3D map from Google Earth and Le Tour de France

Tour of the crazy! That is what the French called the 93rd edition of their most cherished sporting event and what is regarded as the most grueling professional sports competition. By now, the Tour de France needs no introduction because of what has been happening for the last seven years, during which a certain Texan has laid exclusive claim to its most priced trophy, the Maillot Jeune.

This year, another American, Floyd Landis won top honors or as it remains to be seen, top dishonor! But more about that later, let's first talk about what has made this year's Tour de France probably the craziest ever. For starters, there were all the non-starters. On the eve of the Prologue, the top two favorites were disqualified, casualties of the Spanish police investigation better known as "Operacion Puerto." Both Jan Ulrich and Ivan Basso were not permitted to start the race because of their connections with a Dr. Fuentes who apparently ran a blood doping lab serving some of best known names in the peloton. That is a shame because Jan Ulrich was the sentimental favorite to win this race after first winning it back in 1997 and promising a lasting winning legacy. Alas, those plans were derailed in 1998 by Marco Pantani and for the next seven years by Lance Armstrong. Here was Jan's chance to possibly finish his career with a win that would have proved he was always second best. It was a double shame because Ivan Basso was my favorite to win this year. Last year, he had shown that only Lance was a better rider. This year he had already won the Maglia Rosa and was poised to win both "Il Giro d'Italia" (Tour of Italy) and the Tour de France in the same year, a feat that Lance never accomplished and has not been repeated since Marco Pantani did it in 1998.

Another great rider, Alexander Vinokourov was not implicated in the Operacion Puerto affair but five of his Astana teammates were, leaving him unqualified to start without a team. I like Vino because he has always been a gutsy rider. He made last year's Tour a lot of fun to watch by attacking in the most crucial stages and unexpected places, even getting a win on the last stage usually reserved for the sprinters. Quite a number of Spanish riders were implicated in Operacion Puerto. Among them was Francisco Mancebo who still had a bright career ahead of him but decided to retire after learning of his implication in the affair. There was also Joseba Beloki who I was hoping would return to prominence after that disastrous accident in the 2003 Tour de France where he had been second to Lance; He has never shown that form again. Another Spanish rider, which I have been following for years, is also implicated in Operacion Puerto and doubly so since he was Jan's teammate; "El Niño" Oscar Sevilla is one of many promising Spanish riders who cannot seem to rise anywhere close to the mystique of the great Miguel Indurain.

So what about the prospects for American riders? I have to admit that I had no interest in watching George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer and Floyd Landis line up for the start of this Tour. All these guys had the aspiration to win but let's face it the most interesting part of their careers seems to be that at some point they were Lance's domestique. A couple of other American riders, like David Zabriskie and Bobby Julich have lots more charisma than the three American favorites to replace Lance. Though they cannot be considered for the General Classification, they are always fun to watch because of their exploits. Zabriskie is a talented young time-trialist, who set the fastest time ever for a Tour time-trial in stage 1 of the 2005 Tour de France. Julich has been around forever and can always be counted to come out of nowhere and win a stage of one of the Tours. Unfortunately, this year Julich crashed out in stage 7. Zabriskie's time trial results were not what was expected and he was eclipsed as was the rest of the peloton by Serhiy Honchar, a relatively old rider with an ugly mashing style and beatifully fast times. He won both time-trails stages this year, becoming the first ever Ukrainian rider to win a stage and wear the yellow jersey at the Tour. To add the the weirdness of this year's Tour, Yaroslav Popovych, the youngster in the Discovery Team, considered to be Lance's true heir is also an Ukrainian and became the second Ukrainian to ever win a stage after his great performance in stage 12.

So what else made this year's Tour a crazy, weird one? There was Hincapie's cheeky exploit on stage 1 that got him the yellow jersey for the first time. He was paying attention and picked a few extra seconds in one of the intermediate sprints. It was enough to put him in yellow at the end of the day. Unfortunately, it seems like Hincapie lost all focus after that and was not able to shine for the rest of the Tour. Alejandro Valverde a talented Spanish rider who has been on fire throughout the year and was considered one the favorites for GC, crashed out in stage 3. Another Spaniard, Iban Mayo, who was expected to excel in the mountains, disintegrated in the first Pyrenean stage and abandoned the Tour. Landis grabbed the yellow jersey on that same stage and seemed poised to be in yellow all the way to Paris. In stage 13, Oscar Pereiro who was almost half an hour behind in GC was part of a break away that made enough time on the peloton and Landis giving Pereiro the yellow jersey and setting up a few interesting last days for the Tour. There was even a Frenchman, Cyril Dessel in stage 10, wearing the yellow jersey!

Landis got back the yellow jersey on stage 15 after edging Pereiro by 10 seconds on l'Alpe d'Huez. Things were starting to look good for Landis; Tour de France lore (and statistics) has it that whoever has the yellow jersey by this fabled mountain stage goes on to win the Tour in the Champs Elysées. This was also the point when I started to like Landis. I had been part of the crowd questioning Landis as Tour de France champ. The French did not like his uninspired performance to the extent of making fun of him in the press in a mousy caricature. I changed my mind for two reasons: First, he battled it out against Pereiro on the l'Alpe d'Huez, made up a deficit of 1:29 minutes and conservatively but surely claimed his prize. Second, a friend gave me an ESPN Magazine that had an extensive article about Floyd Landis. From that article, I learned things that changed my mind about Landis. I learned that he had been a gifted Mountain Biker in his youth and won the 1993 Junior National Championship. I learned about his strict Mennonite religious upbringing and his youthful rebellion against that upbringing. I learned about his early cycling years and I specially liked learning about his character and work ethics that were a product of that upbringing he rebelled against and put him on an inspired path to become a Tour de France champion.

