Tour Tidbit du Jour - 7/11/08

The French version of the Tour de France, which was supposed to have emptied the peloton of all the dopers, lost its sheen as its hopes for a doping scandal free Tour were dashed when it was announced that Manuel Beltran of Liquigas tested positive for EPO after Stage 1. No word has come down yet if the entire Liquigas team will also abandon, like Cofodis and Astana did last year after two of their riders were caught for doping. So it seems that the witch hunt strategy for ridding cycling of doping does not produce clean Grand Tours. Of course, this was the same French lab that had one of its tests against Floyd Landis thrown out for incompetence, and Beltran's positive result was leaked to the French sport magazine L'Equipe before he was even notified, which usually happens with this same lab, so I'll be waiting for the B sample confirmation, hopefully done at another lab than Chateau-Malabry (the former LNDD). The suspicious part of my brain came up with the idea that this is just the French trying to take another sideswipe at Lance Armstrong, since "Tricky" Beltran was one of Team U.S. Postal Service and Discovery's mountain lieutenants during Armstrong's seven consecutive victories.

Perhaps a more serious and sensible approach to anti-doping measures will be adopted, instead of the hysterical screeching that pervades the sport right now. Instead of bragging about how "clean" the Tour is, when they really have no idea, especially when the testing labs' standards are not universal, the riders' rights are not being respected, and most of the European sponsors have not pulled the money away from teams whose management either condones doping or just looks the other way. The serious and sensible approach would be to actually enforce WADA guidelines for every testing lab, and pull accreditation when necessary; treat the athlete's rights following a positive result as seriously as the testing, even sanctioning testing facilities which violate them; and make all proceedings and documents open to the public.