penny for a thought | Patrick on every & anything

Yesterday I blogged about arguably the worst day in the sport of cycling. Much to my dismay, I lied, yesterday was not the worst day in cycling; instead, today was. Today started with another exciting stage, one said to be the most difficult of all 20 and it was a number of riders final chances to make their moves to advance in the general classification. In the end, the stage was, in my opinion, the most exciting of all 20. However, today’s post-race activitivities involved even more doping allegations and departures from the Tour De France.

The chaos started when, within hours of winning the stage and securing his spot on the top of the overall podium, Michael Rasmussen was fired by his team, Rabobank and subsequently kicked out of the tour. The fun didn’t stop there either, as an hour later French team, Cofidis, left the race after one, Cristian Moreni, tested positive for a banned substance.

“Numb” is the best word to describe my feeling towards today’s events. I am not shocked, nor am I sad, I am just numb to the whole entire situation. I’ll continue to love the sport, but only in my own respects. That’s not to say I am no longer a fan of the sport’s professional level, because I am. However, my trust in the riders, all riders that is, is gone.

I am not sure how or if professional cycling can be cleaned up. One solution might be to have two divisions-clean and doped, just like it’s done in professional body building. After all, it might be kind of fun to just see how fast men can go on bicycles, but then again we run the risk of allowing men to kill themselves with drugs.