Tour de France 2008

^^ Yes you do have a point there. But that is pure Darwinism in action. Not caused by drugs

anyway, i hear Cadel Evans totally cheated by living int he mountains WHERE THE AIR IS THINNER and riding there everyday in preparation for the tour. what about all the poor bastards who were at sea level? it's just not fair, the cheating bumfaced squeker

Drugs are a key player in the evolution of the species. Always have been, even before we synthesized them.

About EPO: indeed it's due to the fact that the 3rd gen EPO can now be detected that there are suddenly more positive cases.
There is talk of a 4th generation EPO which is basically a virus that is injected to the human body which then triggers the production of human EPO. Very hard to detect and -let's be honest- pretty scary.

Phil Ligett on Eurosport is blaming it on the commies! [seriously]

It could be argued that the dominance of Afro-American track athletes was due to a form of genetic modification. Due to suffering at the hands of enslavers for hundreds of years, it was only the very very strong who survived; and bred. The evolution of an entire ethnic group was tampered with by the actions of others.

Obviously a few gold medals don't really make up for the human rights travesties.

could be ... but i am not too sure whether that argument is of any scientific substance. 200 years (10 generations) of biased selection is rather a blip in terms of human evolution.

I blame it on fixed gear freestyling.

the fact that you can insert and upregulate many proteins in animal models, makes me believe that genetic modification in humans is already on the go!

lovely high res photos of the tour here:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/07/2008_tour_de_france.html

EDIT: just noticed these were linked already.

Phil Ligett on Eurosport is blaming it on the commies! [seriously]

Ligget is on Eurosport now?

It could be argued that the dominance of Afro-American track athletes was due to a form of genetic modification. Due to suffering at the hands of enslavers for hundreds of years, it was only the very very strong who survived; and bred. The evolution of an entire ethnic group was tampered with by the actions of others.

Obviously a few gold medals don't really make up for the human rights travesties.

I'd say a lot of that has to do with the backing of the various American Sports development organisations. PPL of a similar build/physique in Africa will most likely be too busy feeding their families to worry about track racing, that and the sports development council in say Angola probably isn't all that amazing.

Of course the Kenyan marathon runners are a different story.

Wait until they test him.

Told ya. Ego + Epo = Bye bye.

Go Cadel!

Shame to see teams pulling out left right and center. I thought SD were fairly clean... Its a blow for David Millar, the reborn champion of anti doping....

Surprised Barloworld are still in...

Why is it a blow for David Millar?

You are kidding Ved? Saunier Duval clean? Yeah, right.

Any team that involves Mauro Gianetti has to be dodgy. This is the man who nearly died in the Tour de Suisse in the late 1990s due to an adverse reaction to a drug that hadn't even begun clinical trials!

Why is it a blow for David Millar?

Presumably because he was with SD last year.

Told ya. Ego + Epo = Bye bye.

Go Cadel!

Just what I was thinking hippy - we called it! :-)

"high" five !

oh how we laughed..

Yeah, much better to have a coked up, crack smoking suicide like Pantani..

I'm sorry, this year's Tour is SOOOO much better than 7 years of Lance winning and every potential leader bailing from the Tour as a drug cheat.

Come on Aussie!

Weren't people saying this sort of stuff at exactly this point in the race last year?

Just as I (sort of) predicted.

Tight.

@claus & tallsam - it was a substantial exercise in genetic selection though - man-made conditions of an extreme nature being foisted upon one ethnic group. This is different to looooooooongterm genetic drift based on adaptation to the natural environment.

I'm not debating the investment of American athletic associations in talent development (they were, afterall, trying to beat the Eastern bloc at everything), but slavery 'helped' create a genetically advantaged pool of athletic candidates.

Get in my son!

go on Cav!

another cav sprint

and my fucking feed went black 2k before the end! bollocks

will have to watch the gaylights on ITV

Presumably because he was with SD last year.

Genuine brain fart...

I keep forgetting he's with Garmin...