Le Tour 2010

Cheat got replaced as a winner by a whinging cheat (Frank Schleck's a Fuentes client). The season will be a bit less interesting without him though, by far the best stage racer.

The only sh!t is that Armstrong got off.

Surely the title should just be made vacant rather than elevate the runner up to the title.

Agreed. Like the Storm's titles in the Leeeeg.

The cheating Quntador got off way too lightly. Qunt.

I think that is the organisers' decision. Danilo di Luca won a Giro in 2008 and later tested positive, the winner's column is left blank there. Bjarne Riis confessed to using EPO when winning the '96 tour and that has been vacated and not replaced. When there has been evidence of a positive test, the ASO (organisers of the tour) have tried to vacate the winner ala Landis.

I'd say it is worse that Baby Schleck is the champ, he is a whinging twat, races only 2 races properly all season (TdF and Liege Bastogne Liege), very likely to be a doper himself and used questionable tactics earlier in the 2010 TdF.

All the top 10 finishers in Grand tours are questionable in terms of dope and the only cyclist that people can say with a degree of certainty of being clean is David Moncoutie.

Both the Schlecks and Contador have to be equally questionable due to their affiliation with the two questionable bosses in Riis and Bruyneel. One got caught and the other hasn't.

the only cyclist that people can say with a degree of certainty of being clean is David Moncoutie.

Why? Is he the guy who always comes last?

No, he's a very decent climber and is a 4 or 5 time King of the mountains winner in the Vuelta a Espana (21 day Tour of Spain).

Philippe Gaumont, a Cofidis cyclist (and team mate), confessed to the allegations and also became a whistle blower basically stated that his team had an organised doping programme and only Moncoutie abstained from it (this was during the Cofidis bust, which resulted in David Millar's arrest). So too have quite a few others. He also hasn't got any allegations against him like Operacion Puerto (which consisted of many sportsmen but only cyclists' name were released).

Fully doped, the guy would have been a perennial challenger for TdFs, Giros and Vueltas.

Greg Lemond would be the last possible clean winner of the Tour as he never race in a team with a doctor in it. His slide also coincided with the start of the EPO era when Indurain like gorillas started crushing the field.

I doubt if there has ever been a clean winner

Aye, that may very likely be the truth. That said, doping controls in cycling is way more stringent than in other sports. Alessandro Petacchi was suspended for the using salbutemol, and he's an asthmatic

Let 'em all get on whatever rocket fuel they want. May their hearts blow out through their armpits. Last man standing wins.

Aye. A full form Contador vs a full form Evans would have been a great treat to watch. They were by far the two best stage racers last year and both had targeted the tour this year (last year, Contador went for the Giro and cruised to victory by some 7 minutes).

Is Schleck the first man to lose his Tour title before he even knew he'd won it? In other words, he has a win to his name without ever being the reigning champion. I think even Oscar Pereiro was awarded his in time to go out there and defend it (probably the luckiest winner ever, as he was given half an hour in a break by the field who didn't consider him a threat, finished second then got awarded the win when Landis was disqualified).

It's exactly why second shouldn't be elevated to first.

The whole tour's tactics revolve around who is first and who his competitors are. That is, it is essentially a team sport with the best guy in the team winnings the lollies. By all means strip first but to award the title to the runner up assumes that if the first guy wasn't in the race, the second guy would certainly have won it. Which is wrong.

That slimey Quntador has, unsurprisingly, completed rejected the doping sentence and is looking at an appeal. He claims innocence and that doping goes against everything instilled in him (except the drugs ).

See here

"There have been speculations, leaks, it has been a real torment. But the hardest thing has been to see my family, the suffering they have had, my wife, for what they have accused me of," Contador said.

"And it is for something that goes against everything that has been instilled in me."

----------------------------

Boo-farkin-hoo. Greasy, lying little cheat.

Why he must have released the statement is that the Court of Arbitration of sport in its judgment concluded that the positive test was more likely a result of contamination rather than blood transfusion but no evidence was provided that he wasn't at fault for the contamination.

The wording is such that it seemed the UCI/WADA's case was also weak as piss but that the court also didn't believe in Contador's case, hence making him responsible for the actions of contaminated meat, which is shite as a run of the mill sportsman won't have the testing equipment required.

The repercussions of this go beyond just Contador and Schleck as Contador's team (team saxo bank) are sh!t without him and the sponsors agreed to extending their contract with Riis because of Contador. The team may well do an HTC now.

Evans should win the Tour de France this year if he can somewhat replicate last year's form.

JGK wrote:It's exactly why second shouldn't be elevated to first.

The whole tour's tactics revolve around who is first and who his competitors are. That is, it is essentially a team sport with the best guy in the team winnings the lollies. By all means strip first but to award the title to the runner up assumes that if the first guy wasn't in the race, the second guy would certainly have won it. Which is wrong.

They could re-run the 2010 Tour before this year's... anyone who finishes both gets a special prize and extra stringent drug tests!