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You reckon AFL and League have issues
I hope Cadel gets up and beats the rest, would be a "win for the good guys".
Cadel claims 'Mr Clean' tag
By Amanda Lulham
July 27, 2007
THOSE people closest to cyclist Cadel Evans - his mum, former coach and international rivals - believe his possible Tour de France win will represent a victory for a good guy and a defeat for doping.
Evans's proud mum, Helen Cox, said her 30-year-old son was "too honest" to cheat.
"He has always been very against it," Cox, who has been sending text messages of support to her son throughout the Tour, said.
"To be on the podium or to win is incredible. But just to finish it is incredible too."
Damian Grundy, who coached the former mountain bike rider from the age of 14, said his former charge was a "freak" physically.
"He turns himself inside out to do what he does," Grundy said, dubbing Evans "Mr Clean".
"He is a genetically gifted athlete.
"If Cadel wins, it is a win for him and a win in the fight against drugs."
And in a major show of support for the Australian, now sitting second overall, Belgian sprinter Tom Boonen said that Evans, of the favourites left in the race, was one of the riders he still trusted.
"I have given up my belief in most of the rest," the man on course to win the green sprinters' jersey said.
"It is possible to ride the Tour without doping. And to ride and win, too. And Cadel Evans proves in my eyes that you could win it without doping."
Should Evans win the Tour, however, his victory will be overshadowed by the scandals that have rocked the race this year.
In a drama-packed 24 hours, Kazakhstan star Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive to blood doping; Tour leader Michael Rasmussen was pulled from the race; Cristian Moreni tested positive, prompting his Cofidis team to withdraw and then to sack the Italian rider; fed-up riders staged a sit-in against doping; and a senior International Olympic Committee member from Europe said that cycling risked being ejected from the Games because of the consistent spate of drug scandals.
Yesterday, International Cycling Union (UCI) chief Pat McQuaid applauded Rabobank's decision to pull Rasmussen from the race after the Dane admitted missing four random doping tests in the run-up to the event.
The breaking point for Rabobank, who had previously backed its rider, came when it learned that he had been in Italy in June - not in Mexico, where he sometimes lives with his Mexican wife, as he had claimed.
Prior to Rasmussen being ejected, Evans was asked how he would feel if he finished second to the Dane, given the cloud over Rasmussen's participation in the race.
"I don't know if 'disappointed' would be quite the word for it," Evans said.
"I'm sure I've been beaten by cheats before - I know I have - and I'm sure I'll be beaten by cheats in the future.
"So I just go and do the best Tour I can and people who believe in me and people who know me respect me for that.
"Otherwise (I think), 'Oh well, I did my best' and my conscience, I'm very happy with that.
"I just race my bike and do the best I can."
Evans said that cynics were wrong to claim the sport was full of cheats.
"Cycling, despite what the media report, hasn't had that much of a drug problem in the last nine years," he said.
"But because we're so tightly controlled and they find all the cheats, or most of them anyway, that gets a little bit blown out of proportion by the media actually.
"In the case of Rasmussen ... he doesn't have much credibility among any of his colleagues. I'll say that much at least."
Yesterday, Cycling Australia chief executive Graham Fredericks applauded Rabobank's decision while maintaining that cycling would survive the current crisis.
And he added that an Evans victory - or even a podium position - would be great for Australian cycling.
"I think Cadel is seen as clean and I believe he is clean," he said.
Barring a major mishap over the remaining four stages, Evans is on track to record Australia's first podium finish - at the very least.
The Predictor Lotto rider is now second, 1min 53sec behind new Tour leader Alberto Contador from Spain after Rasmussen's ejection.
"We'll see, I'm just going to go and do whatever I can on the time trial and see what becomes of it," Evans said.
'Red flag' on Evans' rival
From correspondents in New York
July 27, 2007
THREE-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond said today (AEST) it is unfair to brand Denmark's Michael Rasmussen (Rabobank) a cheat without looking at those around him.
And he warned there is a "red flag" on the new man in the yellow jersey, Spain's Alberto Contador (Discovery Channel), who stands between Cadel Evans and an historic Australia victory in Paris on Monday (AEST).
Indeed LeMond believes there should be no champion in this year's race.
In a dramatic few days on the crisis-hit race, long-time leader Rasmussen was sensationally turfed out by his own Rabobank team.
France's No.1 team, Cofidis, pulled out after it was revealed that Italy's Cristian Moreni had tested positive for testosterone, while Astana has also quit following favourite Alexandre Vinokourov's dope test failure.
LeMond said: "If Rasmussen got caught, and if you want to be equal, you have to implicate other riders, too.
"You have a lot of riders against whom there's a lot of evidence and relations to certain doctors. Those riders are getting away with it. "Alberto Contador and Rasmussen are at 60kgs each and both are climbing as fast as Pantani did. That's a red flag right there," he said in a reference to the late Italian Marco Pantani, a superb climber who won both the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia in 1998.
"Contador has been involved in 'Operation Puerto'," he added, citing the doping scandal that rocked Spain.
"I'm not pointing fingers at Contador. I'm just saying that if you point fingers at Rasmussen, you have to look at the riders next to him."
LeMond said he thinks the Tour de France would be better served if it didn't name a champion this year.
"I would prefer to see a non-Tour de France winner," he said.
"It's more symbolic."
However, he said the opinions sprouting around Europe, that the latest scandals will spell the end of the Tour, are wrong, although he does believe the reputation of cycling as a competitive sport is in jeopardy.
"The Tour will survive. The Tour is an event. It has a glorious past. It has a history. The Tour will never go away. During three weeks, riders become actors. Actors with a story to tell. If you remove those actors, and replace them, you'll still have the drama and the flavor the Tour brings.
"What I'm pessimistic about is the credibility of cycling as a whole," added LeMond
"Each time we thought things are looking better, then we take a dive."
LeMond said the positive tests only reveal the tip of the iceberg, that drug cheats still abound in the peloton and riders are under pressure to keep quiet about it.
"There's a strong omerta," he said. "But it's changing."
The doping control system needs to improve to hasten progress, he said.
"There's too many loopholes," said LeMond. "For instance, none of the riders are tested before the start of the race. The only tests occur early in the morning, which means they can pretty much do anything they want before the start."
He called for a body independent of Tour officials and the International Cycling Union to take over, with funding by the government and more punitive measures for those caught cheating.
Agence France-Presse
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