In Defense of Cycling

I've been out of the loop for a while. When I talked to my mom last night, she informed me of the Tour de France news. I'm probably one of two Boalties who care. But, probably all have seen some portion of the news. Here's my take.


Michael Rasmussen wore the leader's yellow jersey and was kicked out of the tour this year while the race was going on.

Here are the facts, at least what I can gather of them. Rasmussen was supposed to be in Denmark having his blood tested by the Danish Cycling Federation in late-May and late-June. He claims he was in Mexico visiting his wife’s family, at least for the late-June part. A tour commentator stated, on-air I believe, that this tour commentator saw Rasmussen cycling in Italy in mid-June. This has not been proved. (Now, I hated evidence in law school and I certainly hated it on the bar, but I know that this commentator’s statement is hearsay not within any exception). Then the Danish cycling federation kicked Rasmussen off the Danish national team for failing to show up for these tests. His employer, Team Rabobank, decided to pull him out of the tour for these alleged lies as well, even though Rasmussen never missed one of their drug tests. Rasmussen has never tested positive for any drugs.

I don’t think Rasmussen should have been kicked out of the tour. Call me an old-fashioned innocent-until-proven-guilty kind of guy. But I’m willing to go along with his team's decision and I think it's probably best for the sport. For, as tour rider and American Christian Vande Velde said, “if his team doesn’t believe him anymore, then we shouldn’t either.”

What I really hate is American’s thinking Cycling is a corrupt sport because they hear riders are kicked out of competition all the time. Cycling has now adopted a guilty-until-proven-innocent system designed to cleanse the sport of dopers by taking a hard-line, an automatic two-year suspension from the sport. Americans think the sport is corrupt because of this hard line, and they bash cycling for it. Yet, American sports continue to turn their heads the other way and the public here thinks it’s the individuals and not the sports that are corrupt. In other words, baseball does nothing, so the public assumes it’s only the players like Bonds, Palmeiro, McGuire, Sosa, etc. that are to blame. Yet cycling kicks out anyone that doesn’t even report for a drug test, and everyone thinks the sport is corrupt. It doesn’t make sense and it’s really starting to piss me off.

That's my post-bar rant.