Tour de France Bombshell
Just when it couldn’t get any worse for Floyd Landis, also known as Pond Scum Emeritus, comes this bombshell from out of left field: Bjarne Riis, 1996 Tour de France winner and the lone Dane to take the yellow jersey, openly admitted to doping during his career, including his Tour victory.
As reported by Jan Olsen of the AP, Riis made the following statement: “I have taken doping. I have taken EPO.” Riis went on to add that he’d also used cortisone and human growth hormone, and that the only side effects he’d ever noticed were that they made him ride faster.
For anyone thinking that perhaps I’m making a bit too much of this issue, here’s a comparable situation: someone uncovers a film reel of Babe Ruth admitting that he swung corked bats.
This is enormously significant. In a smaller but no less important context, it practically forces Floyd Landis’ hand. A recent former champion of the Tour has openly admitted to using drugs to compete. The Duck-And-Cover defense will no longer suffice for the Landis camp. One might think that there are no other alternatives left the disgraced rider, except that this is the same man who attempted to use Greg LeMond’s personal tragedy against him in an effort to protect his own drug-enhanced skin. While there may yet be some small expiation of guilt available to him should he recant his bogus testimony, the fear here is that Landis will so something stupid in response. After all, that is his modus operandi thus far.
But in a much larger context, say this much for Riis: he single-handedly opened up a seething can of worms where the Tour is concerned. Now we must rightly question the ability of anyone in the past eleven years to win the race completely clean, even as his confession amounts to public self-immolation. (Lance Armstrong, please pick up the white courtesy phone…) If a former Tour champion can come clean about using human growth hormone, and if a current Tour champion stands guilty of having tested positive for using performance-enhancers, what are we to believe of the winners between 1996 and now? I’m sorry, but I only had so much benefit of doubt to give out, and none where sports are considered. Count me among those who must now openly wonder about Lance Armstrong and his seven consecutive Tour wins. The Tour was testing in 1996 when Riis was using; I’d be a fool not to believe that racers have not improved test-beating techniques since then…and there’s STILL no reliable test for HGH, which means that, short of an open and public confession, we’d have to have videotaped evidence of Michael Vick at a dogfight helping Jose Canseco inject a guy in the buttocks before we could believe it.
And what does this now mean in light of Jason Giambi’s recent assertion that he was “…wrong for doing that stuff”? The 2000 AL MVP admits to having used performance enhancers. The 1996 Tour de France winner now openly admits to having used EPS and human growth hormone. The feds have Jason Grimsley and Kirk Radomski, with more to follow.
It sez so right here that we are in the midst of the sports version of Watergate, where as more light gets shed, larger rats get exposed. Bjarne Riis came forward of his own accord.
More will follow.
As reported by Jan Olsen of the AP, Riis made the following statement: “I have taken doping. I have taken EPO.” Riis went on to add that he’d also used cortisone and human growth hormone, and that the only side effects he’d ever noticed were that they made him ride faster.
For anyone thinking that perhaps I’m making a bit too much of this issue, here’s a comparable situation: someone uncovers a film reel of Babe Ruth admitting that he swung corked bats.
This is enormously significant. In a smaller but no less important context, it practically forces Floyd Landis’ hand. A recent former champion of the Tour has openly admitted to using drugs to compete. The Duck-And-Cover defense will no longer suffice for the Landis camp. One might think that there are no other alternatives left the disgraced rider, except that this is the same man who attempted to use Greg LeMond’s personal tragedy against him in an effort to protect his own drug-enhanced skin. While there may yet be some small expiation of guilt available to him should he recant his bogus testimony, the fear here is that Landis will so something stupid in response. After all, that is his modus operandi thus far.
But in a much larger context, say this much for Riis: he single-handedly opened up a seething can of worms where the Tour is concerned. Now we must rightly question the ability of anyone in the past eleven years to win the race completely clean, even as his confession amounts to public self-immolation. (Lance Armstrong, please pick up the white courtesy phone…) If a former Tour champion can come clean about using human growth hormone, and if a current Tour champion stands guilty of having tested positive for using performance-enhancers, what are we to believe of the winners between 1996 and now? I’m sorry, but I only had so much benefit of doubt to give out, and none where sports are considered. Count me among those who must now openly wonder about Lance Armstrong and his seven consecutive Tour wins. The Tour was testing in 1996 when Riis was using; I’d be a fool not to believe that racers have not improved test-beating techniques since then…and there’s STILL no reliable test for HGH, which means that, short of an open and public confession, we’d have to have videotaped evidence of Michael Vick at a dogfight helping Jose Canseco inject a guy in the buttocks before we could believe it.
And what does this now mean in light of Jason Giambi’s recent assertion that he was “…wrong for doing that stuff”? The 2000 AL MVP admits to having used performance enhancers. The 1996 Tour de France winner now openly admits to having used EPS and human growth hormone. The feds have Jason Grimsley and Kirk Radomski, with more to follow.
It sez so right here that we are in the midst of the sports version of Watergate, where as more light gets shed, larger rats get exposed. Bjarne Riis came forward of his own accord.
More will follow.
Labels: Bjarne Riis, EPO, Floyd Landis, HGH, Jason Giambi, Tour de France
posted by van walker | 10:24 AM
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