Doping

Talking about racing, cycling is one other sport which I follow closely, well atleast the Tour de France for sure. This is the flagship race in all of cycling and and a win in this is tour is one, all endurance cyclists would covet. The race goes all over France for a distance of nearly 3500 Kms over the span of 3 weeks, huh.. a gruelling race for sure.

I am sure many of us have heard about Lance Armstrong, he has won the race 7 times, that is an acheivement in itself. But add in a twist that he was suffering from cancer and he fought it and came back to win it 7 times is almost unparallel. It is amazing what a man can do if he has the will. One of the most toughest endurance races and person comes back from cancer to win it 7 times, phew that is something

Last year he retired from the sport, of which he had a strangle hold on for the past 7 years, opening up the field for the other contendors. But this year race started in a very ugly manner, the top 3 contendors all pulled out with less then 24hrs to go for the start. Reason-- all of them were named in a doping scandal in one of the earlier races leading up to Tour De France. Now this made it more interesting as the race was much more open now.

But as the race progress there was lots of leaders as there was no one person who could be named as the winner. But with 3 stages to go Floyd Landis, the leader then and a strong contender, broke down during a mountain stage and lost quite a bit of time. So he was almost ruled out of the race. But he comes back the next day with an amazing stage where he gains most of the lost time. It was a stage win which shall stay as one of most spectacular comebacks. He goes on to win the Tour. His comeback stage was talked about lot and was really appreciated by one and all.

But alas, things had to take a nasty turn, and he was found out have had higher levels of testesterone and both the A and B tests showed him postive for the same on the day of his dramatic stage win.

There we go, doping is back in the game. I am not sure whether he really took performance enhancing drugs, but then the tests talk that way. So most probably he might loose his title. It is sad that when we all like the way he fought back to win the title, it has to be marred by such incidents.

As I had started this article, I had said, what a man can do if he had the will. I guess the same still applies here too. Doping is one thing which has put many an athelete to disgrace. Justin Gatlin, Ben Johnson now Floyd, this is something which I guess we have come to live with. Man in trying to push himself to the top most ladder, sometimes does go over the board and uses unethical means. We see it in all fields of life, be it corporates or sports or wherever.

I guess it is the inate nature of us to be the best of all, makes us do things which we should not be doing. I am sure, it takes a lot of courage for one not to fall in the trap. If at all Floyd was at fault, he must not have had the courage to accept the fact that he had been beaten in the Tour this year. He was one of the hot favourites and he was supposed to excel in that part of the tour where in fact he buckled. That might have been too much for him. So may be he went overboard. Well we will never know until it is proved, but the tests show that way and his team has sacked him.

Another sad incident in realm of sports. I really wished he had won it cleanly as I really liked the way he came back in the Tour.

Opportunity Lost

Continuing to talk about F1, this weekend's race was a complete let down for me. But it was one of the most topsy turvy races I had seen. The race was in Hungary and the championship was hotting up between Micheal Schmuacher and Fernando Alonso, 11 points in favor of Alonso.

Now the drama starts.. Alonso loses his cool in practice and brake tests Dornboos, a Torro Rosso driver and gets a penalty of 2 secs on his qualifying time effectively putting him down in the grid. This was a golden opportunity for Michael to close the gap. But then, to increase the dramatic element of the race, Micheal makes a mistake and overtakes a car during the final practice session minutes before the start of the qualifying and he too is awarded a 2 sec penalty. So it was even-stevens between the 2. But Micheal qualifies better at 11th and Alonso ends up 15th.

Now for the race.. To spice it up, nature throws in its bit too. It is a rainy race day. So anything could happen. The race starts and Micheal though he gains lot of positions in the opening lap, is pathetically slow and starts dropping back. Alonso goes past him. Looks like the bridgestone rain tyres were doing bad this time. His speed upto 4-5 secs off Alonso's. All Bridgestone drivers were dropping down the order.

Then the rains stops, and it starts to dry. Soon Micheal gets faster and faster and starts to close the gap. And lo one more twist, soon after the pitstop, Alonso seems to have a problem and he crashes out. This is it.. this was the first time the Bullet Proof Renault had buckled.. Ferrari and Micheal could stand to gain the most and close the gap tremendously. But then, the script for the race would have been too predictable.. can it be. Ferrari and Micheal make a tactical blunder. The track was drying fast, everybody was switching to dry weather tyres, but Micheal opts to stay with wet tyres hoping to finish the race without losing the track position. That was the serious mistake. He started going slower and slower, and the others with slick started going faster and faster. Guys like Pedro and Nick, closed up on him soon as he was upto 6 secs slower than them. Though he held them for quite some time behind them actually around 6-7 laps, he eventually was overtaken and to add that, Nick and Micheal collide putting Micheal out of the race.

That was very bad planning by Micheal and Ferrari. It was race where they should have tried to get as much points as possible as Alonso had crashed out, but ended up getting only one point due to the disqualification of Robert who finished ahead of Micheal.