Radio Free Kirkopolis

Despite the fact the The Tour De France is the largest spectator spot in the world; the U.S. seems to widely ignore it. For now. I mean, now that Lance is gone there’s not a lot of the Red White and Blue in professional cycling- right?
Humm, give it a few weeks.
You see, somewhere a New York Yankee blew his nose, or a Los Angeles Laker ordered a cheeseburger, or Tiger Woods decided that “Repo Man” was a pretty good movie after all- so therefore ESPN completely (or almost completely) missed what may be the biggest sports story of the year.
From VeloNews.

Friday's "cleansing" of the Tour de France continued to resonate as the reduced peloton of 176 riders lined up for Saturday's opening prologue.
The doping controversy continued to broil below the surface following the unprecedented expulsion of pre-race favorites Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile), Ivan Basso (CSC), Francisco Mancebo (Ag2r) and the entire Astaná-Würth team.
The riders were taken out of the Tour just 24 hours before Saturday's start after excerpts from some 500 pages of court and police documents of Spain's ongoing doping investigation were presented to UCI and Tour officials late Thursday evening…
…Because the reduced Astaná-Würth was down to four riders, it fell short of the six-man requirement to start Saturday. That meant Alexandre Vinokourov, fifth overall last year and one of the top favorites to succeed retired champion Lance Armstrong, was out of the race despite not being implicated by the damning documents.

This is big.
Really big.
If you were to ask me who would finish in the top six this year I would have told you (in no particular order)- Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, Alexandre Vinokourov, Floyd Landis, Levi Liepheimer, and George Hincapie.
Here’s the thing. Of those six, three are out- and the three that are left (Floyd, Levi, and George) are all Americans. In addition with Basso out that leaves American Dave Zabriski the head of team CSC, which is probably the strongest team on the planet and therefore puts him in podium potential as well.
Yup, it is completely possible that we could see a 1,2,3 (and maybe even 4) podium showing at this year’s Tour De France. In a sport where most believed that the exit of Lance would surely lead to the demise of American Cycling, well this kind of showing would certainly do so much as to squash any notations of such. In addition we’ll seriously piss off the French something awful.
So about this doping scandal…
Well, I’m not real sure about it at this point. At least no so sure as to comment on it with any real insight, but here’s a quick synopsis-
On one hand most, if not all the cyclists banned the Tour have been so based upon documented evidence and not necessarily any documented facts. I still stand by the ethic of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ but from what I understand the evidence is pretty strong. Besides, this is not a court of law but a self governing body that presides over a sporting event. Frankly, being the baseball fanatic that I am I would love to have seen MLB grow these types of balls back in the early 90’s.
I am also a little weary of the timing. Really, banning guys the night before the start of Tour? Trust me, that wasn’t just coincidence. This way no one had a chance to grab some quick lawyers and litigate their way back into the race.
I’m kinda wondering how this will all turn out for me. Sure, I’ll still continue to ride (matter of factly as I write this I’m recovering from a 40mile early morning jaunt from Marion to Royalton) but my viewing of the sport will change. My pick to win this year was Italian Ivan Basso, who also happens to be my favorite rider (I have white bar tape ‘cause that’s what his team uses) with Floyd Landis coming in a close second. Now, I dunno know. Looks like Floyd may have just gotten my vote and support.

Until we know what really happened-
Say it aint so Basso, say it aint so.