It looks like the Tour de France organizers have shut out some American riders who continue to dominate the race. Singling out a team, in this case Astana, to be punished for problems they had no hand in causing seems a thinly veiled, deliberate and desperate effort by French organizers to keep American riders from winning the race. The French press has long been bitter about the French losing the race for years. The race course has been altered in the past in order to try to keep Lance Armstrong down, among other attempts to sabotoage him, Floyd Landis’ questionable disqualification last year, and now this.
Yesterday it was announced that Levi Leipheimer’s new team is not eligible to participate because of some damage the tour organizers attribute to a previous incarnation of team Astana, before riders like Leipheimer and new team manager Johan Brunyeel ever joined the team. How disappointing to learn that tour organizers are applying uneven, retroactive punishment to top riders who have been guilty of nothing except being better than any French riders currently racing.
I had planned to be in France to watch this year’s tour and to root for my home town rider, Levi Leipheimer, but it seems much less appealing to me now.
Fortunately, I can watch the a best riders in the world right here in my own backyard at the Tour of California starting today, and save my money for a race that is athlete focused, instead of strangely political. I appreciate efforts to keep doping out of the sport, but you can’t apply penalties to some for something that happened in the past before their team was ever assembled. That is as much a disservice to the sport and the race as any doping scandal. It’s as scandalous to have cheaters in race organization and management doling out selective punishment, as it is to have doping in the race. No wonder they have so much trouble in the Tour de France–tour organizers cheat the fans, the riders and the race itself. So disappointing.
Maybe with the new stringent anti-doping efforts being implemented at the Tour of California and the lack of random unfair punishments being dispensed, the Tour of California will become the race to watch from now on. It is for me. See you in Occidental tomorrow for stage 1! Go Levi!
