TOUR DE FARCE

The Tour de France has been a spectacular example of how capitalism ruins everything it touches but this is true of all sport not just cycling. The sports writer Simon Barnes summed it up well when he wrote: "The race lost the favourite, Alexander Vinokourov, to a positive drugs test; the leader, Michael Rasmussen, was kicked out because he lied to his team about his whereabouts during training and there are, inevitably, questions about the winner-by-default, Alberto Contador. ... Put on a good show, make the money, keep the wheels turning that's what really matters. ... Is that relevant to other sports? You bet it is. The Tour de France is in potential terminal decline because serious moral and sporting issues were ignored for the sake of financial expedient. There is not a sport in existence of which this is not true. Take football; awash with money, a substance that in sufficient quantities dehumanises people every bit as much as drugs does. The sport is at present dealing with an obscene affair in which a player is owned - as if he was a racehorse - by a private individual." (Times, 30 July) RD