For one reason or another I have fallen behind writing up my TDF last year. I had hoped to get it finished before this years tour ended, but now its all over and I have still not managed to catch up.
Still, good news is that I may still be able to finish my TDF blog before the 2006 Tour is finished. This is because, as anyone with any interest in cycling knows, the "winner" Floyd Landis tested positive for testosterone after his famous last climbing stage win. His case is still rumbling its way through some sort of legal black hole.
This somehow neatly bookended the tour as it started with a drugs mess as several of the favourites (plus a few then unknowns) were implicated in what became known as the "Puerto" affair. (strangely for me, because I was on my own tour I was blissfully unaware of all this. I turned up in Strasbourg and the first I knew of the scandal was during the Prologue itself when I had to ask where all the favourites had gone. By a strange coincidence I was also staying at the team hotel of T-Mobile, one of the teams most affected).
Still the 2006 tour itself was relatively free of problems and made a good spectacle. And when it came to an end all and sundry loudly proclaimed that it was time to turn over a new leaf. The various cycling magazines had strong editorials about the evils of drugs and how they would lead campaigns to rid their sport of them.
Sadly this proved not to be the case. The 2007 Tour of France was almost the obverse of the 2006. It could not possibly have started any better. After seemingly months of rain the sun came out and the crowds with it to welcome the Tour to the UK. The prologue and the first stage were grand affairs. The crowds were bigger than in France and at the end of the weekend it felt good to be a cyclist, British and Swiss (yellow jersey being on Fabio Cancellara's shoulders).
Then in the first week Tom Boonen finally won, which is nice because he seems like a nice guy and I have a soft spot for Belgians since my tour. Only downside on this was that Robbie McEwan was obviously a bit out of sorts. Then the climbs started and Michael Rasmussen moved into yellow. This looked like good news. I have always had a soft spot for climbers and the prospect of the tour being won by one made it a lot more interesting.
Sadly that was the high spot. After then it all went horribly, horribly wrong. It started with a trickle but this became a flood. Day after day scandals broke. The tour was ruined as a spectacle. It was no longer possible to believe anything you saw. The winner one day would be gone the next. Entire teams disappeared. Somebody called Contador won on their first tour. It should have been a magical story. But wasn't because this should have been the second tour of the individual concerned. Except he couldnt compete in the 2006 tour because his name was linked to Puerto. So nobody really knows what exactly he won. The Tour? or the competition not to get caught?
Its all left me feeling very depressed. Not about cycling, I really enjoy that. But I won't bother with the pros any more.
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