Having recently read the David Walsh book about Lance and doping I've come to admire Greg Lemond even more. His cycling compny is a subsiduary of Trek bikes who are or were very much Armstrong's bike-makers. Lance is certainly alledged to ahve threatened Le Mond's bike business if he continued to speak out against Lance. The same goes for Jonathan Vaughters and Frankie Andreu.

I am certainly more inclined to believe that LA doped after coming back from cancer. Did anyone see the programme on ITV4 the other night from about 2004? Some fella was on there fawning over LA, talking about his weight-loss etc etc. Apparently he didn't really lose any weight after having cancer. Thought I'd mention that.

Bloody hell, good for Cav.

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What does this mean? That he hasn't been caught yet?

Remind me what was the name of the nice Mennonite boy who couldn't possibly have been cheating?

<...sigh...>

No. Schumacher races for a team with an extremely good anti-doping ethos (by insistence of their sponsors, who being a Mineral Water company are rather more hands on in this than most), and is himself generally one of the riders who others in the peloton point to as probably clean. This in fact came out rather clearly following the thing at the Worlds - it was fairly widely accepted that the speed was almost certainly recreational, simply because most of the peloton reckoned he was not a cheat.

The Landis comparison is hopelessly wide of the mark. He raced for probably the most compromised team in the history of the sport. He had previously been one of Armstrong's and Bruyneel's deeply suspect squad. He came from (relatively speaking) nowhere to a dominating position just as his marketability began to take off. And there was a decided dearth of positive sentiment towards him among the peloton.

Incidentally, did we find out if Lovkvist is still eligible for the white? If so, he's sitting pretty nicely. If not, I wish I'd picked Nibali.

Incidentally, while I think Millar is a genuinely reformed and penitent character, I do think it's a bit rich to see him touted as a torchbearer for cleaner sport.

But I hadn't realised until just now that he requested his 2003 stage win be scratched from the records. Fair fucks.

Fausto Ptang wrote:

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I haven't seen the highlights from today, but good news about Cavendish. Or is it? I saw him interviewed the other day and the bloke seems a right wanker.

I get the impression that, after Cavendish's mega-surly post-race interview the other day, his team bosses gave him a rocket over the PR factor and 'encouraged him' to be more approachable - hence the smiley competition-announcing spot on ITV4 the next day and the rather more forthcoming interviews since.

I have to say that the initial petulant exchange with the ITV4 man left me feeling that the bloke is a bit of an arsehole, though, which is a shame.

I think you're right there Clive because he did remark on it in his post race interview yesterday. He sort of laughed it off, but he was your classic 'sing when your winning' type of spoilt kid. I just sat watching him beaming last night and muttered to myself, "All smiles now is it?" Which probably says more about me.

I wasn't actually directly comparing him to Landis, though whatever you write with hindsight, Landis was presumed clean up until the point where he was clearly proven not to have been.

I have no idea whether Schumacher is clean, not clean, or liked by other riders, I am just cynical (with good reason) about all riders in the Tour. I presume some of them are not actually cheating, but it also seems like these days what is being contested is which rider/team can beat the tests, rather than which is the best.

Le Tour is still a spectacular event, but the actual competition is deeply flawed as a result.

Not to derail the discussion, but Lokvist is eligible for the White Jersey and is currently leading that table, ahead of Nibali and Monfort, with Andy Schleck fourth.

Andy Schleck should take it unless he gets relegated to Super Duper Domestique by CSC.

i'd say kreuziger will put a few minutes on the other white jersey contenders in the mountains

Fausto Ptang wrote:

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Having recently read the David Walsh book about Lance and doping I've come to admire Greg Lemond even more.

Didn't he nearly die from a shotgun wound?

He was shot by his brother-in-law if I remember rightly in 1987. He retruned to win the tour twice a couple of years later.

I saw that ITV4 doc Fausto. I particularly like the bit where all the yanks (including his mother) said he was "confident" whereas the English bloke said he was "cocky" !

How could I forget Ricco was riding?

He's another excellent white contender*, obvs.


*you know what I mean...

Don't worry. Cycling's one of the sports where a sentence like that wouldn't be taken to mean what it could otherwise.