I know that I have been strangely silent when it comes to the Tour de France this year. It certainly has not been that I haven't been following it or that it hasn't been newsworthy. Time has been an issue between selling bikes, riding bikes, ministry and a seven year old who spends more time on the computer than the rest of the family combined (when does school start again?) leaving me a bit stretched when it comes to writing.
So, the Tour... As a fan of the Discovery Channel team I couldn't help but be happy with two of three podium placings in Paris including the overall winner, best young rider and best overall team classification win. It definitely is a top finish for the team in terms of combined accolades. If only we weren't left with what ifs.
What if Rabobank didn't pull Rasmussen? Would he have held off Contador for the win? His performance in the mid-race time trail was remarkable for him and a similar performance would have kept him in the lead. Of course, his performance in that time trial is very suspect, especially after his team fires him for missing out of competition doping controls and lying about his whereabouts to doping authorities who need to know where he is in order to carry out said controls. It's not like he was just out to eat or visiting neighbors when they didn't know where he was really at either. He wasn't even on the same side of the Atlantic as where he was supposed to be. He told authorities that he'd be in Mexico (where his wife is from) when he was really in Italy. Rumors fly as to what he was doing there, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that when a guy who has never ridden a decent time trial in his life puts in the kind of performance that he did ten days ago it may have been more than a case of him having a really good day.
What if Vino hadn't tested positive? Would Discovery have been able to overtake the Astana team in the team classification? Not likely, but the exclusion of Vinokurov would probably have put Disco in front (I haven't crunched the numbers), but once the rest of the Astana team was asked to withdraw, Disco was set up for the win. Now news is that Astana is suspending all activities for the month of August to assess where they go from here and BMC, their bike sponser is pulling the plug immediately. BMC suffered through Floyd Landis' positive testing after last year's Tour and now has this to deal with and is sick of the whole thing. So, even if Astana decides to resume racing in September (in time for the Vuelta a Espana, Tour of Spain) they may be scrambling to piece together bikes for the team.
Most importantly, what if the Tour hadn't had any doping issues this year? Discovery is in search of a new title sponsor and it is hard for me to believe that a team could win the overall, place another rider in third, win the team classification and actually have more difficulty securing a title sponsor than before the race began. Unfortunately, that's the position the team is in. This is a touchy time of year to still be talking sponsorship issues as well. Riders are signing contracts for next season and the riders that are currently under contract with the team will need to know that they have employment for next year or they will have little choice but to begin talking to other teams. If Johan and Lance can't figure something out soon, they run the risk of losing key guys and may not be able to build on this year's success. I'm still fairly certain that something will come through, but they're cutting it awfully close.
The last week of the Tour I actually found myself saying, "Thank God for Michael Vick, crooked NBA refs and Barry Bonds and his drug induced home run race. At least it's taking some of the focus off of cycling's problems."
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