I’ve liked Alexandre Vinokourov riding style for a few years. He’s does a lot of attacking. Some of his attacks didn’t make sense when he was riding for Ulrich on T-Mobile but at least it made for interesting racing.
He was the favorite to win the Tour de France this year. A crash during Stage 5 left him banged up and he needed a lot of stitches. He limped through the Alps but came back to win the time trial on Saturday. Then yesterday on a brutal stage in the Pyrenees he won another stage.
It’s just been announced that he tested positive for homologous blood doping after his time trial win on Saturday. Of course he can ask to have his B sample tested. So what is homologous blood doping? It’s using someone else’s blood. Riders don’t like using their own blood for doping because they can’t train as hard for a few weeks after blood is drawn. What was he thinking? At least when Tyler Hamilton got caught he didn’t know a test had been developed to detect homologous blood doping and was the first to be caught. The report is that the whole Astana team has withdrawn from the Tour de France.
In other doping news, Pat McQuaid, UCI president has said he doesn’t want Michael Rasmussen to win the Tour. Rasmussen has failed a drug test but has missed 2 random out of competition tests. It doesn’t look good but it takes 3 missed tests to be considered a positive test.
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Tags: cycling, doping, Tour de France
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