I was introduced to the Tour de France during the early years of ABC’s Wide World of Sports when it was presented as cycling’s premier event; while the Tour was not shown in its entirety WWS provided updates on the stages which had been completed prior to each weekly broadcast with special emphasis on the final day which finished in Paris on the Champs Elysees. I especially recall being drawn into the drama surrounding the sport in 1985 during stage 14 when the young American rider, Greg LeMond was told by the team’s coach to wait on Bernard Hinault, the eventual winner of the Tour that year, effectively sabotaging LeMond’s opportunity to win the Tour. LeMond claimed in subsequent interviews with the press that he was told Hinault was only 40 or 45 seconds behind him when in fact Hinault had suffered in the climb and was several minutes behind the young rider. The team coach said that he didn’t order LeMond to wait on Hinault but gave LeMond the green light to attack; however, the instructions to LeMond were not given directly by the Swiss coach but were relayed via a former domestique for and friend of Bernard Hinault, in French and not directly in English. The controversy lingers with a choice of possible subtexts: misunderstanding or conspiracy. Whatever actually transpired in 1985 is anyone’s guess but LeMond contends that he was promised the position of team leader for the 1986 Tour despite Hinault’s condition or standing when the event was contested the next year; the controversy did not abate substantially in 1986, although LeMond won the first of his three Tour victories, the most memorable and remarkable of which was his furious time trial into Paris on the last day of the 1989 Tour that resulted in his 8 second win over Laurent Fignon, the smallest margin of victory in the Tour’s history. LeMond’s time trial still remains as the fastest time trial ever recorded at the Tour de France and is particularly noteworthy since LeMond had spent the two years following his 1986 Tour win recovering from a hunting accident that nearly took his life.
With LeMond’s exit from the summit of professional cycling, my interest flagged. I noted in passing the dominance of the famous Spanish rider, Miguel Indurain; yet, it wasn’t until 2002 that I really became an ardent fan of the Tour. My wife and I had visited Paris in February of 2002 but nothing during that trip was even remotely associated with the Tour or the route the riders would take later in the year. Quite by accident, I discovered a channel on cable, now called Versus, that provided live coverage of the three week event. Lance Armstrong had already won three consecutive Tours de France so it was natural that speculation was growing regarding the possibility of him reaching the magic number of five consecutive Tour wins only a few of the greatest riders had managed to achieve –the most renowned of that prestigious group was the legendary Eddy Merckx. Armstrong exceeded the expectations of even his most ardent admirers when he retired in 2005 with an unprecedented 7 consecutive Tour wins. Innuendos and accusations of cheating accompanied Armstrong’s triumphs. There seemed to be as much effort devoted to sully the achievements of Armstrong as there was to promote the Tour. One would be naive to dismiss the possibility of cheating once revelations of such behavior and its apparent extent came to light. Armstrong may very well have been the most tested cyclist in history; he also never tested positive. It seems unlikely to me that he was a better cheater than a cyclist: it is more honorable and enduring than winning.
When Armstrong retired there was a sense that a new era would be ushered in with the 2006 Tour. The cheating and doping continued. Some of the most celebrated cyclist and even a former Tour winner were banned from competing in the Tour. Teams dropped out of the Tour when the expulsions decimated their ranks and left them too few riders to compete. By the time the peloton rode leisurely into Paris, the heroics of Floyd Landis‘ miraculous come back in the mountains on stage 17 had enabled him to secure the precious maillot jaune, which, only days before appeared hopelessly lost. Another American stood atop the podium in Paris; Lance was gone; the rumors were not. A maelstrom ravaged professional cycling once again. Landis’ urine sample on stage 17 tested positive –elevated levels of synthetic testosterone. A final ruling on Landis’ case has not yet been made, although he is still officially the Tour winner his Phonak team has been disbanded and he is likely to be stripped of the title.
