penny for a thought | Patrick on every & anything

For those of you who regularly read Penny For A Thought, it probably comes as no surprise that cycling is my favorite sport. My passion for the sport goes beyond my own participation in bike races, as I follow and know close to everything about the professional level of the sport. Domestically, interest in professional cycling is on the decline, particularly because we are in the post-Lance Armstrong era and, in the past few years, the sport has been contaminated with drug [doping] scandals. Last year we saw many of the sports biggest names (Ullrich, Basso and Landis to name a few) implicated in doping scandals and-for the first time in years-it appeared as though cycling was cleaning up and this year’s Tour De France would be a clean race.

Each year there are lots of big bike races, many of which taking place in Europe; however, Le Tour De France is unarguably the most popular and prestigious race on the pro tour. Le Tour spans over 3 weeks and consists of 20 different stages. Today, during the third week of what has been an exciting race the 2007 Tour De France took a turn for the worst. The turn occurred when, what seemed to be, one of the sports most influential, strongest and classiest rider, Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive for blood doping and his entire team, Astana, left the tour.

Today’s news was extremely disheartening, as Vinokourov (aka. Vino) is an all-around favorite of cycling fans around the world. Furthermore, Vino is the last person many fans would expect to be accused of doping. His riding style is like no other rider’s in the peloton. Vino’s strength is often-times uncontested, but at the same time he shows vulnerability and that he is human by having the occasional bad day and cracking during crucial race moments. Myself, like many cycling fans, have always looked up to Vino. As dorky as it sounds, Vino has always been like a Super Hero to me, so today’s news came as a personal blow.

I won’t pretend like the Vinokourov scandal will deter me from being a cycling enthusiast; in fact, I will pay just as much attention to the remainder of this year’s Tour as I did yesterday and the days before. However, I have to question the cleanliness of the athletes. If Vino was doped, anyone can be doped. Today was a bad day for the sport and I fear what the future has in store it, as more recent news suggests that there is discussion around removing cycling events from the Olympics.