One could hardly blame Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme if he were rooting for race leader Michael Rasmussen of Denmark to have a very bad day in Wednesday's stage in the Pyrenees Mountains.
In his race leader's yellow jersey, the 33-year-old Dane is far too visible to be ignored, and his visibility inevitably inspires thoughts of cheating and doping, the devils that have plagued the world's most prestigious cycling event for several years.
Not that Rasmussen has ever been found to have used a banned substance. It is simply that he was kicked off the Danish national cycling team for having missed two doping tests before the Tour started.
Tour organizers suggested that the Dane would not have been allowed to start the Tour if the Danish Cycling Federation had notified them before the Tour started.
"If we had been informed before the start, there wouldn't be this situation," said Patrice Clerc, the head of the Amaury Sport Organization (ASO), which runs the race.
"This situation" is simply that a man strongly suspected of cheating is now the favourite to win the Tour title. If that happens, it would make this year's edition the 12th consecutive Tour de France with a tainted champion.
The 1996 winner, fellow Dane Bjarne Riis, has admitted doping to win the race. The following year's winner, Jan Ullrich of Germany, has been linked to a Spanish blood doping scandal and was kicked off last year's race. Italian Marco Pantani, who won the 1998 Tour, was eventually caught doping and died of a cocaine overdose.
Lance Armstrong, who won seven consecutive Tour titles between 1999 and 2005, has been accused of doping by several people and a number of books - although he has never been found to have doped. And last year's winner, Floyd Landis, tested positive for synthetic testosterone during a Tour stage and is currently fighting to keep the title.
If Rasmussen raises his arms in triumph on July 29 on the Champs Elysees in Paris, at the Tour's end, it could turn be a very costly victory for the Tour.
In addition to his missing two doping tests (because of an "administrative error," he said), Rasmussen has been accused, by an American mountain bike rider named Whitney Richards, of trying to dupe him into transporting a human blood substitute to Europe in 2002. Rasmussen said he could not "confirm" the statement, which was made on the Internet site Velo-News.
The controversy followed the revelation that German rider Patrik Sinkewitz had tested positive for an illegally high level of testosterone before the Tour started.
meant to ping you to #27 also.
Seems like the thing’s imploding. As others have said, the stupidity is staggering. The whole entire thing has been an utter waste of our time...other than entertainment value, I suppose. It’s like watching Paris and Lindsay and Britney and Nicole. Who’s taking drugs now, and getting caught? Oh, Vinokourov. pfft.