Comments on: Tour de France – the end of an era

By: Boris

Boris — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:22:54 +0000

Certainly the sprinters tend to struggle in the hills, but of course they do tend to carry on as best they can and complete the whole tour if possible. But certainly he would have had no chance of winning the race as a whole which is largely decided in the mountains.
I have just been reading a very interesting book called Bad Blood about the Tour de France and its descent into widespread EPO use over the last 10 years and the enormous advantage that drugs give, especially in the mountains.
Assuming Mark Cavendish is clean (and, ever the optimist, I think and hope that he is) he would have found the mountain stages especially difficult. Not quite in the spirit of the competition to withdraw, I think, but I guess we can’t blame him.
Good luck to him in the Olympics, it’s nice to see a British cyclist doing so well!

By: Charter

Charter — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:55:02 +0000

I was given the impression that the boy from IoM wanted to finish the Tour and he was adamant that the Tour comes first and the Olympics second.
Or, was it that the remaining stages were too hilly and not flat/suited to a sprinter?
In any case, I was shocked/surprised that he withdrew all of a sudden…

By: Jean Halford-Thompson

Jean Halford-Thompson — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:46:00 +0000

I so hope the Englishman is clean…he did so well this week.

By: Boris

Boris — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:05:04 +0000

The thing that startles me most isn’t that people cheat, that’s human nature for plenty of people I suppose, but they do it when there is such a high risk of getting caught, and knowing they are destroying their team and perhaps the whole tour de france along the way.
Even worse when it’s someone young like Ricco – I had thought (hoped) it was just the ‘old-school’ who were drugged-up but apparently not.
But yes, ’sponsored by epo’ might just be the way forward…

By: Jon in France

Jon in France — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:47:37 +0000

I dispair, I really do. If it’s not the TdF it’s the Olympics. Let’s just cut to the chase and get the drugs companies to sponsor the damn thing and drop the pretence.