On stage 16 things went really crazy! Landis cracked, lost more than eight minutes to Pereiro and fell to 11th place in the GC. It was painful to see Landis loosing time while everyone in the peloton seemed to be passing him effortlessly on the climb to La Toussuire. But there was something I liked about his stoic demeanor. He did not make excuses at the end of the stage. He obviously bonked but you did not see him giving excuses to the press. Instead he got himself a beer, thought things over and prepared for the next day. The option of abandoning the race was never considered as would probably have happened with other prima-donnas of the sport. It had to be difficult when he had been virtually eliminated from the GC and he still was expected to show up the next day for another tough Alpine stage.

Stage 17 of this year's Tour was tough. Take a good look at the map I include for this article: The snow capped mountains are the Alps and the zig-zag yellow line on the left side is the border between the countries of Italy, Switzerland and France. The blue sea on the horizon, at the top, is the Mediterranean sea and down its coast on the upper right is Spain. "Genève" in the lower-right side is the great Swiss city of Geneva. Paris is barely off the middle-right side off the map. The green line is the course for stage 17 between Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and Morzine, a distance of 125 miles (200 km) of Alpine terrain. Look at the monumental proportions of stage 17 as it relates to the size of France and its neighboring countries. Lance called stage 16 of the 2000 Tour on a similar course from Courchevel to Morzine "..the hardest day of my life on the bike..." This was the stage that Landis chose to show us what kind of a Tour de France champion he wanted to be. And show us he did! He lead the stage from virtually the start to the end, riding on his own on an epic break away with no help from teammates or other riders. The peloton let him go because they thought his effort was suicidal and because he was now in 11th place more than 8 minutes back from the yellow jersey. He made up most of those 8 minutes and at one point he was the race leader on the road. He ended the stage in third place in GC, well positioned to regain the jersey back from Pereiro after the final time-trail in stage 19. He did win back the yellow jersey and wore into the Champs Elysées on the next day and final stage 20.

Landis' heroic win in stage 17 made him an instant celebrity. The French press who had depicted him as a timid mouse now called him the lion that roared. They compared his ride to the great historical Tour de France exploits of all times. He was placed in the same pantheon of great heroes of times past as Charly Gaul, Bernard Hinault and the greatest of all times and personal hero: Eddy Merckx Interestingly enough, Eddy's son, Axel Merckx is Landis' Phonak teammate and he helped pace Landis during his bad spell on stage 16. Reportedly, cagey Eddy understood the greatness of Landis and placed a $100, 75 to 1 bet on Landis to win stage 17. The American press was no less flamboyant in their report of Landis win in stage 17 calling it the "...greatest single-stage performance ever...topping LeMond and Lance..."

How could this Tour be any crazier? I knew how crazy it could get the minute I read the cryptic news about one case of an "adverse analytical finding" at the 2006 Tour de France. Landis had not been named yet but I understood that he would be one of the most tested cyclist in the peloton because of the testing protocols for stage winner and leaders of the GC. Weeks have gone by since the end of the Tour and I have kept up with the developments of the Floyd Landis case. I have considered almost every argument from both points of view:

• Why would Landis be so stupid and take testosterone when he knew he was going to be tested at the end of the stage? He accidentally injected himself with what he thought would be another non-detectable performance enhancing drug!
• Why didn't all the other tests come back positive? He only used drugs in stage 17 in a desperate attempts regain the yellow jersey which accounts for his extraordinary performance! There have been many instances of riders recuperating from a bonk to come back and win subsequent stages. The fact that Landis won stage 17 after his awful performance on stage 16 does not prove drug use. Landis is a highly trained athlete who was in top form for this year's Tour. He performed poorly on stage 16 because he forgot to intake enough fluids and food, not because he is a poor rider incapable of the extraordinary performance on stage 17.
• Why did he make up all those excuses about the cause for the elevated reading and the testosterone being natural? All athletes have a life-long profile of testing and when they have a natural occurring anomaly, it is well known and documented. Landis samples were also proved to contain testosterone from synthetic sources. On the other hand, if Landis is telling the truth he must be baffled as to the source of the positive tests and any explanation with a scientific background must be considered.
• Is there a conspiracy from the French lab conducting the tests? After all, they leaked the results in an improper manner! And aren't these the same folks who unethically resurrected some old samples from the 1999 Tour, supposedly belonging to Lance Armstrong and then leaked to the French Press that the samples showed traces of EPO? Isn't the French press who reported all of this related to the lab conducting the tests and also related to the organizers of the Tour de France? I'm tired of conspiracy theories but chauvinism is a French word!

Floyd Landis is on the verge of becoming the first ever winner of the Tour de France to be stripped of his title. As he gets ready for what will be a long legal battle, time and public opinion are not on his side. Only something crazier than this Tour will completely prove or disprove his innocence (His confession or revelations of a conspiracy) In either case, I believe this challenge will ultimately determine what type of champion Landis really is. As for my personal sentiments, the guy says he did not take any banned drugs and that he won the Tour because he was the best rider. I am still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. However, as a German sports doctor told the press, testosterone can be used for a quick recovery; All a rider has to do is to apply a patch to his scrotum for a few hours. If that is what Landis did then the patch must have been huge because without question, he has some big cojones!

Labels: cycling, sport