>> This goes for every sport. Indeed. One only has to look at the recent rash of doping convinctions in MMA (and convenient short-notice "injuries" before figh

>> This goes for every sport. Indeed. One only has to look at the recent rash of doping convinctions in MMA (and convenient short-notice "injuries" before fights) following introduction of more doping scrutiny as one piece of anecdotal evidence of this. But across sport, it's endemic. Heck, the NFL practically allows doping.[1] And let's not forget baseball.[2] The only reason why certain sports receive more attention than others is due to their prior association with doping, in some weird circular logic. The Tour has Lance, baseball as Rodriguez, MMA has Anderson Silva, and so on. But look at soccer. Strange that there is so little discussion about doping in soccer. And strange there have been so few convinctions for doping in soccer. Similarly rugby. They're not sports traditionally associated with it. But back to the main topic: the Tour. Yes, some performances this year have been dramatic such as Froome's acceleration on that first proper climb. Yes the pace of the tours is still high. It's clear the peloton is not clean, whatever that means and however it breaks down. Lance was just the king rat bully who went so far as to - like you say - "ruined it" for everyone else. But I'm always very sceptical of armchair power analysis as evidence of doping, no matter how interesting it is. We need more stringent independent testing - IF we want the sport to be clean, which is a different matter entirely. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/sports/27iht-nfl.1.9522468.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/sports/27iht-nfl.1.9522468... [2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23578738 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23578738