Vino tests positive; astana is out
 

I wish this was a joke. THis is hard to take. I love this sport and to see it coninue like this is killing it even for me, let alone more casual fans.

http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news?slug...v=ap&type=lgns

http://www.velonews.com/tour2007/det...s/12910.0.html

In retrospect, this shouldn't be too surprising to anyone. He stunk it up for basically the entire tour up to stage 13. Granted, he had a couple of nasty crashes, but still. I won't be surprised when he comes back positive after stage 15 as well.

Its too bad. He was one of my favorite riders and the guy I picked to win the whole thing. Kloden is an unfortunate casualty here as well. He is one of my other favorite guys to follow and cheer for.

But that is exactly the real damage doen here. Whenever someone pulls out a dramatic perfromance, everyone will automatically think it was drugs. THe sport is slowly dying like a junkie in a crack house.

Same problem boxing had- people don't think the results are legitimate anymore.

Great point, Cali. It's a shame that stuff like this happens in sports.

So are you saying that you disagree with my skepicism of the cleanliness of his stage 15 win? I know you said that cyclists are fastidious, but I smell something dirty here.

Although the more that I think about it, red blood cells usually last in the body for about 2 weeks, iirc. So obviously he will get a positive test on stage 15, as well as stage 14, his real stinker stage as well. I guess I wouldn't be totally surprised if they find something else in his samples of 15.

This is as close to a deathblow as we can get to this year's tour. What a shame.

I thought after the TT, "rasmussen is doping for sure." and as an afterthought, I thought "Vino must be doping too."

I was sort of kidding to myself, but I had suspicions. Hard to believe he could be that stupid.

Astana just agreed to 10 years of sponsorship, and they were talking about Vino being a manager/director.

The story of this years race is the battle between Ras. and Contador. If they both test clean as they battle it out, then it is still a great year.
Although there is a cloud of suspicion over Ras.
But watching Contador attack over and over yesterday stirred something in me. That is what the tour is about.

I think both t-mobile and astana should not be allowed in the tour next year. The management should be punished as well, they are out for a year, no matter what team they are on.

the other riders on the team, should they switch teams, get extra testing and oversight, something akin to probation and having a probation officer.