Is anyone else watching the Tour?
- Thread starter BJ
- Start date
Indeed it has.
I'm still troubled by the spectre of performance - unbelievable performance. Not just the top GC guys but the super domestiques who seem to be able to drag the team leaders through entire stages on demand and come back and do it again, on call, day after day. Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas, their performances seem unreal.
Maybe everyone's clean, but as long as Contador, Giro d'Italia winner, is in contention in this years tour, I don't buy it.
Too bad BMC can't offer Tejay more support. I'm still rooting for him.
I'm still troubled by the spectre of performance - unbelievable performance. Not just the top GC guys but the super domestiques who seem to be able to drag the team leaders through entire stages on demand and come back and do it again, on call, day after day. Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas, their performances seem unreal.
Maybe everyone's clean, but as long as Contador, Giro d'Italia winner, is in contention in this years tour, I don't buy it.
Too bad BMC can't offer Tejay more support. I'm still rooting for him.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
My brother, who's an amateur cyclist, tells me that given expectations of professional performance and the reality of human abilities, it's virtually certain that all leading cyclists dope, as certain as it was to anyone who cared to see that people who entered baseball stick thin who would in their late thirties, looking like body builders, be hitting 50-70 home runs a season weren't just working out. These things don't come out of nowhere. You'll know cycling is clean when you see performance dropping from the levels it achieved.
I used to be pretty sanguine about this but I was recently in the Pyranees with a friend who is an avid amateur cyclist who made some very salient points. The whole sanctity of the sport nonsense just pisses me off because it isn't even remotely true fro cycling or any sport, really. We always focus on whether the top cyclists are doping and I honestly don't care that much, if everyone is doing it then it's not a competitive advantage. However, as my friend pointed out, there are very real health risks associated with doping and it can lead to the death of marginal or young cyclists who are trying to break into the sport but don't have large and sophisticated teams behind them. I'm not sure where I am now, but that was certainly a new perspective for me (although maybe I should have).
I haven't been watching this years tour, but I've heard it's been good.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
I didn't mean to sound sanguine. Although I agree that if everybody dopes, then, as far as the sport goes, it's not different from everybody having access to a certain level of equipment, I also agree that the effective necessity of doping is a health risk to athletes that it would be much better to avoid.
The only difference, for me, and it was not anywhere in the above message, is that I don't think the blame for doping should be placed on the athletes. If the expectations of the sport necessitate it, you have to ask where the expectations come from. When Barry Bonds looked at Mark McGwire, an athlete altogether inferior to him, being adulated because he took steroids and hit homeruns (and Bonds is quoted to this effect), the conclusion seemed no doubt clear. If there is blame for him reaching that conclusion, it should be placed where it belongs, on the fans and sportswriters doing the adulating and not caring about what was in front of their eyes (and indeed known to the extent that androstenedione was seen in McGwire's locker and people just decided not to pay attention--yes it was not illegal then, but it was a known steriod). I think much the same can be said of biking. If we want athletes to stop doping, in addition to all testing, we need to be skeptical instead of adulatory at certain levels of achievement, as mean-spirited as that may sound.
The only difference, for me, and it was not anywhere in the above message, is that I don't think the blame for doping should be placed on the athletes. If the expectations of the sport necessitate it, you have to ask where the expectations come from. When Barry Bonds looked at Mark McGwire, an athlete altogether inferior to him, being adulated because he took steroids and hit homeruns (and Bonds is quoted to this effect), the conclusion seemed no doubt clear. If there is blame for him reaching that conclusion, it should be placed where it belongs, on the fans and sportswriters doing the adulating and not caring about what was in front of their eyes (and indeed known to the extent that androstenedione was seen in McGwire's locker and people just decided not to pay attention--yes it was not illegal then, but it was a known steriod). I think much the same can be said of biking. If we want athletes to stop doping, in addition to all testing, we need to be skeptical instead of adulatory at certain levels of achievement, as mean-spirited as that may sound.
Peter Creasey
Peter Creasey
At least, golf can be expected to be mostly clean. (Hopefully???)
. . . . Pete
. . . . Pete
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
I'm not saying to avoid watching it, though that would work too. It should be easy to tell that I'm a fairly rabid baseball fan. As in all cases where numbers are too large for you to really affect something, you have to be satisfied to do your little bit. When you hear people talking about how evil or egotistic ALex Rodriguez or Barry Bonds is, you might do your part by responding about how sportswriters only recognized the talent that the steroids produced rather than what was there in the first place, how stupidly insistent they are on stories about athletes as heroies and villains, how salaries and fan reception told them they were doing the right thing and how, in addition to testing, that might change would be to change our attitudes toward what performance is.
Simon Geschke, first hipster stage winner of the Tour de France!
Sadly, Tejay Van Garderen has had to drop out due to illness.
On the subject of doping, The Secret Race, by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle, is a very engaging read of the doping in cycling during the Lance Armstrong years, include Alberto Contador during that time. The big takeaway from that book, and as touched on above, is that the riders, and it might as well be all athletes, are guinea pigs in this still clandestine effort. Everyone might be using, but it is anything but safe and/or controlled. It is far from a level playing field.
On the subject of doping, The Secret Race, by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle, is a very engaging read of the doping in cycling during the Lance Armstrong years, include Alberto Contador during that time. The big takeaway from that book, and as touched on above, is that the riders, and it might as well be all athletes, are guinea pigs in this still clandestine effort. Everyone might be using, but it is anything but safe and/or controlled. It is far from a level playing field.
I watch the UK version - EuroSport. Just keep trying the links until you get one that plays.
The commentators may not be Sherwin and Liggett, but they are pretty good. After the race they have a wrap up with Greg Lemond
I do watch the NBC evening coverage too but the number of commercial breaks is fatiguing.
The commentators may not be Sherwin and Liggett, but they are pretty good. After the race they have a wrap up with Greg Lemond
I do watch the NBC evening coverage too but the number of commercial breaks is fatiguing.
NBC sports e cast all the stages in their entirety, and then you can watch whole replays (almost - they cut out the first half hour or so unless something interesting happens). We just skip through it and focus on what we like. Phil and Paul are really great commentators. $30 for the whole Tour and totally worth it. Zero commercials.