h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is it time to just expunge the last 40 years so of Tour de France results, given that up to Lord Wiggos victory this year* just about everyone who's won it (and many who've lost it) has now been either caught, strongly implicated and/or admitted doping?


* which was of course very much above board given that he's british and everything

I wouldn't expunge 40 years' worth of results. Fairness in sports requires a level playing field. If no one used drugs, the race would be fair. If everybody used drugs, the race would be fair. In neither case would it give the ones who used drugs an advantage in winning.

Besides, there are very few researchers here who live in the country [France] that cares enough about the race to make changes. We Americans and British and Canadians and [substitute any countries I haven't mentioned] can offer opinions but don't have any actual power.

I'm with Paulh, here.
French, living in France, and couldn't care less about Tour de France.
OK, I *might* have a look if they went past my window, but wouldn't go out of my way for it.

Although on the point of "noone or everyone doing drugs", I suppose you could be picky and say that if you go with option two, you'll need to get everyone to use the same drugs, in the same amount (otherwise, it's not fair!).

Well until they give hootoo legislative power I think opinions is all we can give.

It is unfair to single out the Tour de France of course as the same guys are racing in other events too.

However, the ongoing disgrace of Lance Armstrong has led me to look a little at past winners and it is something like 80% of past winners of Le Tour are now convicted of drug taking. Of 'the greats' only Indurain survives with a clean reputation and as far as I can tell most are pretty convinced he was on something too. The past is so rife with drug taking in cycling that you cannot be sure even if who you're handing the title down to was not on drugs also.

It's such a disgraced sport I'm a little surprised it survives at all. I think it would do them some credit if they just wiped a slate over their past, put in some *real* drug testing a la the Olympics and moved on to a much cleaner (by enforcement) future.

The other point to bear in mind is that doping was systemic and fairly open for what - 50 years?

I think it's pointless rewriting the past, they should just aim for clean from now on and leave it there.

sprout

I perhaps wasn't really clear, I wasn't saying rewrite the past - far from it. What I think is that it's impossible to say take Lance Armstrong's seven wins, strip him of them and then give them to whoever came second - as they were highly likely to be doping too.
Perhaps just leave Armstrong's name there, maybe with a note to the offense but *not* award it to anyone else.

That's more or less what they've done, as I understand it. They've stripped Armstrong of the title, but they've not awarded it to anyone else. Which means that for those seven years, nobody won it. Fair enough. Don't see what more they can do, in the circumstancspers.

Unfortunately it is my favourite sport, after International Rugby Union, and is possibly the most rigorously tested for doping. Due to the big money and kudos involved there will always be a minority who get caught, but name another sport, with the exception of the Olympics, where the anti-doping agency turn up, day or night, at anytime, over the entire 3 weeks and throughout the cyclist's career including, if there is reasonable suspicion, even when not raving.
I would love those over-paid footballers to undergo the same testing. That would REALLY shake the world of sport and send the sponsors reeling!!
This year, as far as is known, had been the cleanest the sport has been and. If Lance was taking stimulants, it must have been the most sophisticated and well-engineered system ever devised and will put all other sports people who have undergone similar tests, under the microscope. People like Navrstilova, the Williams sisters, our Olympic rowers like Redgrave, as it means testing is not infallible.

I don't find that very convincing frankly.

I don't think doping can make anywhere near as much difference in football or tennis as it would in cycling. Cycling is a much more extreme sport with people pushed to the absolute limits of exhaustion, pain and endurance, blood doping, EPO etc can therefore make huge differences whereas the other sports you mention have a much higher contribution of technique and skill involved.

I also I'm afraid am unconvinced by the effectiveness of their testing regimes (although that may have changed) - when 80%+ of past winners test positive or are outed by their peers - and that's just the winners, and the ones we know about I think it says rather a lot about the culture of the sport by the professionals

I'm still impressed at anyone who can begin to cycle up Alpe d'Huez though

I don't find sports more interesting because the competitors exhaust themelves. The olympic track cycling was just as exciting to watch as a TdF sprint finish. If doping largely assists endurance, then maybe sponsors will move to other formats.

Ooops

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/20001685