No Need For Drugs For Disco

PARIS: The goal was to have a scandal free tour. It ended up a scandal-ridden one. At one stage the 'King of the Mountains' jersey was seemingly going to the rider who scored the most drugs, rather than the one who won the most points. And you wondered how much of the 180 strong peloton would make it into Paree.

For the Discovery Channel however, it was a clear result - nothing on the breathometer, Contador the winner and Leipheimer making the podium.

"We came here with certain ambitions and we have exceeded all our ambitions," Discovery Channel sporting director Johan Bruyneel said. "Last year nothing worked, and this year our goal was to get on the podium ... Levi for third place and Contador for the white jersey."


Yaroslav Popovych of Ukraine finished eighth overall, giving the American team three riders in the top eight, exceeding all expectations.

"Last year we had a different year, but this time we're back and I'm very proud." Bruyneel said. George Hincapie proved to be a key support rider, particularly in the Pyrenees, where he rode high tempo after the climbs so that Cadel Evans and his exhausted team would have no chance to rest.

Discovery's performance banked nearly three times more money than any other team, receiving 723,240 euroeweenies (US$987,295), compared to €235,060 (US$320,880) for Evans' Predictor-Lotto team.

Bruyneel expressed awe at Contador's surprising performance. "Alberto was on an amazing level," he said. "I thought he would be with the best for two weeks, for 10 days let's say. But I expected he would be a bit weaker in the Pyrenees. The last Pyrenees stage he was a lot worse than his results show. He tried to attack but he didn't have the legs to attack."

Lance Armstrong summed things up - "I think we've seen the future of Spanish cycling and perhaps international cycling."

And Now Rasmussen Goes

Tour de France update: Rasmussen, the tour leader, is sacked by his team for not telling them where he was prior to the tour (and, indeed, not telling anybody, thus missing 4 out-of-competition drug tests). What a naughty boy.

It seems to me the Tour would be better if everyone was on trendy scooters. No need for all the effort and you would instead win points for style, presentation and number of fights with Rockers at the beach.

No More Vino in France

Oooops! Tour de France favourite and time-trial specialist Alexandre Vinokourov (known as 'Vino' by his friends) has tested positive for a banned blood transfusion and his team, Astana's La Palmeraie, has pulled out of the race. Police later raided the team hotel, although what they expected to find is unclear. Count Dracula counting out plastic bags in the lobby? Doctor House scribbling prescriptions on his white-board?

Despite this latest doping scandal, Tour de France organisers have said the race shall go on. But considering that current tour leader, Michael Rasmussen, has himself been under-suspicion, and indeed has been suspended by his own Danish Cyling Union for failing to tell of his whereabouts when they wanted to test him, surely the whole competition is now heading for the status of farce.

The scoop came from L'Equipe, the French daily sports newspaper that specialises in hounding cyclists, doped up or not. It reported that the analysis was conducted by the Chatenay-Malabry lab on the outskirts of Paris, which sounds more like a fine wine Chateau than a laboratory. It said that two distinctive types of red blood cells were found in the A sample and that that shows that Vinokourov received a blood transfusion shortly before the time trial, from a compatible donor.

The first thought that comes to mind is 'what was Wino, sorry Vino, thinking?' He won that time trial by some distance (out pacing our own rather special Bradley Wiggins) and if he is guilty, did he honestly think he wouldn't be tested? Surely, the best way to get away with not being discovered would be to come in a subtle 5th place or something, somewhere down the list of leaders but a bit ahead of Rasmussen so as to gain some time on the leader. Blasting the opposition away in a scarcely believable time, a la Floyd Landis in last years' race, is just asking for trouble.

Once again our sports heroes are revealed to be bloated with performance enhancing blood cells but a bit short on the old thinking cells.

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On a totally gratuitous side-note I wish to publicly humiliate my colleague Michael Sulkin who, despite his own transfusion of a single malt whisky and a couple of shandys, came last in the Norwood Backgammon Tournament, showing that his negotiating skills as a property developer and in real estate development were totally non-transferable to the backgammon board. Hehe. At least Michael can try again next year, something that Nino, sorry, Wino, sorry, errrr Vino, won't be able to.

Anti-Chavez Protests at the Copa America

"Y Va A Caer" - "Libertad!" - and "RCTV!" were the chants being used during group matches in the Copa America football tournament that's just finished being held in Venezuela.

Despite the best efforts of Hugo Chavez's thuggish military police to crack down on dissent, spontaneous anti-government protests erupted during several group stage matches. Local spectators took the chance to exploit international television coverage of the tournament by singing anti-Chavez songs during the games and making sure that foreign TV crews were fully aware of their feelings towards the hated proto-dictator.

A hint of what was to come took place at the opening ceremony, when Chavez appeared to officially open the tournament and was loudly heckled by one part of the stadium.

But the first big protest took place during the second half of Thursday's match between the U.S. and Argentina in the western city of Maracaibo, a stronghold of opposition to Chavez. Rising to their feet with chants of "Freedom!" and "This government is going to fall!" some 40,000 people got a clear message out to their latin American neighbours. The protests then spread to other matches in Merida and Caracas.

Chavez had gone to great lengths to keep Venezuela's bitter political divide from spilling into the tournament. At each of the nine stadiums, pictures of Chavez were displayed prominently under giant banners like the one in Maracaibo reading "We're building the motherland." He banned protests in and near stadiums and ordered state security forces to crack down on any that did arise. He even made sure that his supporters could be present at games by bulk buying tickets for whole sections of stadiums. But all this was to no avail as live television coverage across the whole continent clearly captured the protests and videos were posted on youtube and other popular south american video sharing sites.