Overview

Here's hoping this year will see a drug-free race

by Philip Turle

Article published on the 2008-07-09 Latest update 2008-07-09 14:39 TU

Riders are checked for drugs on the Tour de France
(Photo: AFP)

This is the seventh time I have covered the Tour de France. Every year the same question is on everyone’s lips: "Will this be the cleanest Tour yet and will the spectre of drugs, doping and disqualification be a thing of the past?"

One can only hope so. As the race got underway in Brittany, riders, directors, organisers, team captains and journalists were all looking forward to concentrating on the race and not on who will be the next to be caught cheating.

Cast your minds back a year to the departure of the Tour de France from London. The newly-appointed boss, Christian Prudhomme, said the Tour was about toembark on a new departure.

It was time to turn the page on a race dominated by America’s Lance Armstrong, winner for an unprecedented seven years running and still reeling from the shock disqualification of 2006 winner Floyd Landis, thrown out for testing positive, the first time a winner has been banned.

But the hope of a clean Tour was to be short-lived.

Denmark’s Michael Rasmussen, who missed a series of doping tests, was disqualified while wearing the leader’s yellow jersey.

Kazakh rider Alexander Vinokorov tested positive and was thrown out along with the whole of his Astana team.

Germany’s Patrick Sinkewitz was banned when it emerged that a doping test from the previous month had proved positive for testosterone.

And, just as the Tour de France was coming to an end, the whole of the Cofidis team was also disqualified after their Italian former rider Cristian Moreni also tested positive.

The many critics of the Tour de France said the events of 2007 proved the race was no longer credible and should be stopped until it managed to rid itself of its bad image. Others say the number of riders banned in 2007 was a sign that the cheats were finally being caught.

Whatever happens, this year the Tour needs to prove that it is once again the world’s greatest bike race and not an annual gathering of dishonest sportsmen trying to escape detection.

Tour de France boss Christian Prudhomme has made it his aim to clean up the race, even if it means falling out with the International Cycling Union.

Let’s hope we journalists will once again be able to file stories about the race and not about the latest rider caught using performance-enhancing drugs.