Before the 2007 Tour commenced the ill winds of cheating and doping raked Europe and proved to be chillingly prophetic for the 104th edition of what had been regarded as the world’s most renowned cycling event; sadly, and with unfortunate irony, infamy and charade supplanted adjectives and hyperbole once associated with the Tour. Commentators were confident the race had found its true bearings at last; they were ebullient as the stage one began auspiciously in London; chattering nervously as if a moment of silence might afford calamity an opportunity to insert itself. The sprinters’ thrilled audiences with their signature frenetic bravado at the finish line of the flat stages. Hubris doesn’t need a Cervelo to ride in the Tour. Vinokourov is ejected from competition after winning stages 13 and 15 when his test samples from stage 13 indicate he has had illegal blood transfusions; the ominous thunderhead swirling around Michael Rasmussen explodes with shocking finality as the maillot jaune is ripped from his shoulders and he is fired from his Rabo Bank team and the Tour. While Rasmussen had not failed any of the drug tests he had been given, he had failed to comply with team rules, more specifically he lied about where he was when he missed two random drug tests just prior to the Tour. It seems he was secretly training in Italy and not on vacation in Mexico with his wife’s family. With the cheating being the Albatross de jour, guilt rather than innocence is presumed when such anomalies are encountered. While it may only provide a playwright with the story line for another tragedy, I would be delighted if Rasmussen were completely innocent. With the final stage into Paris tomorrow a palpable calm has settled in following the monumental efforts of Levi Leipheimer (second fastest time trial ever), Evans, and Contador on stage 19. Perhaps a modicum of honor has been restored and the respect for the maillot jaune on the last day will continue to Paris without an attack.
The final stage of the Tour, with the exception of the sprint on the Champs Elysees, has become largely ceremonial so there will probably be no attacks on Sunday; however, the safety of the Tour de France and not the maillot jaune hangs in the balance. Years of prosperity and success spawned critical indifference and permitted greed a foothold when sport exploded into business, big, big business. It dates me but the first time I ever heard Bob Dylan’s nasal monotone rasp these lyrics, Money doesn’t talk, it swears, I knew he had penned one of the great American aphorisms. With little or no alteration the scenario of success and subsequent scandal is applicable to any and all of the “sports” that eclipse their origins as outlets or vehicles for recreation and health; I am not so naive as to suggest the long deceased notion of sport as a vital component of education proper, i.e., to compliment the famous Seven Liberal Arts, the Trivium and Quadrivium, is the only viable approach but it does offer more merit than the current businessman’s model upon which most American educational institutions are based. Long ago we allowed amateur athletics to be polluted with illicit money, insatiable greed, and drug use. The Olympics, the committees which govern the games, the nations which seek to host the games, and the participants in the games themselves have become a sham, a ruse of an honorable pledge and its emblematic five rings. The great American past time, baseball, our own original contribution to the ranks of sport, has not been immune to the cancerous growth of cheating, drug use, and illicit performance enhancing compounds. Barry Bonds is one home run shy of tying Hank Aaron’s record of 755 home runs, but he can never equal that mark nor can he be worthy to claim it –steroids and whatever method of rationalization he chose to excuse their use betrayed him the moment he bartered away his honor. Bonds has not been alone in this nefarious pursuit of fame and fortune; organized baseball has been complicit while fellow sportsman winked and sought their own illicit means to improve their performance. The examples of offenders and their offenses are too numerous to list; however, what is clear is that when the stakes are high enough, greed seems to trump honor and integrity; competition degrades to vanquishment and self aggrandizement rather than rising to the more refined Japanese concept of shibumi. Some might protest that I have created a tempest in a teapot or that this is much ado about a sporting event; and, I might be persuaded to acquiesce if I were not reminded daily that this approach is as persuasive as it is corrosive by the actions of our president and his administration in the prosecution of its foreign and domestic policies as well as upholding the guarantees provided in one of the most significant civil compacts ever written, the Constitution of the United States of America.
