Now that the Tour de France is finished I'm ready to discuss (sport) politics.

Tunesmith, you may be right but who cares? The winner only can be the best of those who have competed. Perhaps, if a small French boy would not have died in an accident 24 years ago, Lance might not have won...As I said who cares. With you definition of international no single sport can be termed international for there are always differences in local interest who shape the interests of the young boys and girls which sport to choose or not.

Greg, the idea was not to replace the word 'France' by 'freedom' but the word 'French'. That's why your example doesn't fit. But I agree that the replacement is completely silly and pointless.

Ard, with extremely few exemptions all world class accomplishments in whatever sport are not healthy anymore. Way back in the old times, Tour de France cyclists have taken arsenic in unhealthy doses and all that. I doubt that for instance GAA sports are completely clean in that respect.

Same as I admire for instance circus artists and forget for the moment of admiration how awful and unhealthy the training might be I admire the cyclists and forget about the other aspects as long as they compete. But I am for controls for I do not want someone to win only by superior methods of cheating.

From what I know, the coutries which did (and do) use cheating by doping on a fairly general level these were (and are) predominantly countries from the so called socialist world. We now know fairly well how such a small country as the GDR did excell in Olympic sports. And the pattern of records and sudden breakdowns of Chinese athletes speaks volumes.

Wolfgang