Boonen out of Tour

Tom Boonen, last year's Green Jersey winner in the Tour de France, is the first casualty to a positive test for this year. The Tour, which seems to be plagued by this sort of scandal every year, faces yet another crisis as one of its biggest stars sits out the biggest bike race in the world.

Boonen tested positive for cocaine just days before he rode the Tour of Belgium, where he rode well winning the last stage. There was talk of a possible negotiation between Boonen's Quickstep Team and the powers that govern the Tour but after the hard line the ASO took with the Astana team it was unlikely that this was going to occur. In short, Boonen had to go. But the ASO, the group that runs the Tour, is not considering Boonen a doping cheat saying that it was a different sort of exclusion. But still one of the sports fastest men and biggest draw cards will not be at the start line on the 5th of July and this will open up the race for the green jersey. Boonen was quite brilliant last year and his absence will be missed.

And the talk over the last few days has been quite strange as the cycling public reconcile the fact that at least it was a so called recreational drug rather than a performance enhancing one. For another look at this click here.