Maple Leaves Over Milan: Nationality in Cycling
A week has passed, and Ryder Hesjedal is firmly ensconced in the record books as the victor of the 95th edition of the Giro d’Italia. As the first Canadian to win a grand tour, Hesjedal created history in Milan last Sunday with his come-from-behind conquest over Joaquim Rodriguez. But while the result is not in question, the aftershocks of the verdict reverberate. Whose victory was this? It wasn't a maple leaf emblazoned on Hesjedal's... Read More
PODCAST: Ryan Braun, Alberto Contador and the State of Drug Testing in Sports
I joined fellow writers Ethan Calof and Jacob Rude for the first edition of a weekly podcast that you will be able to find every week here at Global Turnstile if you miss the live airing at Spreecast. This week we discussed Ryan Braun’s successful appeal of his positive test for synthetic testosterone; Alberto Contador’s retroactive two-year suspension that resulted in the loss of his 2010 Tour de France title and other race victories;... Read More
The Futile Fight Against Doping
What gets lost most in the shuffle when a doping case is ruled upon is not a sense of guilt or innocence, but a better understanding of why athletes have been compelled for over a century to co-opt the best medical technology of the time to improve their performance. The truth, whether fans want to face it or not, is that there is really no “clean” era in any sport. Despite the façade of fair play and gentlemanly amateurism that has... Read More
Contador Case Clouds Cycling’s Comeback
The Tour de France finished this year amidst a lot of excitement. There was the inspirational tale of Cadel Evans’ realization of the long-fought quest to become the first Australian (or citizen of the Southern Hemisphere, for that matter) to emerge victorious in the battle for the yellow jersey. There were the Schleck brothers, Andy and Frank, flanking Evans on the Parisian podium, the first brothers to ever share a top-three finish in the... Read More
2011 Tour de France: Cavendish Pulls Closer to History
After Tyler Farrar cashed in a textbook lead-out from his Garmin-Cervelo teammates to win his first career Tour de France stage on the 4th of July, a lot of the talk centered around Mark Cavendish and how his HTC-Highroad train had faltered in the final kilometers into Redon. Much of the American press focused on Farrar becoming the first American ever to win a stage on Independence Day… but the real story was how a late attack had managed to... Read More
