A Tour Audience' Preemptive Strike

For the nth time in recent memory, the Tour De France opens with talks of drug scandals. This year the anty is upped when one day prior to the prologue in England, 17 riders are not allowed to begin the tour, including two favorites Ivan Basso of CSC and Jan Ullrich. It appears the accused riders were pulled by their teams when information by the Spanish Police was handed to the world doping agency governing drug use in professional cycling. At this time the press has labeled everything as "allegations." What this means is some who are accused are either guilty and will be proven so or they will be cleared of any wrong doing (whether guilty or not). The damage to the individuall cyclists career has been damaged through the allegations alone. The Tour is again tarnished.

I am an amateur cyclist and participate in local (USCF) races and watch the Tour each year with religious like conviction. I have an affinity toward and an understanding of the Tour which is not unique inside competitive cycling circles. Training rides with local cyclists is always tough. This is just at an amateur level. The Tour is a once per year reminder for humbleness. It is apparent to me how hard it must be a world class cyclist, racing against others your caliber. What is difficult for most of us to understand is the pressure a professional cyclist is under to not only race well, but to win races.

Many cyclists race for years, working full time, training and racing nearly full time in order to make it onto a competitive team. Once they are on a local team, they can move up to a national team, the next step is an international team. There is a little money in cycling unless you win races consistently and are on a supported (sponsored) team. In order to achieve this level of performance, training mileage is probably 500+ miles per week for many of them. Cyclists sacrifice their social life and their careers in order to pursue racing. Most who take this risk to race as a professional will end their careers and have racing memories to show for it.

Pro cycling may be similar to football, where the quarter back garners most of the attention. In Tour level cycling the "GC" or team captain is nearly the only thing which matters. The supporting riders "domestiques" are simply cannon fodder.

All the other riders are "domestiques". The pressure to perform well as a domestique must also be extreme and in the end you will get little or no recognition. If you are lucky there will be a renewal your contract for next year.

A typical tour rider may have a short biography similar to this;

Jonathan Bender began racing bmx bikes at age 7. Moved into road cycling at age 14 and was winning local criteriums by age 16. Joined a junior development tam at 16 and by age 21 was picked up by a sposored-professional team based on Belgium. Age 23 was recruited to race on team Telephone of France. Currently age 30, rides first Lieutenant for the 27 year old team captain and Tour Champion hopeful Brent Jebeaux.

It is likely Johnathan Bender skipped college to race and may have been working full time through out his cycling career making minimum wage or little more. He probably has little or no social life outside of cycling. He races nearly every week for 30+ weeks a year. Sometimes his team may schedule 3 or 4 events in a week.

Like many who sacrifice so much to participate in what they excel or love, there is pressure to succeed. In comes the pressure to dope.

Team managers or doctors may pressure riders to begin a doping regimen. But other than the athlete, who is more responsible for dictating what can and cannot enter the cyclist's body?

I want to pre-empt the stories of the coming weeks all fueled by pity for the cyclist. "They are forced into doping by the pressure from sponsors." "The professional cyclist is a victim, caught between success in the sport they love and pressures for winning or an expectation.

Let none of us claim to know what pressure they are going through. However I will claim to have a concious and moral compass. I believe all have the same compass. I believe most of not all know whether there were drugs inserted into their bodies and cannot believe for a second any of them were naive to this.

A cyclist caught doping deserves the punishment they will receive. Articles which will speak any other opionion I believe will just be pandering and promoting the self pitty of cheaters.