I wish I could say I was surprised

I know it's a few days late, but I wanted to comment on the positive drug tests of Ricardo Ricco and the subsequent firing and confession of his teamate Leonardo Piepoli. I expressed my disgust about the arrogance of Ricco last week on the blog and censored myself from saying that I wished he would just test positive so that he'd go away. Unfortunately, I got my wish.

I really was hoping that any doping reports from this year's race would be from domestiques who rarely showed their faces at the front of the race. While Ricco testing positive isn't quite as bad as Rasmussen being removed from the race while in the yellow jersey, you hate to see a stage winner (much less a multiple stage winner) cast such a shadow over the race. The fact that Piepoli (who won a stage the day after Ricco's second win) has confessed to it as well means that we now have three stages of this year's race that were won by riders who I hope never ride a bike again professionally.

If there is any positive from this situation it's the fact that a test was in place for a relatively new drug. When I heard Ricco had tested positive for a very specific form of EPO it left very little doubt as to his guilt. After all, he has stated that he has a naturally high hemocrit level which is often an indicator of performance enhancing and because of that naturally high level, a positive test based on hemocrit levels without the presence of a specific drug would put the testing in doubt. The collaborative effort between drug manufacturers and drug testers to develop a conclusive test so quickly after a drug's introduction to market is something that the cycling community should hail as the sport continues to try to change its culture into one of clean sport.

I think David Millar from the Garmin-Chipotle team put it well when he stated that it will take years to reach a point where there are no positive tests that come from a high profile race like the Tour de France and that we need to take the long view. My hope is that we're working toward a day where we can begin to believe again in all of the performances that we see play out in France in July and I think this was an important step toward that dream. The fact this incident took out an arrogant, obnoxious jerk (it's times like this that I wish I was capable of stronger language) is merely a consolation to the shadow that Ricco and those like him have cast on the Tour.

I will go on record as saying that I hope that Ricco owns up to what he's done, serves out his (assumed) suspension and returns to cycling with the resolve that David Millar showed after getting caught several years ago. Ricco is a talented, young rider with a lot of career in front of him and I would love to see him come back more humble and an advocate for clean sport.