Call to boycott Tour de France!!!!!!

Also in 2001 Marco Pantani is not found with any PED's in his possesion. He is accused of using a siringe that was found in a room in which there is no proof or witnesses to show he had ever been into, and from a hotel that he had left over a day earlier. No DNA tests were ever run on the siringe, what does your logic tell you about the credibility of these accusations?
I don't think you believe everything printed by the media is truth. It is hard to imagine the a popular national hero, could suffer such injustices in his own country. But this is exactly what happened.

 

I admired Pantani pirata, myself.
But:
1) When you're losing blood or get a transfusion because of an operation is because the hematocrit is very low. That means that he had 60% right after the accident just before he got operated. That's why we had all the fuss.
2) For the Giro 2001 incident he was found guilty, it's not what the papers write, it's what the court's saying.

 

Certainly you are right about loss of blood, there should be a drop in hematocrit. I have missunderstood text that i had read some time ago. His defenders had referred to internal hematoma or plasma loss as a possible explanation for high hematocrit and hemaglobin values along with dehydration. He was given fluids which brought values back to normal as I understand it. The transfusions with blood were for post operative anemia condition,if I have translated correctly. My point is that it can not be declared with certainty that those hospital readings are an absolute indication of assumed epo. Though that is what the mainstream media would fill the papers with. What is more, Guariniello the original prosecutor in Torino, requested as part of the autopsy an analysis of the condition of Pantani's bone marrow for the sole purpose of verifying what they had been saying for 4 years, that he had abused epo. The doctor performing the autopsy however, declared that the bone marrow was completely sound. Adding in fact "With all that has been said about him over the years, I expected to see signs, which are inevitable for people who have used epo. Instead it is completely integral. Pantani therefore could not have used epo in any significant amount or for any significant period of time." This interview was only televised and appeared in small distribution papers. The major papers print nothing. Three days later a modified statement is published in the major papers, without the interview, that the doctor says that certainly Pantani in the last period of his life did not use epo.
With respect for your point 2) , it is true he was initially condemned to 3 months suspension, but this was on appeal thrown out of court for the reasons I have mentioned earlier, no proof siringe belonged to him. This chastisement caused him to enter the 2003 giro with only a couple of races of preparation.

 

I guess the idea of boycotting France was a joke too, until the riots this week.
Certainly not a great way to inspire tourist trade.
Wow, imagine if things broke out on Alpe d'Huez!!
the ratio would be like 10,000 drunk idiots to each gendarme.

 

I don't think that cycling is too popular between African immigrants in France. They're more keen on football. You know: Zidane, Govou, Gallas, Vieira, Thuram etc.

 

I don't suppose any of the many race riots that have scarred America over the years did much for the tourist trade - good grief, what a ridiculous comment.

 

too right. The hypocrisy is amusing.

 

Sadly I think you're right - the TdF is now the only race on the calandar for the main stream media and is sadly becoming so for sponsors. Unless a team can get a TdF ride sponsor are questioning weather they should invest in our sport .
Whilst LA's success has inspired many to take up cycling, many to fight even harder against illness - both in themselves major acheivments that should make us all happy. I do fear that his long term legacy could be to promote the TdF above all the other major tours and the other 49 weeks p.a that cycle racing takes place.
The TdF is a major race, but the media focus on LA amazing acheivments could I fear undermine the sport in the long run

 

I suggest we in America boycott their stinking race, stop spending great US dollars in their country, buying their food, making the race more exciting and world wide--let them take it back to a parochial one country event. Lance raised the profile of the race to World Cup soccer level, and this is the thanks he and we as supporters get. They have made hundreds of millions off of him and us. Screw them.

What a truly laughable view - as if the TDF didn't exist before Lancey Boy. Of course, before Lance it was a one country event - remember that French guy LeMond who won it in the eighties?

Why, before the Americans discovered Europe, that didn't exist either!

 

sar·casm - n.
1. A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound.
2. A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.
Witty language used to convey insults or scorn; "he used sarcasm to upset his opponent"; "irony is wasted on the stupid"; "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own" - Johathan Swift

Was this discovery made by South Americans or North Americans ?

Lw

 

Why, the North Americans of course - they Discovery-ed everything and made it what it is today!

 

Well with all the riots over the past two weeks and Chirac looking as paralyzed as Dubya and his FEMA director during the hurricane Katrina, I would guess the tourism for the TdF will be at an all time low and we wont need to try to boycott. Seems France and its progressive police and urban planning policies have taken care of that.

 

You mean the Yankee Doodle Dandy folks and not the Canadians. Gotcha !


~

 

An expert on French society and politics are you? If you think that a couple of weeks of rioting in the high rise cités in Novermber will affect the turn out for the Tour then you're clearly not.
The crowds will be out like they are every year. They were out in 1919 and 1947 after slightly bigger upheavals than the current riots.

 

Absolutely

To our American friends who wish to boycott the Tour - go on lads please do-I'm sure your more open-minded compatriots will continue to enjoy Europe as they always have.
If travel is supposed to broaden the mind, from your comments you've been wasting your money- I don't see why you feel the need to inflict yourselves on the Italians though

 

I'll encourage a boycott if it keeps airfares down. Seems I can't get a flight to Europe for under 4 figures until October, and if there's anything more boorish than a hysterical Lance-phobic Frenchman, it's a miserably cold hysterical Lance-phobic Frenchman.