2008 Tour de France’s first positive drug test
You’d think the riders would have learned by now, there’s no hiding the drug usage. Manuel Beltrán of Liquigas has tested positive for EPO. What an idiot.
Going nowhere, on two wheels
You’d think the riders would have learned by now, there’s no hiding the drug usage. Manuel Beltrán of Liquigas has tested positive for EPO. What an idiot.
Mark Cavendish gets his first Tour de France win! Hoorah!
And what a win it was. The speed at which the Columbia team dragged the peloton to the finish was astounding, poor Nicholas Vogondy must have felt totally dejected when his 230km break came to an end about 10 metres before the finish line.
Still, I can’t remember the last time I got so excited watching a sprint finish. Go Cav’ go!
So Rasmussen was a naughty boy last year and told porky pies about where he was. Through all the reading I’ve done, it looks very much to me like:
a) He should’ve been in Mexico, or at least that’s what he told the UCI
b) He was actually in Italy, training, and his team knew this
c) The UCI knew all this two weeks before he was in yellow, but only decided to release the information to the world during the Tour de France, hence creating a massive media storm.
Rasmussen has never tested positive for anything. In amongst all this were rumours he’d missed a couple of out of competition tests. There was also a rumour, from a former team mate when he was mountain biking, that said team mate had received a shoe box full of drugs from Rasmussen. But rumour was all it was.
Now let’s look at ole Chicken Legs’ performance. He’s been able to climb like a daemon for a couple of years, but time trialling was never his strong point (remember that 2005 time trial where he binned it at least a couple of times en route?!). Then last year he picks his game up a bit. Big deal. Lance couldn’t climb for toffee before his cancer, but he trained and trained and became a superb climber. Surely Rasmussen is capable of improving his time trialling in a year without recourse to drugs?
I dunno. There’s so much finger pointing these days, and so much “guilty until proven innocent” in cycling. Am I missing something here, or is Rasmussen being penalised with a two year ban without actually being found guilty of using drugs?
Yep, as we all knew, he’s still guilty…
Landis ban appeal is turned down
That’s what you get for doping with testosterone.