I don't see why it should be treated any differently. I mean it as close to sports as is pro wrestling : bogus antagonisms, canned story lines, grotesque bodies and grotesque feats of strength, 'roid rage and many premature deaths among the pros - not to mention the definite down-market aspect of it all. In the US, cycling is mostly a solidly white yuppie pastime (I mean, we all know the jackasses with all their spandex and $4,000 road bikes). In France, it's really a sport for the lumpen - I mean yeah, camping by the road for days to be deluged with sausage and candy from the promotional caravan, and then see 100 guys fly by you. Yoohoo. Trust me, it ain't what you think it is - it's kind of like the French NASCAR.

I disagree - cycling is a great sport requiring sacrifice, discipline, hours of rigorous training, diet and technique. Pro cyclists plunge down mountains at 80 kmh risking their lives and, unlike "pro" wrestling, is unscripted. Unfortunately, the pressure to win, the money involved and the expectation of the sponsors has lead some riders to seek that edge that illicit drugs provide. The doping is nothing new, just look back to Tom Simpson 40 years ago. I think that finally the testing has caught up to the doping, hence the number of riders caught this year. I think that in the end, this will be good for the sport.

As I am not a fan, but its participants most certainly do experience "sacrifice, discipline, hours of rigorous training, diet and technique" during their careers: people don't simply walk in off the street and get into the ring, after all. As I understand it, considerable athletic ability is required to keep the performers from actually hurting each other.

And yes, of course, it is a performance rather than a sport, but cycling has had its share of "scripted" drama: it's simply less formalized than that of the WWF (or ECW or whatever it is these days), and the organizers of the race don't decide on the outcome beforehand. But there's still the same attraction in both sports--petty jealousies, spite, betrayal, ardent nationalism. It is no secret that the peloton colludes to punish attackers, views doping as acceptable, and screws over whistle-blowers whenever possible:

http://www.slate.com/id/2171291/nav/tap3/

http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/26/magazines/fortune/peloton_greatteams_fortune_0612/

Add in the drugs, and the fact that pro wrestling is fake doesn't seem to be such a big deal. This is a problem that'll require more than drug tests to fix it.

Seriously, I used to love Gymnastics and cycling, and now I could not care less about the sports.

Why? Because winners are determined by rulebook and not by contest.

Why invest time watching an event, have someone proclaimed the winner, but then we learn the section 7, subsection 4 of the rules were violated and the person is disqualified.

Then we learn that in this case, the infraction didn't actually affect performance, but the rules required a PPM of only 10 (when a 100 PPM is required to boast performance) and the athlete had 10.2 PPM. OUT OF HERE.

At this point, let them dope up, let them take steroids because what you have now is beyond boring it's competition by lawyers.

It's especially inane that some performance and training enhancements are allowed, but other are not.

Let's look at the Tour this year, Rassmussen's infraction happened BEFORE THE TOUR, yet after a number of days, then he's yanked.

Same old stupid rules, someone begins the race, people start to root for the person, then BAM out s/he goes.

The way testing is administered hurts the sports more than the infractions at this point.

I was just saying that perhaps, we should regard pro cycling exactly like pro wrestling - not a sport but as a sort of scripted and benign freak show (yes they do go down mountain roads at 80 mph, it is freakish).

Also, doping has always been part of the Tour de France, since the beginning in fact. They used to mix caffeine and red wine or beer (the original upper-downer). Then it turned into the infamous 'pot belge' (caffeine-cocaine-heroine, intraveinous) - which killed a few. And then, starting in the late 80s, EPO and 'roids. You can bet that both Indurain and Lance were using a combination of the two (especially, one version or another of the 'clear,' with EPO cures over the winter with altitude training and regular blood draws, to be retransfused during the race).

That's the interesting part: pro cycling was always a proletarian sport in France. It is tied to the history of the workers' movement. It was never a gentleman's sport. You had these guys punishing themselves on ungodly roads, suffering like nobody in their right mind would, for a faint shot at glory. The doping was part of this image of the cyclist as a proletarian, who transgresses the gentlemanly rules of gentlemanly sports, who would do anything to win - when participating is what really matters...

Got a book for you. Achilles' Choice by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. It's a story of a future Olympics where, to stand a chance of winning, you must take drugs to boost your strength and endurance. Only problem is, only the winner can get the treatments to survive; if you don't win, the booster drugs kill you. And there are a lot of people who get boosted to compete.

Is that any different from this Tour de France thing, or the Super Bowl, or the Olympics?

Sports is not about comradeship, encouraging health, or proving which nation is the best. It's watching for the car wreck, and the drugged-up NFL player who shoots up a bar, and stupid fans rioting when their city's team wins a title. Basically, sports is about bullies, and not all the Jim McKay commentaries can change that.

I know I'll be flamed here by many of those rioting fans, but I don't expect to be popular by posting the truth.