So what about a very physical activity, like Pro Cycling? Is that really a sport?

Right now the greatest Pro Cycling tour of the all, Le Tour de France, is being held and it’s already starting to turn into a comedy. You probably remember how it ended last year when Tour winner Floyd Landis tested positive with an abnormally high testosterone/epitestosterone ratio.

This year has not been much better. Last week Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen was thrown off the Danish national team because he missed out-of-competition drug tests. And today pre-race favourite Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive for blood doping and Astana pulled their team from the tour.

According to the ethical code of the Astana Cycling Team Alexandre Vinokourov has been suspended from the team with immediate effect. The rider has asked nevertheless for a B-sample analysis.

Informed by the Astana management, the organisers of the Tour de France invited the team to withdraw, which was immediately accepted

This just makes me laugh at Pro Cycling. It’s not a sport, it’s a bunch of druggies on bikes.


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