Racers sound off on state of sport

Every year, doping questions about the top cyclists dog the Tour de France, and this year has been no exception.Tour leader Michael Rasmussen raised eyebrows by skipping drug controls before the start of the race. On Tuesday, fan favorite Alexandre Vinokourov failed his drug test. Those come on the heels of Floyd Landis failing his drug test last year. There were always questions nipping at the heels of seven-time winner Lance Armstrong.Riders in the International Tour de ’Toona said Wednesday that the doping scandals are giving the sport a bad name.“In one light, it’s really good,” said Navigators Insurance’s Darren Lill. “Hopefully, it’s a step in the right direction to cleaning up the sport. But in the process, it’s bad publicity for the sport. Hopefully, in the long run, they really do clean things up and have a cleaner sport.’’‘‘They’re trying to clean it up,’’ said first-year Tour rider Jesse Moore, ‘‘and all those riders know that we’re trying to clean it up, and they’re still going ahead and doing it. They know the sport’s in danger, and the sponsorship is starting to run for the hills. It’s just bad business, really.’’Lill, who has raced against some of the guys who have been caught, says some riders think the risks to cheating are worth it.‘‘I think a lot of guys lose sight of why they got into the sport for in the first place,’’ he said. ‘‘It becomes more about the money and about the pressures of pro sports. It’s not just in cycling. It’s in most pro sports, I think, at a top level.’’‘‘I missed the split [between the pack of racers] by about 20 seconds,’’ Moore said. ‘‘If I take drugs, I’m going to make a living doing what I love to do. I’m not making a living doing what I love to do right now. If you’re 24-25 years old and you can see a paycheck, there’s a huge temptation to try that.’’Lill, a South African, says there should be more testing in the U.S.‘‘They don’t seem to do much testing at all, and I think they need to,’’ he said. ‘‘Even in the big races in California and Georgia, they have urine tests after the race, but they never have blood tests in the morning like they do in Europe.’’‘‘I’d love for there to be more testing,’’ Moore said. ‘‘I’d love for these races to knock a thousand or two thousand off of the prize money and just test harder. It would be nice to know that everything is clean.’’While some of the men are failing those tests, women don’t seem to get caught up in the doping scandal. Tour de ’Toona Stage 3 winner Kori Seehafer says it’s all about finances.‘‘In women’s racing, they don’t get paid hardly anything,’’ she said. ‘‘I don’t really see it being a problem on our end as much. It’s more where there’s a huge financial gain for it, and you see the issues. When you look at the Tour [de France], the distances and everything are so crazy that the events are almost encouraging some of it.‘‘I think a lot of sports have doping. In cycling, they’re cracking down, and you might not see it in baseball or football because they have unions that protect them from releasing it to the public.’’Waiting patientlyMoore is riding in his first International Tour de ’Toona. The California native sees the patience of the local drivers as a distinct difference in Eastern and Western races. ‘‘In some of the races out West, people throw tacks on the road,’’ Moore said, ‘‘because they don’t want to get held up for 10 minutes. Out here, you guys close the road down and you see cars backed up forever.’’