Posted on Sun, Jul. 20, 2008

Cycling is still a grand sport, despite the doping cheaters

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Gil LeBreton

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AP/Bas Czerwinski

Italian rider Riccardo Ricco faces possible jail time in France after being caught doping last week. AP/Bas Czerwinski

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Wherever there are sports, there are cheaters.

There are cheaters in football, cheaters with cameras and hooded sweatshirts. There are cheaters in baseball, cheaters who were cheered because they wore Yankee pinstripes. There are even cheaters in ice skating, cheaters who hired guys to swing lead pipes at competitors’ kneecaps.

And there are still cheaters in cycling, we have been reminded these past two weeks — doping cheaters, despite the sport’s best efforts to clean itself up.

Cycling is a great sport, wholesome to participate in and uniquely enjoyable to watch. As spectator sport, it combines the best elements of golf (pleasant surroundings) and, well, NASCAR (side-by-side-by-side racing). Please don’t quote me on that.

And maybe best of all, cycling has a living icon of mythic proportions, a superhero who defied not only death but those incorrigible French.

But at the sport’s grandest and most difficult stage, the Tour de France, it continues to spawn doping cheaters. Four have been caught already at this year’s Tour de France despite its pledge, as the Versus TV network’s tour song says, "to make a brand new start."

It was a clever promo. The spot played archived footage of nabbed cheaters, from Jan Ullrich to Alexandre Vinokourov, pedaling backwards, and 2006 winner Floyd Landis not donning the yellow jersey, but appearing to shed it. Lest that blunt symbolism fail to make the point, the scenes roll backward while a singer wails, "I’m going to get myself straight ..."

Sadly, though, I haven’t seen that promo on Versus in more than a week.

The most wince-inducing of the four recent incidents was Italy’s Riccardo Ricco, who had already won two stages of this year’s race. And Ricco isn’t a cagey, old veteran, watching his career roll by, as his accused teammate Leonardo Piepoli and former Discovery rider Manuel Beltran are. Piepoli is 36 and Beltran 37, but Ricco is only 24 and was supposed to be part of that clean, new generation of Tour de France riders who had pledged to clean cycling up.

Same old cycling? No, but apparently it still harbors a few same old idiots.

When most athletes are caught using performance-enhancing substances, especially in this country, the news is delivered with a registered letter, followed by a ceremonial circling of the legal wagons. But in France, doping in sport is now against the law, with prison time possible.

Ricco was in his team bus Thursday morning, waiting to race, when gendarmes led him away in handcuffs.

South African Robbie Hunter, who rode with banned Moises Duenas of Spain on the Barloworld team, reacted appropriately in his online blog.

"Some people have obviously not learned that possible jail time is a good enough reason not to dope," Hunter wrote. "How stupid are these people?"

After Landis, after Ullrich, after the Operacion Puerto case in 2006, and after the defending champion (Alberto Contador) and his entire new team (Astana) were not allowed to ride in this year’s race, what made any cyclist think that he may not get tested at this Tour de France?

Maybe, though, this is what it took for cycling to cleanse its demons — one more round of disgraced dopers for the road.

"The tests catch the cheaters," Team Columbia’s Mark Cavendish told the French sports daily, L’Equipe. "It’s as it should be to cleanse the sport. I’m delighted to see the cheaters caught and these people leave the peloton."

Team Columbia, as well as the American-based Garmin-Chipotle team, are among the so-called "next generation" cycling groups who have pledged to test their athletes frequently for doping and to ride a clean race.

Is a clean Tour de France even possible, some ask, in a race that covers 2,200 miles over 20 stages?

Sure, it is. Just keep the handcuffs ready.

Cycling’s dirty laundry — some even yellow, some polka-dotted — has been there for all the world to see. Pro teams are losing sponsors because of the ugly headlines their doping violators have caused. Barloworld announced Saturday that it would no longer sponsor cycling. Others certainly would follow.

But the "brand new start"" had to begin somewhere.

As the tour heads into the Alps this week, new faces abound atop the standings. The usual old suspects have been rounded up. The new faces at the top include American Christian Vande Velde, who sits in third place, 38 seconds behind leader Cadel Evans.

No sport has bared its soul — and its ugly posterior, admittedly — like cycling has. On Versus these mornings, there is a comforting peace in the scenes of the French countryside and the cheering crowds that line the Tour de France’s winding path.

It’s a great sport, cycling. Maybe the idiots will get the message.