Tour set to unveil route amid dope woes
Source: Agencies |
October 19, 2010, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WHEN Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme takes the stage to announce the showcase race's 2011 route, the two greatest champions of the last decade will be missing from the audience.
Three-time Tour winner and defending champion Alberto Contador won't attend the traditional race presentation today after being provisionally suspended by the UCI for a positive doping test, while Lance Armstrong is in Aspen, Colorado, where his girlfriend gave birth to his fifth child.
The Tour's presentation couldn't come at a worse moment for organizers, with cycling once again in turmoil in recent weeks. A number of doping cases have emerged recently and Italy's anti-doping prosecutor said he is convinced all cyclists are cheating.
Armstrong, who won the Tour de France a record seven times, said he raced the three-week event for the last time last summer when he finished in 23rd place nearly 40 minutes behind Contador, but is not officially retired.
The 39-year-old Texan still rides for the RadioShack team and said he will compete in smaller races next season as an ambassador of the fight against cancer.
Credibility
Cycling has been tarnished by doping scandals for over a decade and Tour officials are accustomed to answering questions about the credibility of their sport.
However, Prudhomme may well struggle to keep the attention on the race itself rather than on doping issues at the presentation.
Ezequiel Mosquera, runner-up in the Spanish Vuelta last month, has tested positive for hydroxyethyl starch, a masking agent which increases blood volume.
The news emerged on the same day the UCI said Contador failed a test, while a government official in Spain said that no fewer than seven Spanish cyclists are under investigation for doping.
In the US, the Anti-Doping Agency has sanctioned at least five cyclists for doping in the past two months.
Prudhomme hasn't publicly expressed his views since Contador was suspended after a small amount of the banned drug clenbuterol was discovered in one of his samples from this year's Tour by a laboratory in Cologne, Germany.
Contador claimed that the positive test was caused by food contamination.
Three-time Tour winner and defending champion Alberto Contador won't attend the traditional race presentation today after being provisionally suspended by the UCI for a positive doping test, while Lance Armstrong is in Aspen, Colorado, where his girlfriend gave birth to his fifth child.
The Tour's presentation couldn't come at a worse moment for organizers, with cycling once again in turmoil in recent weeks. A number of doping cases have emerged recently and Italy's anti-doping prosecutor said he is convinced all cyclists are cheating.
Armstrong, who won the Tour de France a record seven times, said he raced the three-week event for the last time last summer when he finished in 23rd place nearly 40 minutes behind Contador, but is not officially retired.
The 39-year-old Texan still rides for the RadioShack team and said he will compete in smaller races next season as an ambassador of the fight against cancer.
Credibility
Cycling has been tarnished by doping scandals for over a decade and Tour officials are accustomed to answering questions about the credibility of their sport.
However, Prudhomme may well struggle to keep the attention on the race itself rather than on doping issues at the presentation.
Ezequiel Mosquera, runner-up in the Spanish Vuelta last month, has tested positive for hydroxyethyl starch, a masking agent which increases blood volume.
The news emerged on the same day the UCI said Contador failed a test, while a government official in Spain said that no fewer than seven Spanish cyclists are under investigation for doping.
In the US, the Anti-Doping Agency has sanctioned at least five cyclists for doping in the past two months.
Prudhomme hasn't publicly expressed his views since Contador was suspended after a small amount of the banned drug clenbuterol was discovered in one of his samples from this year's Tour by a laboratory in Cologne, Germany.
Contador claimed that the positive test was caused by food contamination.
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