This post is entirely from my opinion, my understanding and my memory. I did no reference checking so if I have got some things wrong, please post and correct me.

Let me first say that I am the Number 1 cycling fan that I know. It is my 2nd fav sport behind AFL, but I love cycling tactics, the teams and the way they push themselves day after day over hills and mountains that some people wouldn’t drive a car.

I am aware that there is obvious drug taking involved by at least some of the peleton. With young gun Ricco testing positive the other day it made me sit up and think. He was apparently on some new generation EPO which WADA don’t even have an effective test for yet. It’s a kind of drug that only has to be taken very infrequently as opposed to standard EPO which I think you have to take most days. He has probably been on this drug for some time and didn’t know there was a test for it.

The thing with this Ricco kid is that he is/was a gun. At only 24 or so, he had a big future. A cyclist’s peak age is from 28 to 32. So he had plenty of time and I feel he would have dominated the sport in years to come, and after his suspension, he probably will.

I’d like to mention 2 other similar cases of amazing athletes who are/were drug takers.
1. Marion Jones
She probably could have won the same amount of medals at the 2000 games because of the way she destroyed the competition.
2. Flo Jo
Now although she never tested positive, she was friends with Ben Johnson, she retired immediately after the introduction of increased testing procedures, and died of a heart seizure which can be attributed to drug use. Her 100m record will never ever be broken, but she would probably still have broken the WR if she wasn’t on drugs.

Unfortunately we will never know the answers to the questions.

The difference with cycling and almost all other sports, is that cycling are actually trying to catch their drug cheats. Last year Rasmussen was only 3 days from winning the tour. He was thrown out by his team because he lied about his whereabouts when he was supposed to have an out of competition test. Just repeat that to yourself. He lied about whereabouts when he was supposed to have an out of competition test. He has never tested positive to a banned substance, but received a suspension anyway.

The best AFL players probably get tested once every 18 months, and not during off season. Cadel Evans will get tested probably 30 times this year. Ben Cousins never tested positive to anything, so how effective must the AFL’s drug testing be? When Akermanis suggested that a player may have taken EPO in the off season, everyone stuck their fingers in their ears “La, la, la, la, I am not listening” For the record I have cousins who are related to Aker and they say that he is complete on-himself tool. Who’d’ve thunk it!

Rugby league went through a great stage of players testing positive in the late 90’s. It no doubt did damage to the image of the game, but strangely no-one has tested positive since, yet the wingers and centres seem too have gotten bigger and faster.

NFL guys that weigh 110kg and run 100m in 10.5 sec.

Tennis matches go for 5 hour, 5 set marathon in a sport that it basically played at a sprint.

The European soccer season goes for 9 months of the year, plus International duties.

I have mates in the Army, and they love drugs including steroids, and so does their sergeant. They are supposed to get randomly drug tested, but they say they have no fear of getting caught because it would be bad PR.

My point is that if these sports wanted to catch drug cheats, they could. But the damage it would do to the sport would not justify the moral high ground.

The ASO, who own the tour de france, don’t seem to care about their PR, because they know that next year there will still be a million people a day lining the streets.

Thankyou for reading. I had to get this off my chest and I feel much better now.

Please feel free to defend the sport you love, as I have here. Even Ivan Malat got a fair trial.

Oh also, lets not forget that Ricco's entire team, Saunier Duval, withdrew from the Tour in disgrace. And that Tom Boonen's team told him to stay at home after his cocaine affair. (mind you they should have done more than that)