I have never been a big Tour de France fan. So I am not going to pretend I long for the days of Lance Armstrong and Greg Lemond winning the worlds most prestigious cycling event. I really couldn’t care less. I am a huge sports fan and not just American sports so I feel that I can appreciate all sport, including Cricket and of course the Tour de France. However, the latest “Tour de doping” has just really crushed any mild interest I had in this race whatsoever.

When I hear about the updates of this years Tour de France, much like last year and most of the Lance Armstrong races the prior 7 years…all you hear about is doping. Who got kicked out; who tested positive; who’s using; who’s allegedly clean; and what you are left with is a winner named Alberto Contador that nobody knows in a sport that nobody cares about.

Cycling has really bit itself in the butt this time. Unlike American baseball and other mainstream sports, the people won’t come back to Cycling. What’s happened for 7 straight Armstrong titles with all of the alleged doping violations and then certainly the still pending case from last years winner, Floyd Landis, mixed with this years tarnished race has led me away from the race for good. I know I am not alone.

I never really cared and whatever small interest I gained after Armstrongs fame hit record levels is gone and I will never care again. I hear enough about doping, steroids, performance enhancing drugs, HGH and whatever other crap they can come up with in the sports I actually love to even lend an ear to this Cycling stuff.

You can’t watch the Olympics anymore without someone every Olympiad testing positive for something you’ve never heard of and tarnishing your experience. I can’t go an hour without hearing about steroids in Baseball. The best defensive player in the NFL who went to my University was suspended 4 games last year for steroids and then still made the pro bowl and has specials done about him on ESPN.

When does it end?!?!?!

Well for me, as of today it ends with Cycling. I am done watching and pretending to care, even a little bit. I care about Cycling now as much as I care about other crooked sports like horse racing or boxing-None!

I won’t even get into NFL dog fighting, basketball point shaving or game fixing in the NBA and in Europe but steroids and drugs in sports has driven me crazy for years. In baseball, I can’t take it anymore. I really can’t and I love baseball more than anything. These drugs ruin my ability to genuinely enjoy watching sports anymore. I also can’t stand that everyone has an opinion on them and how the people in the media play god to Hall of Fame candidates like Mark McGwire last year and probably again this year. It’s such a joke.

The way I figure things, if there is smoke, there is fire and most of these guys probably did do something illegal with drugs or whatever. But how do you know who and how can you judge. Do you think that 5 million French people just made those allegations up about Lance Armstrong year after year after year. Probably not but who are we to judge and do we really care anymore. If Arstrong or Landis or this Rasmussen guy who was kicked out this year really are guilty then will it make us sleep better at night knowing this or will it just anger us more.

For me it just makes me mad, I get it enough in baseball. The greatest record in sports is about to go down and behind the scenes is the largest witchunt since the 1600’s. They won’t find anything and are just wasting money and our time but even if they do-then what? Whats it gonna change? How can you prove a timeline and how much it helped?

You can’t and that sucks and these feelings of anger toward everyone in baseball makes me mad on a daily basis and I refuse to subject myself to it for any other sports. For the average sports fan, who may feel obliged to sort of pay attention to the Tour de France, today is a liberating day because it’s the first day of never having to even think about Cycling again and I am personally thrilled.

Sharing is caring!