More Doping

As Ed mentioned in his comment on yesterday's blog there's been another doping scandal at the tour. This time it was Riccardo Ricco of the Saunier Duval team. This was a particularly big blow in that he had won two stages in fairly impressive fashion and as someone who was only 24 was viewed as someone who was in the new generation. A generation that was hopefully free from drugs. I guess that wasn't the case. Although when you look at how much he idolized Pantani that should have been a big clue.

In any case people are pointing to this as evidence that the tests are working, and I sure hope they're right. The only thing, in my mind, worse than busting a bunch of dopers and giving cycling yet another kick in the crotch would be to incorrectly bust a bunch of cyclists. But once again the narrative makes sense. You've got someone who idolizes a cyclist who took drugs, who does remarkably well, better than expected and took a brand new form of EPO. That last bit is a big one. WADA had never announced that they had a test for this new form of EPO, so there's a good reason to suspect that Ricco may have thought that he could take it without running any risks.

So there you go. At least he wasn't in yellow (though he was the white jersey and the polka-dot jersey wearer...) In the course of the reporting I found out that my man Cunego has a tattoo that says "I'm drug free" (or "doping free" I imagine it's actually in Italian...) Now obviously hypocrisy is not unknown, but imagine for a moment that he was busted, and he had that tattoo. That would open him up to so much crap that just that scenario alone would be enough to make me think that there might be something there.

Dreaming of a drug free Tour