The Tour de France

Although Cavendish winning NOT in a bunch straight was a surprise; you are right that Froome's élan during the race has been extraordinary.

Building that 5 second lead should be enough, although Quintana will probably attack like crazy.
 
Interesting video, mental patients for sure. Those two in the neon leggings are the TdF equivalent of internet trolls. Clearly looking for trouble dressed and acting the way they did. Someone buy the guy in blue a pint!
 
I don't understand why Alberto Contador is allowed to race in any cycling. He has an extensive history of being caught for drugging. Almost as extensive as Armstrong. Yet the worst punishment he has had is a few suspensions and a few titles taken away. If this was athletics he would get a life ban.
Cycling is doing its best to clean up, but I feel until all cheats get life bans it will continue to get bad press.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Contador
 
Greenlantern101 ..... There have been accusations regarding Contador but not much else. His loss of the 2010 Tour de France title was a result of a huge overreaction after the Armstrong scandal. Many agree he was treated very badly and the punishment was grossly unfair. The drug found in his blood, Clenbutoral, is required in large amounts to have any affect on performance and is also one of the easiest to detect. In Contador's case it was found in minuscule amounts, no where near enough to have any affect on performance, and the explanation that he was feed contaminated beef was widely accepted. You need to ask why would he risk his career using a drug that's so easily detected and needed in large quantities to have any affect. It was two years later, after the Armstrong scandal and in reaction to the damage done to cycling, that Contador's case was revisited and he was banned. He has always denied doping and those that know him well believe in him and believe he's clean.
 
Why would any of them use dope after the Armstrong saga, they must all know that they will be checked so thoroughly , that their chances of getting away with anything is remote.
 
Kewee you don't get your 2010 Tour de France title and your 2011 Giro d'itallia title removed and given a two year ban for 'accusations but not much else'. He was found guilty of doping as little as 2 years ago and yet he is back racing. He is a cheat and should have a life ban like all cheats. Its the only way to clean up cycling. It seems like there is no real punishment as things currently stand.
 
@Titch......Exactly Titch, another reason to believe Contador when he says he doesn't dope. He's one of only five riders to have won all three Grand Tours, the French, Italian and Spanish. Armstrong only ever won the Tour de France, he never even competed in the other great tours. Contador is a far more complete cyclist and it's a shame to see his achievements and reputation tainted by overreacting cycle unions, feeling the need to find a scapegoat and make it look like they're doing something to clean up the sport. I'm all for them cleaning up cycling but not at the expense of harming the reputation of one of the sports greats using very flimsy evidence.
 
Greenlantern101 ...... Dig a little deeper Greenlantern and try to avoid Wiki if you want accuracy. There were numerous sports people away from cycling that were competing at an international level in other sports who returned positive drug tests of Clenbuteral. Like Contador their readings were very very small and no action was taken when it was realized they had eaten contaminated meat as had Contador. No action was taken against Contador either initially, but he became a convenient scapegoat to use as a reaction to the Armstrong scandal. Contador is not a cheat, he's one of cycling's greats.
 
I can't understand how anyone can be sure that certain cyclists aren't cheating. People thought that about Armstrong.

A ridiculous precedent has also been set in that Froome will have to be knighted if he wins, otherwise people will say "How come Wiggins gets a knighthood for winning the TDF but Froome doesn't?". Why the hell can these honours not be thought through properly? No-one deserves a knighthood for winning that corrupt shite.
 
Wiggins was knighted "for services to cycling" and not for just winning the Tour de France, information regarding the reasons for any Honour awarded by Her Majesty are freely available.
No precedence has been set for Froome to be knighted.
Many people thought Armstrong was cheating, for many years.
 
Kewee fair enough I bow to your greater knowledge. Things do certainly seem to be getting cleaner. nobody in the top ten testing positive last year. Lets hope for the same this year.

The excitement building for the final sprint. GO ON CAV.
 
Well I said I believe he is clean. Never said for sure. And they can't just ban Contador they need to assemble a field of 198 somehow. If they ban everybody who ever got caught for doping there would be very few over 30 riding the Tour. Contador, Kloden, Vinokourov (gone this year anyways), Valverde, many more all gone.
 
Kewee said:
Armstrong only ever won the Tour de France, he never even competed in the other great tours.
Click to expand
Actually he didn't win the tour at all.
Although I disagree with you that Contador is clean. the contaminated meat theory holds no ground. It's extremely unlikey that meat in Europe is contaminated with clenbuterol.
Most likely he used clenbuterol during training, they tapped his blood. He had a transfusion of that blood and due to a better test he got a positive result which they didn't anticipate. There were plastizers found in his blood, which strongly suggest a blood transfusion.

And I don't believe cycling is clean at all. One of the fastest tours in the history, and I'm supposed to believe they're clean? Froome did the 3th fastest climb ever on Ax 3 Domaines, faster than Armstrong on dope, and I'm supposed to believe he's clean?

But in cycling it's not different than in any other sport, 5 100m athletes got caught recently.

The chances of getting caught with a dopingtest is really small anyway. Most of the big names who got caught had dozens (sometimes handreds) of tests, not one positive, but got caught in other ways (Armstrong, Ullrich, Basso, Valverde). And it seems that most of their tests were negative, while in fact they wrer doped at that time. The test for epo for instance only gives a positive if the epo is taken withing 18 hours prior to the test. Most epo is taken in their training weeks, so it's easy to evade a positive test.
 
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