Doping scandals turning race into 'Tour de Farce'
Cycling's jewel is losing sponsors
Whirling down the cobblestoned Champs-Elysees, a scandal-thinned field of elite racers will finish the Tour de France in Paris tomorrow as wary sponsors, sports marketing specialists, and advocates of clean competition wonder if the Super Bowl of cycling is dying of doping.
The winner will raise a flute of champagne at the Arc de Triomphe. He then will be tested for performance-enhancing substances, and fans of the "Tour de Farce," as some proud French have taken to calling it, will brace for the possibility that another would-be champion has sullied the 104-year-old spectacle.
The jewel of the multibillion-dollar cycling world can withstand only so much damage. A year after American Floyd Landis faced losing his title for alleged doping, the 2007 Tour leader, Denmark's Michael Rasmussen, was fired Wednesday by his team for allegedly lying to avoid drug tests, and two entire cycling teams withdrew over doping allegations.
The latest scandals thrust the Tour closer to a tipping point in its decades-long history of doping.
"They are at the abyss, and if they are not able to get their act together, it may be too late," said Dr. Gary I. Wadler, a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the Montreal-based organization that monitors the fight against doping in sports, and a former medical adviser to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
The World Anti-Doping Agency, which grew out of a 1998 doping scandal at the Tour, has called on leaders of the international cycling community to attend a summit to address the crisis. Tour officials have vowed to crack down "without mercy" on cheaters.
If Tour officials "don't realize what they've been doing is well short of what is required, then the sport really is in trouble," said Richard W. Pound, the president of the Montreal-based anti-doping agency.
While some cycling enthusiasts decried portrayals of the Tour as rife with cheaters, a number of major sponsors are considering following Boston insurer Liberty Mutual Group in severing ties to the world-renowned race. Liberty Mutual pulled out last year over a doping allegation involving a racer on the team it sponsored.
Other sponsors poised to retreat from the Tour include Adidas AG, T-Mobile International,
"Our clear stance on doping is a company policy," said Adidas spokeswoman Anne Putz. "We are very seriously considering whether to discontinue our sponsorship activities."
The Discovery Channel, which has sponsored a team in the Tour for three years, will not do so next year, though solely for business reasons, a spokeswoman said.
Although a financial crisis could devastate the Tour, the backlash should come as little surprise, according to Stephen A. Greyser, a professor at Harvard Business School who specializes in the business of sports.
"Why would a sponsor want to be associated with a sport whose integrity is compromised?" Greyser said. "This sport has been flawed for many years."
Cyclists have been cheating -- or using artificial means to gain an advantage -- since the early years of the Tour. In 1924, two racers were accused of using cocaine to enhance their performances. In 1967, British cyclist Tommy Simpson died after taking amphetamines. Numerous scandals ensued, including a 1998 embarrassment in which an entire team (sponsored by Festina) was disqualified after authorities discovered large amounts of illegal substances.
Then came the 2007 crisis. Just as officials hoped to recover from last year's Landis affair (still pending appeal), the Tour's 1996 champion, Bjarne Riis of Denmark, confessed in May that he won the race while doping.
"When you look at the history of cycling, you look at the history of doping," Wadler said.
The use of performance-enhancing products and techniques mushroomed for many years as racers vied for supremacy in the 21-day, 2,200-mile odyssey that requires conquering the Alps and Pyrenees. The practice eventually became pervasive, according to Pound.
"Over the past 10 or 12 years, it creeped into the culture that doping was not really cheating," Pound said. "And once you get it in the gene pool, it's hard to get it out. Things start spinning out of control."
The latest scandal unfolded after cycling officials took the unusual step of requiring riders to sign a declaration that doping is "undermining the credibility of my sport and is eroding the trust of the public." The cyclists, including those who were ousted from the Tour this month over doping allegations, agreed to pay a fine equal to their annual salaries if they violated the doping rules.
To many sponsors and anti-doping advocates, the scandals represent further evidence of a sport in turmoil. But a number of amateur cyclists and fans said they were encouraged by the Tour's effort to rid the sport of doping.
The timing of the scandals "is awful, but I'm not disappointed because I think they are starting to change a dangerous culture," said Mike Umbrell of Waltham, an amateur racer and member of the Minuteman Road Club. "It became so ingrained that [doping] wasn't bad that people were dying because of it."
Umbrell continues to follow the event on television (the Versus network) and the ratings have remained steady after dropping more than 50 percent last year largely because of Lance Armstrong's retirement.
Dave Letourneau, an amateur racer who owns Rockland Cycle, said he also continues to watch the Tour, despite his frustration over Rasmussen's ouster for allegedly violating rules before the race. No one has alleged Rasmussen failed a drug test during the Tour but he was dismissed by his team because he gave incorrect information on his whereabouts during training. Athletes are required to be available for drug testing, and if they miss three tests, it is equal to a positive test. Rasmussen has blamed it on paperwork and said he plans to continue his career as a professional cyclist. Landis is appealing his positive drug test and awaiting a ruling. If he loses, he will be stripped of his title.
Removing cyclists over procedural violations rather than failed drug tests "is akin to a witch hunt," Letourneau said.
"It's like two kids in school using their pencils for some Peter Pan swordplay and getting thrown out of school for a knife fight," he said.
Though Letourneau worries about how the sport is governed and whether sponsors will continue to retreat amid "the media frenzy," he said the cycling community remains vibrant and its interest in the Tour strong.
"Amateur riders who dream of one day competing in the Tour, the last thing on their minds is the doping scandal," he said.
