Tour de France 2009 Thread

Originally Posted by Piobaire

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I have always felt very bad for Ulrich. He was a team player and gave a Tour to Riis, when he clearly was the stronger rider, then had to play second fiddle to Lance for years. But he was always a good sport and I really admire him for that.

yeah I feel bad too. Such a brutal end to a career. I remember 2006 (back when I was doing competitive racing for my college team) and bang, Puerto break open like a day before the tour was set to start and Ullrich and Basso are nixed, just like that. Shocked me.



Riis doped in that Tour victory, by admission. It is not a clean sport by any means.

Originally Posted by gomestar

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yeah I feel bad too. Such a brutal end to a career. I remember 2006 (back when I was doing competitive racing for my college team) and bang, Puerto break open like a day before the tour was set to start and Ullrich and Basso are nixed, just like that. Shocked me.



Riis doped in that Tour victory, by admission. It is not a clean sport by any means.

Sadly, it's hard to name a clean sport nowadays. Credit to them for doing something about it and putting serious testing in place.

I don't follow the sport closely (pretty much tune in the the TdF each year), but it seems to me that a big part of the problem in cycling and other endurance sports is that doping would make it nearly impossible for clean athletes to compete. Baseball, to use one example, requires hand eye coordination, throwing ability, etc; skills not affected by performance enhancers. Gives a highly skilled clean guy a chance to compete. Granted there is strategy involved in cycling, but when your main requirement is the ability to pedal your ass off and doping directly enhances your ability to do that, it's tough to see how you can get to the top without doing it.

All that said, I'd like to believe that Lance is clean, but I'll never be 100% positive he has been. Did see an interesting tv program a while back about the technological advances his Discovery team had made and how much of an impact they had during the race.

Originally Posted by dcg

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I don't follow the sport closely (pretty much tune in the the TdF each year), but it seems to me that a big part of the problem in cycling and other endurance sports is that doping would make it nearly impossible for clean athletes to compete. Baseball, to use one example, requires hand eye coordination, throwing ability, etc; skills not affected by performance enhancers. Gives a highly skilled clean guy a chance to compete. Granted there is strategy involved in cycling, but when your main requirement is the ability to pedal your ass off and doping directly enhances your ability to do that, it's tough to see how you can get to the top without doing it.


bingo. its not about the buffest legs, its about the strongest heart (and I don't mean that figuratively, but literally, you need a huge heart and tons of blood to keep getting oxygen to the legs). This is why EPO is one of the drugs of choice, it increases the amount of oxygen the blood can carry thus giving that extra boost of endurance in the long run.

Lance Armstrong = WORST WINGMAN EVER

You're at a bar, things are going well with the hot girl you're talking to. Lance is talking to the hot girl's porky girlfriend, just like he promised. Then you go get a drink and come back to find that Lance has left the bar with the hot girl.

Originally Posted by Ambulance Chaser

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Lance Armstrong = WORST WINGMAN EVER

You're at a bar, things are going well with the hot girl you're talking to. Lance is talking to the hot girl's porky girlfriend, just like he promised. Then you go get a drink and come back to find that Lance has left the bar with the hot girl.

wait until she discovers that he has only 1 nut in the sack. You = quiet victor.

^Did anyone out there really think that Armstrong was going to come back and not try to win?

Contador seems like a whiner. Regarding the Vuelta issue with Leipheimer, if a "support" rider can finish so close to the team leader, maybe the team needed to reconsider who should be in the lead role even before Armstrong returned.

Originally Posted by dcg

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^Did anyone out there really think that Armstrong was going to come back and not try to win?

Contador seems like a whiner. Regarding the Vuelta issue with Leipheimer, if a "support" rider can finish so close to the team leader, maybe the team needed to reconsider who should be in the lead role even before Armstrong returned.

Yeah, I didn't get the Vuelta issue either. Leipheimer rode a fantastic time trial near the end of the race to put himself on the podium. Riding support is one thing, what was he suppose to do, go in the tank on a individual time trial?

he is just acting like every other competitive cyclist I know, I don't see the big deal...

every rider wants to win and you can't really fault him for that. Contador has ridiculous talent and he is about to show it off in the mountains. It'll be interesting to see if Lance can be as strong as he always has been in the mountains.

Contador just caught a bad break on stage 3 getting caught back with the peleton.

I think Contador is more of a team player than people are making him out to be. you see how hard he was hammering after Lance dropped off the front in the last 1000 meters? It wasn't to squeak off a few seconds to get the win. it was to help lance get ahead of Cancellara. they had the TT on lock down.

Over all Lance looks as solid as ever, but we are only 4 stages in... A lot of riding left to do.

An interesting tour...

Am I alone in wondering whether Cavendish is going for early glory, not expecting to survive the mountains? Maybe it'll finally be Husvold's year for Green?

Cadel's race is over for another year. Dammit, can't help but feel he will never get a Tour now. Astana were ridiculous in the TTT, hopefully some drama can be created between Contador and Lance but either way i don't see a non Astana member winning unless Cadel or Sastre pull some insane mountain stage bullshit.

Originally Posted by dcg

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All that said, I'd like to believe that Lance is clean, but I'll never be 100% positive he has been.
It's really difficult to believe he is clean. Aside from the various suspicions, the simple fact that almost all the others in those years have been convicted or have admitted to have been doped guarantees he was too.

The only thing Lance and Riis have going for them is that they did not get caught, contrary to Ullrich or Kohl.

Originally Posted by Étienne

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It's really difficult to believe he is clean. Aside from the various suspicions, the simple fact that almost all the others in those years have been convicted or have admitted to have been doped guarantees he was too.

The only thing Lance and Riis have going for them is that they did not get caught, contrary to Ullrich or Kohl.

Keep in mind he's been tested more than a dozen times since he returned to cycling, he has begged to be tested throughout his career, and the closest thing an overzealous French anti-doping authority has come to w/r/t a doping violation is that *********** up and misinformed him of the procedure for testing, which was subsequently dismissed.

Am I saying the guy never doped? Absolutely not. But acting like the evidence suggests he did is inaccurate, and his behavior is not indicative of someone who dopes.

Yeah, I find it equally funny to listen to those who are absolutely convinced that he doped and those that are absolutely convinced that he didn't.

Tough to believe his accomplishments against a field of dopers, but I'm not willing to condemn the guy without evidence when they've been doing all they can to catch him for years.

Originally Posted by Étienne

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It's really difficult to believe he is clean. Aside from the various suspicions, the simple fact that almost all the others in those years have been convicted or have admitted to have been doped guarantees he was too.

The only thing Lance and Riis have going for them is that they did not get caught, contrary to Ullrich or Kohl.


Riis admitted to doping through the years 93-98, including his 96 TdF victory.