How clean is the Tour de France?
PARIS — With Queen’s rock anthem “Bicycle Race” blaring from loudspeakers, the Tour de France sets off for another day, the riders a blaze of color in their lurid shirts. This, undoubtedly, is one of sport’s most spectacular sights. But is it believable? A decade ago, when Lance Armstrong won the first of his record seven Tour titles, the answer to that question was largely “no.” Doping had rotted cycling to the core. At least 80 percent of riders in the grand tours of France, Spain and Italy were doping, anti-doping scientists in Switzerland now calculate using blood tests from that time. Back then, researchers in Paris who were working on a method to catch one of the most common forms of cheating struggled to find clean samples to try out their new test. “I had real trouble finding a negative,” says Francoise Lasne, the doctor at France’s anti-doping agency who conducted that groundbreaking research. “I thought the test wasn’t working.” Now, in Armstrong’s comeback year, cycling can
By JOHN LEICESTER – 18 hours ago PARIS (AP) — With Queen’s rock anthem “Bicycle Race” blaring from loudspeakers, the Tour de France sets off for another day, the riders a blaze of color in their lurid shirts. This, undoubtedly, is one of sport’s most spectacular sights. But is it believable? A decade ago, when Lance Armstrong won the first of his record seven Tour titles, the answer to that question was largely “no.” Doping had rotted cycling to the core. At least 80 percent of riders in the grand tours of France, Spain and Italy were doping, anti-doping scientists in Switzerland now calculate using blood tests from that time. Back then, researchers in Paris who were working on a method to catch one of the most common forms of cheating struggled to find clean samples to try out their new test. “I had real trouble finding a negative,” says Francoise Lasne, the doctor at France’s anti-doping agency who conducted that groundbreaking research. “I thought the test wasn’t working.” Now, in A
Alberto Contador of Spain, left, throws his flowers to the crowd as other riders of the Astana team react on the podium after winning the fourth stage of the Tour de France cycling race, a team time-trial over 39 kilometers (24.2 miles) with start and finish in Montpellier, southern France, Tuesday July 7, 2009. Rear, holding the throphy is American seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.
PARIS (AP)—With Queen’s rock anthem “Bicycle Race” blaring from loudspeakers, the Tour de France sets off for another day, the riders a blaze of color in their lurid shirts. This, undoubtedly, is one of sport’s most spectacular sights. But is it believable? A decade ago, when Lance Armstrong won the first of his record seven Tour titles, the answer to that question was largely “no.” Doping had rotted cycling to the core. At least 80 percent of riders in the grand tours of France, Spain and Italy were doping, anti-doping scientists in Switzerland now calculate using blood tests from that time. Back then, researchers in Paris who were working on a method to catch one of the most common forms of cheating struggled to find clean samples to try out their new test. “I had real trouble finding a negative,” says Francoise Lasne, the doctor at France’s anti-doping agency who conducted that groundbreaking research. “I thought the test wasn’t working.
