Bob Roll is a former cyclist who is now a commentator for Versus Network, which airs most of the big cycling events around the globe. This week they are showing the Tour of California, which started on Sunday the 17th in Santa Rosa, California, and finishes less than 2 miles from my house in Altadena! Dammit, I'm on the road.
Bob Roll, was one of the first upstart Americans to come to Europe and attempt to race with the professional European peloton. When I started riding back in the 1980's the 7-Eleven team was the first American based squad to participate in the Tour de France, and on this team, was Bob Roll.
It didn't go so well for Bob and company. I remember watching the highlights on ABC's Wide World of Sports. Bob had a stomach virus and they had footage of him squatting on the side of the road. Needless to say, he didn't finish that year. But he rode the tour again and finished.
He went from road cycling, to mountain biking, to writing books and blogs, to his current position on Versus Network. Which is to say, he's probably a pretty good expert on the state of cycling these days...
Here's his article he wrote for Versus about the current state of Astana versus (get it?) the Tour de France:
"Astana is the capitol city of Kazakhstan. Astana is also a professional cycling team with some of the world’s best racers, including the defending Tour de France champion, Alberto Contador. Contador, however, did not race for Astana at last year's Tour. If he had, Contador would not have won the race. In fact, he would have been kicked out of the Tour because Team Astana was kicked out of the race. Astana was booted out of the Tour after its star rider, Alexander Vinokourov, tested positive with someone else’s blood in his system.
This winter, Astana completely revamped the structure of its team. Of course, Vinokourov was fired, but so was the manager and all the coaches. They were replaced by the man who guided Contador to his Tour win: Johan Bruyneel. If Astana believed that having Bruyneel at the helm would mean that all had been forgiven, they were mistaken.
Astoundingly, the organizers of the Tour have announced that Astana would not be invited to the 2008 Tour de France. For us it means both the first place (Alberto Contador) and the third place (Levi Leipheimer) riders will not be at the Tour De France this year. The reasons given by the Tour de France organizer, ASO, were that the hardships the sport of cycling and the Tour de France face is due to the ill repute Team Astana has brought the Tour. Apparently, Team Astana’s transgressions are so egregious they are not welcome at the '08 Tour nor Paris-Nice, nor Paris-Roubaix, Liege Bastogne Liege or any other race organized by the ASO.
Well, well, well, aren’t we holier than thou.
I guess Rabobank is free to ride even though they allowed Michael Rasmussen to race in the Tour despite at least four missed out-of-competition doping tests and being kicked out of the Tour while in the yellow jersey. And I guess Christophe Moureau can race forever in the Tour de France even though he was a member of Team Festina, which perpetrated the worst scandal in the 100-plus year history of the Tour.
Cofidis is also free to ride in spite of their doping offenses at the 2007 Tour De France, which honestly are no worse than Astana’s. So far, the ASO hasn’t given an adequate reason for excluding Astana in light of many teams’ reputations being tarnished by a small number of riders. Maybe my being from the United States gives me a more acutely attuned nose for the stench of hypocrisy. But the cheese is getting ripe in France.
It’s my feeling that the ASO should apply the rules consistently across the board for all teams whether they are from France, Netherlands, Italy or Kazakhstan. Without a consistent application of the rules, we are left to wonder and unfortunately speculate as to why some teams seem to be unfairly singled out for punishment. Speculation generally falls far short of reality."
The Elegant Bob Roll.
Don't forget to sign the petition to get Astana in the tour! Here's the link again: www.letleviride.com or click it in the left hand column of my blog!
...
No comments:
Post a Comment