Tour de France - the ugly underbelly

Alberto Contador is the next Lance Armstrong. Yes, that statement has been said before and some think that AC will win a lot of Tours de France to come.....but that's not the reason AC will be the next LA. Every race AC wins will have a doping cloud handing over it. For those unfamiliar with the back story, in 2006 several riders were excluded from the Tour because of Operacion Puerto, which was a lab in Spain that was doping athletes. AC and several of his teammates were implicated, but AC was later cleared. But these accusations are going to haunt AC everywhere he races. And on days like today especially. Seriously, taking 3 seconds out of the best time trialist in the world??? There was a rider that beat Fabian last year in the Time Trials, but you won't find he name there any more because Stefan Schumacher got caught doping. His unusually large head should have given him away. I can remember last year Fabian questioning Schumachers ability & rightly so. And I think Fabian is questioning more then just the leading motorbikes in front of AC today. If I was Fabian, I would need to drink more beer.

And it's not just AC that's frustrating.....Frank Schleck also has a black cloud. Which implicates Andy since they are not only brothers but claim to be best friends.

Andreas Kloden doesn't have sunny sky's over him either.

Counting Lance, that is 5 of the current top 6 riders in the Tour de France have been accused of doping. I know Lance claimed that the '08 tour was a "joke", maybe that was because the fans didn't have to hang around with syringe pitchforks. By the way where are last years podium finishers......Carlos Sastre (14th), Cadel Evens (29nd), and Denis Menchov (43rd)???

I'm waiting for those days following the end of the Tour to find out how many riders were caught doping (thanks Floyd Landis). But in some cases is will take longer then that. It looks like this years Giro d'Italia podium will be changing do to a rider getting caught doping.

Thanks for listening it would have been a much rosier post, but after seeing the result of today it broke the collective back of my tolerance. -Annie Oakley