"Ed-D" wrote in message
...
"AMG" wrote in message
...
The French journal Le Monde ran an editorial (July 27) suggesting that
the
TdF may not be free of doping, despite the extensive urine and blood
testing
that is now performed under the direction of the UCI. While not an
accusation, the article notes that the average speed of stage winners
this
year is the fastest on record, even faster than in 1997, the year
preceding
the Festina affair, when EPO use was presumably widespread.

The piece goes on to suggest two possible reasons: (1) Climate
conditions
were ideal this year, and the riders also benefited from tailwinds, or
(2)
New techniques for evading the chemical controls have been put into
play.
The official TdF line is apparently (1). The speeds themselves are not
disputed, since they are essentially a public record.

For perspective, Le Monde is something along the lines of the New York
Times -- a fairly well-respected middle-of-the-political-spectrum
newspaper

actually Le Monde is pretty left wing. So too is the NY Times.

(rather than a tabloid, for example), but not particularly a sports rag.

That is true.

I
don't know its history well enough to know whether it has any axes to
grind
with the TdF.


I don't know about this either but I do know that Le Monde has numerous
axes
to grind with the U.S. government, U.S. private sector companies, and
Americans in general. If I'm not mistaken, they were one of the main
forces
behind some of the allegations surrounding Lance Armstrong.


Of course, Le Monde must be left-wing or anti-American or both, because it
cant be true what it's writing. Sure, there are doping products that cannot
be detected, but it's impossible to imagine that professional riders would
use it. They all dead against it (except Pantani and Rumsas of course). It's
just a coïncidence that two years ago the police discovered that 37 riders
were in possession of illicit drugs and that none of them had tested
positive. And what about that average speed? Must have been the heat. It's
true that before the Tour of 1999 Leblanc was expecting that now that the
riders were "clean" that the average speed would drop from 39,98 to 37, and
that it rose to 40,276 instead, but what knows Leblanc about racing?
Besides, although he is politically a right-winger, he's French, so he can't
be trusted anyway.

Benjo Maso