Doping in the saddle

After Spanish cyclist Manuel Beltran tested positive for a performance-boosting drug at the Tour de France, the Portuguese daily Diário de Notícias bids farewell to fair competition in cycling: "Since the Festina affair - when Richard Virenque's team was disqualified for doping in 1998 - it has become a regular occurrence for the police to raid a hotel between two stages of the race and arrest a cyclist. Although they have only one saddle, the cycles in the Tour have become tandems: the cyclist and the drugs push the pedals together. The Tour de France and cycling in general is a champions' sport in which those who do not dope are like handicapped competitors in an Olympic athletics competition. They take part but can never win. ... People accuse the dopers of killing the athletes, but this is not so bad - after all, suicide is voluntary. The worst thing is that these champions of the laboratory deprive 'clean' cyclists of any chance of becoming champions."

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