Tour de France 2009

So what would be a typical Isle of Mann drink to go and have to celebrate Cav's victory?

My co-tour watchers insist that huge quantities of beer and cider would do.

Looks like they're teetotal.. ;)
http://www.smilelocal.com/alcoholic_drinks/isle_of_man

how many flowers and trophies do the jersey wearers need?

Yeah but before that he couldn't hold Renshaw's kick. Thor sprint fail.

Columbia have to be careful, they already lost one of their top sprinters (Ciolek) in the winter because Cav was too good, I wonder how long Renshaw will stay if Cav does, to me it looks like Renshaw could probably beat Ferrar and Hushovd too.

At least next year hopefully McEwen will be back in the mix.

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

So how does an athlete systematically avoid being caught doping? Armstrong on tweeter stated that he had been spot tested eleven times during this tour - that is pretty much every other day - and aren't they checked in the off season as well?

Very simply, the testers are always a step or two behind the dopers. There was no test for EPO until the 2000 Olympics, so usage was rampant throughout the 1990s. There is still no reliable test for autologous blood doping, i.e. the removal of your own blood to be reinfused later, increasing your red blood cell count.

A lot of the big names caught in the last few years have been caught because of criminal investigations (Puerto, Freiburg, the Oil for Drugs scandal in Italy) yet all these riders (Basso, Ullrich, Kloeden, Di Luca) have continued to pass the tests until they get nailed by the criminal justice system. The pendulum seems to have swung back towards the testers, i.e. Ricco, Schumacher, Kohl and Di Luca all getting busted for CERA, but even then some riders seem to have escaped detection, i.e. Di Luca knew they could detect CERA yet still used it, presumably because he'd been advised that it was possible to use it undetected.

The biological passport should improve the situation, but they need a baseline to work from and that takes a year or so to build for each athlete. It would also appear that an athlete can, if they are so inclined, dope at a consistent level that can be undetected by the biological passport. We'll see how it works out, but I don't doubt for one minute that a) riders have been doping in this Tour and b) some of them will be caught for it at a later date.

So what would be a typical Isle of Mann drink to go and have to celebrate Cav's victory?

My co-tour watchers insist that huge quantities of beer and cider would do.

http://www.okells.co.uk/

fabulous TDF this year.. well done Cav winning in Paris. VB thanks for allowing us to you tube tons of footage..

Speculation in the Spanish papers recently, that F1 driver Fernando Alonso is fronting a pro cycling team with Santander.. looks like Cuntador might have a saviour post Astana, he is possibly the most disliked rider in the peloton this year.. charmless, arrogant, selfish, egotistic. Lance was on the charm offensive this past week. I think perhaps, he got through this tour as a bit of a hero, now that he is looking to recruit riders for Radio Shack / Tandy, right?

It is amazing what a bit of humility can do for ones soul, Lance must be reading 'how to make friends and influence people, again'..

Well done Brad awesome effort!!!!

Wiggins tour was epic stuff.. he deserves a hero's welcome..

I hope Cav's welcome is bigger.

His tour, for me, was more impressive.

Especially after being ignored following last year's Olympics.

It will be, when he gets home.

I hope Cav's welcome is bigger.

His tour, for me, was more impressive.

Especially after being ignored following last year's Olympics.

Cav's achievement is great i agree, but the Columbia HTC train should take the credit.. Hincapie, Renshaw, Rogers, Kirchen etc.. even in Paris, Garmin, Astana, Saxo Bank etc could not out smart them tactically. They have precision timing for reeling in the escapees / breakaway riders down to the second. Controlling the peloton and calculating the close out of stages requires great skill.

Cav only needs to jump the last 200 metres on each stage win, he needs to find strength in the mountains and take intermediate sprint points like Hushovd, to win the green jersey..

then i will be impressed..

Classy from Brad's twitter:

Hey Cav, your a star, remember what we said, fuck Bob, life goes on, dont let sponser politics affect freindships.

One for Platini?

...and from Charlie Wegelius on Saturday:

I'm a not a religious person, but passing by Tom Simpson's memorial was a special moment for me today. Would have loved to meet him.
8:09 AM Jul 25th from TwitterBerry

BIG PICTURES TOUR COVERAGE

fabulous TDF this year.. well done Cav winning in Paris. VB thanks for allowing us to you tube tons of footage..

Speculation in the Spanish papers recently, that F1 driver Fernando Alonso is fronting a pro cycling team with Santander.. looks like Cuntador might have a saviour post Astana, he is possibly the most disliked rider in the peloton this year.. charmless, arrogant, selfish, egotistic. Lance was on the charm offensive this past week. I think perhaps, he got through this tour as a bit of a hero, now that he is looking to recruit riders for Radio Shack / Tandy, right?

It is amazing what a bit of humility can do for ones soul, Lance must be reading 'how to make friends and influence people, again'..

Bollocks. Lance was the unprofessional rider in the set up. Contador is the best rider in the team and should have been supported 100%.

i think ALmac68 was watching a different race to the rest of us

I assumed he'd got Armstrong and Contador mixed up. There was only one charmless, arrogant, selfish, egotistic rider on display in the past 3 weeks, and he wasn't Spanish.

So now all that excitement is all over we can just settle back and wait for the final doping test results to come in around September.

Added bonus of re-testing of lots of last year's samples using the all-new '09 CERA test which caught Di Luca et al.

Lance might get an 8th after all :|

I think it's more much more likely that Bradley'll get his first win.

^ ;)

Tour of Poland next week

It's early this year, no? Does that mean less likelihood of incessant rain? And who's going to win in Jen's absence?

I think it's more much more likely that Bradley'll get his first win.

i think if contador and armostrong are dopers, and they have managed not to get cought so far its unlikely tey'll get caught now, as you said earlier up in the page they will proibably remain 1 step ahead of the testers.

Although i have to say i'd be gutted if armstrong was a doper.

Also, Andy Shleck's performance in the TT does reek of something fishy, at least contador and armstrong are know as decent testers but he pulled the performance of a lifetime out the bag and still had the energy the next day to constantly attack contador and try and help bro out....