Any of you shaved-legged types read this article today?
 

"..Since Landis tested positive for synthetic testosterone in July, races have been canceled and teams have folded, both for lack of sponsors; fans have stayed home or switched off their televisions (for one Belgian race this spring, the venerable Tour of Flanders, there was a 77 percent decline in the live audience, according to IFM, a sports research company in Germany); and television networks in the United States and Europe have sharply curtailed their coverage of the sport.

The Championship of Zurich which had endured for nearly a century, was canceled last month by Swiss organizers after doping scandals scared off sponsors. As for the sport’s bottom line, IFM calculates that cycling has plunged as a marketing investment this season.

“In every boardroom, if you talk about sponsorships for any big cycling race, they all discuss the doping problems,” Henri van der Aat, managing director of a sports consulting agency in Amsterdam, told The International Herald Tribune this week."


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/we...ew&oref=slogin

You ask about doping in cycling and have an avatar of Barry Bonds??? Now there's a doper if ever there was one.

Landis killed the sport. Thanks a lot Floyd.

Oh, I guess Farrah, Barbara and I aren't the "shave-legged types" you are referring to.

I'm not judging anyone. Just curious if it's true Floyd has hurt the sport as bad as the article states.

On Bonds - I realize he is a human cocktail of HGH, I enjoy watching him for the entertainment he provides me, nothing more. The fact that he plays for a team of which I'm a lifelong fan doesn't hurt either.

Remember, the Floyd scandal occurred just three weeks after many of the tour's biggest names were forced out of the race under suspicion of doping. Quite frankly, there's hardly anyone left to root for.

Landis is just a small step in the process. Ironically, he may even be an innocent player, although I am not sure about that. As Steel points out, the real problem, especially in Europe, is that most of the big Spanish nd Italian names are linked to Operacion puerta (puerto?). Basso has admitted involvement, Ullrich has tacitly accepted it, and others have been caught or have been damned in it (including Tyler Hamilton, but not Landis, btw). This was preceded by Landis, which was preceded Virenque and Festina, which bracketed Armstrong's amazing run which everyone that eats quiche always knew was drug-fueled. The sport has had a deteriorating image for a long time and only a small percentage if it can be placed at Landis' feet. I think the fact hat he was American had as much to so with his negative impact on the sport as the fact that he is accused of doping.

It is all very sad. No one here has even mentioned the Giro and it is already several stages old. Very, very sad.

This was COL (chuckle out loud) funny for me.

I was just going to ask when you guys start watching the Giro?

http://pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullst...15&status=True

So is it widely excepted within the cycling community that LA was high on more than Sheryl Crow during his run?