July 3, 2008

Why the French Suck, Reason # 7328

It’s about that time of year again. They have a nifty little bike race around France that starts every year in early July. For the last 7 years or so I’ve been glued to the TV watching all that I could. And, although I can’t get a video feed at work, so I keep the cyclingnews.com live reports up and refreshing during each stage for hours a day during each July. Productivity suffers.

But not this year.

No, this year the Tour de France is gonna suck. For those of you who may not follow cycling, let me break it down like this… Imagine Baseball without the Yankees. Football without the Patriots. Basketball with the Lakers. Hockey without … Hell, I don’t know – insert the hockey team you love [to hate] here.

Last year was the last year for the Discovery Channel team (formally the USPS team - Lance Armstrong’s team). They went out with a bang too – placing 1st and 3rd (Alberto Contador & Levi Leipheimer). Levi might have had 2nd too but for an unfortunate time penalty. But the team folded at the end of the season and the riders were all found looking for a new team.

Then the embattled team Astana, itself in danger of folding due to several doping scandals recruited Johan Brunyeel (the former director from Discovery) to lead the Team. Johan rebuilt the team from the ground up and hired on most of the former Discovery riders including Contador and Leipheimer. Astana has had a pretty good season so far – winning and/or at least finishing on the Podium in just about every race they’ve been in.

But they weren’t invited to the Tour this year. The ASO (owners, tour organizers) cited last year’s doping scandals as the reason. Never mind that those riders, and that management structure is gone and has nothing to do with this year’s team. But that’s French logic for you – or so they’d have you believe. The truth is the problem is Brunyeel. In the last 9 years, Brunyeel’s riders have stood atop the podium 8 times. Looks like the French have finally found a way to beat him.

Lest you think mine is a minority opinion, here’s Lance Armstrong’s take on the whole thing (found shortly after penning the piece above).

Yeah, but the thing is, let's say we'd have brought in Oracle [as sponsors instead of Astana], and [the team included] Johan Bruyneel and Lance Armstrong and the CSE management team, with Contador and Levi Leipheimer and all those guys. Astana would still be in the Tour de France, but Oracle would be out. This 2008 decision was not an anti-Alexandre Vinokourov-based decision. It was an anti-Bruyneel-Armstrong decision. If they want to play games like kids, then play games, but the record will show that ASO and the sport of cycling was prosperous during our time winning seven editions. And the record will show that, since then, it has not done well. And I'm not taking any credit, I'm just saying, for the record, the facts are what they are.

I feel sorry for the riders competing this year, and even more so for the one who gets to stand on top the podium in Paris because their victory will always be tainted with the question of what might have happened if they’d been allowed to compete with the best.


Posted by Clancy at July 3, 2008 10:18 AM