isn't doping. All professional sports have doping issues.
The problem is how the UCI handles it. It leads to everyone talking
about doping instead of racing.
Read this:
From:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/21/sports/bike.php
Cycling: What if they held a bike race and nobody came?
By Samuel Abt
PUTEAUX, France: Not that anybody noticed, but the 57th Grand Prix of
Puteaux was run as scheduled.
That's an exaggeration about nobody noticing: A dozen spectators
showed up at the town hall for the start of the bicycle race Thursday
evening in Puteaux, just west of Paris. Perhaps two dozen more
congregated at the finish line in the Rue Anatole France and along the
main route on the Rue Jean Jaures.
In sum, maybe 50 people, mainly elderly, watched.
Even a few years ago, the race for amateur riders from the Paris
region attracted a throng of fans. That's over.
One reason is that there's so much else to do these days besides watch
a bicycle race. Posters advertised the opening of a two-day food court
near the town hall, the staging of a "white night" of entertainment on
an island in the Seine and the closing of riverside quais to traffic
on Sunday to unleash Rollerbladers.
There were no posters for the Grand Prix of Puteaux, let alone the
banner that used to hang over the street near the bridge into town.
"It's not such a popular sport any more," said Vincent Malbeaux, 18,
the upper limit for a junior rider. He represented the ACBB team from
Boulogne Billancourt, long an incubator for professional teams.
"We still have races but not many people watch," he continued as he
waited with some 90 other riders for the start.
The problem? "Doping. All people talk about our sport is doping."
That will only get worse following the ruling Thursday by arbitrators
in the United States that Floyd Landis was guilty of doping when he
finished first in the Tour de France last year. Landis, a 31-year-old
American, has the right to appeal the 2-1 decision to the Court of
Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland. Its decision will be final. If
he loses an appeal or fails to file one in 30 days, Landis will be
stripped of his title - the first winner of the 104-year-old Tour de
France to be disqualified for doping.
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