A Brief DeTour

Lots of Fannie/Freddie/Paulson/credit crisis stuff to write about, but it'll have to wait until the weekend, as I'm off to Alaska for a couple of days on business (and not a moment too soon, with local temps at the triple-digit mark).

But first, I want to rant a bit about this year's Tour de France. For the uninitiated, that's the world's pre-eminent professional bike race (as in bicycle, not Harley). It's three weeks of grueling racing, at average speeds of about 28mph, over some of the toughest mountains in the Pyrenees and the Alps. Each day the riders tackle at least 100 miles or so. If you want to check it out, live coverage is on Versus every morning, with a replay each evening.

First, let me explain my own relationship with cycling. In another life (and another body), I used to race, albeit without much success. I was a teenager, and couldn't afford much in the way of a bike (it can be an expensive sport, like golf, though you don't have to pay greens fees when you ride).

Then, I continued to ride recreationally until my daughter was born. After that, my riding time was nil. About 7 years ago, I had the opportunity to put together a team of riders from my church to ride the local MS150, a two-day, 150-mile charity ride to benefit the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Our team grew into the largest non-corporate team, and was among the top fundraisers.

I led the team solo for three years, then had the thrill of riding the next two years on a tandem with my daughter. She was 13 when she completed her first MS150, including 100 miles the first day. I can't think of a better way to get quality together time with a teenager than to be stuck on a bike together for hours at a time. Now, our schedules - especially hers - are such that we just don't have time to train enough to be able to do such a ride, and I really miss it.

Anyway, I digress; back to this year's Tour.

The three positive doping tests - and one admission of doping - that have marred this year's Tour are a good thing, in my opinion. True, they illustrate that doping is still a problem in cycling.

But, guess what? Doping is a much, much bigger problem in American football, baseball, etc. than in cycling.

Steroid use is so prevalent in the NFL, I'd guess that only the kickers don't juice, and even they might be suspect. Cortisone is legal in quantities that are banned in cycling. And forget about baseball, where every power hitter is on the juice.

The thing is, those sports have unions for the athletes, and they fight doping controls. Cycling has no collective bargaining, so the organizers rule the riders. So they dope-test. And again, that's a good thing. At least cycling is trying to keep its sport clean.

The other portion of my rant has to do with the French organizers (the ASO) of the Tour, and their decision to exclude the Astana team. Astana is managed by Johann Bruyneel, who managed Lance Armstrong to seven consecutive Tour victories - which pissed the French off no end (they haven't been able to win their own national Tour since 1985, since which time Americans have won 10 of the 22 Tours) - and Spaniard Alberto Contador to another Tour victory last year.

Bruyneel was then the director of the Discovery team, which was the former US Postal squad before the Postal Service dropped its sponsorship in 2004. Discovery also got out of cycling after last season. No Postal or Discovery rider was ever busted for doping, although the French accused Armstrong all along (losing several lawsuits along the way).

Bruyneel took over the Astana squad, which lost its star rider, Kazakh Alexandre Vinokourov, to a positive doping test last year. Astana wanted to gut and rebuild the team, so they brought in new management - Bruyneel - new investors, including Armstrong, and a completely new stable of riders, including Contador and American Levi Leipheimer, who finished third in last year's Tour.

But the ASO didn't allow Astana to enter this year's Tour because of the past association with Vinokourov. In a sport attempting to clean up its image, that would appear to be just. But it's not.

You see, there are other teams in this year's Tour that have completely revamped and, like Astana, committed to stringent self-testing for doping. One of them is Team Columbia (as in the US sportswear company), which features former Armstrong teammate and US rider George Hincapie.

Columbia is a phoenix that rose from the ashes of the former Telekom team, which featured Jan Ullrich, who won the Tour in 1997 and has since been exposed as a doper. Vinokourov also once rode for Telekom, and it's suspected that doping was rampant on the team.

Another supposedly revamped team is CSC, former team of Italian Ivan Basso, who left to join Discovery last year - until it was revealed he too had doped in prior years. Discovery canned him before he could ride a race for them. CSC is led by Bjarne Riis, who won the Tour in 1996, and last year admitted he had doped during that year's Tour.

Say what? Didn't American Floyd Landis lose his Tour title from 2006 because he had tested positive for testosterone? But Riis - a non-American and the only Dane to ever win the Tour, thus not a threat to French pride - was allowed to keep his. If Landis had been afforded the same clemency, Americans would have won half of all the Tours ridden since the last French victory, something ASO just couldn't allow, apparently (more on that later).

So anyway, we have a team with past doping problems, led by an admitted doper, and another team with past doping problems that has completely changed its management, riders and operations, that were allowed into the Tour. Yet Astana, another completely revamped team, is denied. Why?

Two reasons. First, the French bias against Bruyneel and Armstrong. This has nothing to do with Astana or Vinokourov and everything to do with Bruyneel and Armstrong.

Second, Leipheimer had an excellent chance to win this year's Tour. He won the Tour of California for a second straight year, was third in both the Tour de Georgia and the Dauphine Libere, a Tour warm-up, and while the Tour was being contested in his absence, won the Cascade Classic in the US. Had he ridden - and won - the Tour this year, Americans (again, if Landis' win had been counted as was Riis') would have won more than half of the Tours ridden since the last Frenchman won.

And the French simply couldn't stand that.