All My Love Is Gone

The route of Le Tour de France 2007

After some 21 days in the saddle it is finally over for the riders. The tour will never end for the A.S.O with all the investigations and troubles with doping connected to the Tour de France. Unfortunately this years tour wasn’t to be a clean tour, instead it ended up as a tour du doping, as put forward by several newsprint’s.

I have many times put forward my dislike of doping, so i’m not going to do that in this post. However i think that both the A.S.O and the UCI have a lot to talk about on this subject, since it’s a matter that concerns them both, but they have different views or solutions for dissolving the issue.

We all can just hope that no new revelations in terms of doping scandals or findings that lead to any further investigations. It will only harm the sport, that i love, even more.

I will look back at this years Tour de France with both sadness and joy. I will always remember the wonderful scenery’s captures by the photographers during the course of the race. Some question why one would spend some much time in front of the TV watching something so event less like the Tour de France, the only answer i can give to those who wonder is this : Excitement, Scenery’s, Efforts, Mountains, Amazing Performances, Tactics, Speed and Love !

I invited my former girlfriend to watch the Tour de France in 2006 and after a few stages, she just wanted to watch it both Live! and the highlights later on in the evening, just because of the excitement, scenery and amazing performances.

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Well, that is a good question. I’ve been following cycling and especially Le Tour de France for the past 15 years and now i don’t feel like watching anymore. It has come to a point where it isn’t as interesting anymore, from a athletic point of view.

Since it seems that, whatever is done with the sport, nothing really happens to make it more athletic or doping free, it seems more like everyone is covering their backs, blaming everyone else.

In this years race their has been much effort by the ASO to eliminate doping, which is good, but still there has been 3 cases (Patrick Sinkewitz - T-mobile, Alexandre Vinokourov - Astana and Cristian Moreni - Cofidis) of doping in the race and now the overall leader (Michael Rasmussen - Rabobank) leaves the race.

A Radical idea
It seems to me that the only solution is to cancel the whole race and just leave the whole thing, since the media and everyone enjoying the race questions it’s credibility. I think that a large part of the problem is the teams in the UCI ProTour that have a transparent outlook on doping and illegal substances. A radical idea is to ban all participants and leaders, doctors etc. that have been within the system before 2001.

Why this radical idea ?
How are we, as fans of cycling, going to enjoy the athletic aspect of cycling and also the toughest race, Le Tour de France, if all it contains is cheaters and corrupted team leaders ? That is a question you might want to ask yourself and hopefully you will find a good answer for it.

Another radical idea
Another interesting idea is to remove all the price money and only race for the glory of winning overall. This would ultimately be, sort of, like winning a Olympic Gold medal, since you don’t get 350.000 EUR for winning the overall title, like it is today.

Who would in their right mind use doping to win a race where the only thing you win is your name in the history books ? It’s a interesting thought, but on the other hand you might have stupid people who just do that as well.

The right mindset for cycling ?
I honestly believe that most of the ProTour riders are really stupid, but very athletic, people. Who basically would do anything to get ahead and win a dishonest victory. I think that many of the younger riders might have the right mindset when it comes to doping, but you never know with cycling, since we all get disappointed again and again.

My view on professional cycling is forever changed and it will most likely take a lot of time for me to trust professional cycling and enjoy watching it on TV. I just hope that radical actions within the sport are taken to clean house in all the ranks.

As of this i will not continue to write about the Tour de France of 2007, maybe in 2008, but that is only if it becomes a more clean race.

For me, cycling is a big part of my life and i really enjoy taking my bike for a spin and i will continue to ride my bike and compete in amateur events in Sweden, since it’s all about competing and exercise, not winning at any cost !

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Yesterdays stage between Orthez and Gourette-Col D’aubisque was 218,5 Km long stage where the only thing discussed was doping and again speculations upon speculations. Almost 5 hours of boredom, due to this fact. However i think it’s good for newcomers to learn a bit about the world of cycling and also the problems with doping and cheaters that apparently would do anything to win.

Regardless of the dedication to the above stated topic, i feel that sometimes it’s just wrong to speculate when it’s not based on the information that is currently available, but instead you speculate upon things that hasn’t happened. I don’t like speculating, unless it’s based on facts, even if those facts are insufficient.

Yesterday’s stage was the day when Michael Rasmussen again showed that he is the king of the mountains, putting even more time between himself and Alberto Contador and evidently also Cadel Evens. The day also gave the riders a really nice suntan with scorching heat all day and we saw many of the favorites for the stage win, drop back quite early on the last and final climb up Gourette-Col D’aubisque.

The day was a celebration, a black celebration as yet another rider was found positive for doping. This time it was a Cofidis rider named Cristian Moreni. More on him and doping can be found in Stupid Things

I’m not sure if i want to keep on writing about the Tour de France anymore, since i feel a bit sad, due to the fact that all people are talking about is doping and that should be discussed outside of my favorite race. We’ll see if i keep on writing about the Tour de France of 2007 or not on Friday.

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