I used to be a big Tour de France fan—well, of pro-cycling as a whole, actually. I knew the teams, had favorite riders, even knew what all those silly points and colored jerseys meant, etc etc etc. Beyond just Lance Armstrong, I was a fan of many riders… until one by one I saw them dismissed from the sport in disgrace amidst allegations of illegal doping.
I no longer care about the sport. It has become pretty clear that it isn’t a matter of who’s doping—they all are. Honestly, if one or two are the rest of them would have to be just to keep up. It’s simply a matter of who is better at outsmarting the governing agencies, who has more money and power for covering it up and who has the best doctors and trainers up on all the most current drugs and methods of evading tests. I think even Lance has just been very good at “cleaning up after himself.” He doped... maybe not always, but he did and the fact that he won’t admit to ever doing it makes him utterly unbelievable entirely.
Perhaps it is as some claim, a big conspiracy to discredit top American riders. Perhaps the French really are just pissed off that they can’t produce an athlete worthy of winning their own race. Or perhaps the sport has become so mired in a tradition of finding the upper hand in an incredibly grueling competition that it isn’t a sport at all any more… just a bunch of incredibly fit guys looking for their next fix.
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