By Agence France Presse
Photo: AFP
“The Tour is dead,” commented the French daily Liberation and the German paper Bild on Thursday after the dramatic dropping of yellow jersey Michael Rasmussen from the Tour de France late on Wednesday.
For much of the European press, Rasmussen’s withdrawal by his Rabobank team – followed by his sacking Thursday – was the death knell for the world’s greatest cycling race and posed enormous questions about the future of the sport itself.
The only bright spot for the organizers was that while television audiences sharply declined in Germany — the two public broadcasters took it off the air following the revelation that German rider Patrik Sinkewitz had failed a test prior to the race — the host broadcaster France Television said it was getting record audiences.
However, for the print media it was a sense of doom and gloom as Rasmussen’s departure came a day after pre-race favorite Alexander Vinokourov was found to have been blood doping.
In addition to writing the race’s obituary, Liberation decided not to publish any results from the remaining stages.
“We are not going to publish them simply because the mounting doping scandals have taken away any sporting value from the event and gives no real sense of who is the best rider,” the paper said.
“We will of course publish those medical stories that could still tarnish the race up to the end.”
Bild was unequivocal about what spectators would witness when the remnants of the peloton swings into Paris on Sunday.
“The Tour de France is dead, the arrival in Paris will be like a funeral procession,” commented Bild. “The worldwide audience does not approve and is angry and disappointed with the cycling liars.”
Bild recommended dramatic steps to try and save the sport.
“We have to stop this farce. Nobody wants to see this crooked event. They have to begin from zero in order to save the sport, to present to our children new role models.”
Spanish daily El Pais also put on the black cap, writing, “This is a race that is mortally wounded.”
Italian paper La Repubblica took a different approach, writing, “Cycling is sick, like, for instance, a friend or a relation who is on drugs. That is why it is in need of being kept alive and not allowed to die.”
Belgian nd Dutch ones were universal in their opinion – “The Tour had been decapitated.”
Indeed the English columnist James Lawton, writing in The Independent, used a similar analogy when he addressed the scandal.
“Madame Guillotine should be put back to work. The Tour must be killed off, now and at least for 2008. Only a breath of credibility can bring the hope of a decent resurrection,” he wrote.
The Guardian didn’t spare its feelings for the 104-year-old race either.
“The credibility of the Tour de France was in free fall last night,” the paper wrote. “In any other year, yesterday’s stage (won by Rasmussen) would have been one of the most memorable in the 104-year history of the Tour de France. Not this year, however. This was the worst day of all.”
However, the paper continued, the scandal “might just precipitate the wholesale cleansing of a sport that has spent years wallowing in its own filth.”
And The Guardian suggested a first step, proposing that the organizers might follow the example Rabobank set by expelling its team leader and abandon the race entirely “as a further gesture of intent.”