Confronting the Tour de France’s dirty past

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Props to the folks at Versus for directly confronting the elephant in the room during the network’s ongoing coverage of the 2008 Tour de France.

The elephant, of course, is doping, which for a decade has made the results of the world’s greatest bicycle race less than believable.

Versus came up with a striking promotional spot, ‘A New Stage Begins,’’ in which some of the sport’s most notorious dopers -- Erik Zabel, Alexander Vinokourov, Michael Rasmussen and Jan Ullrich -- are shown riding backward. The defrocked 2006 champion, Floyd Landis, is stripped of the yellow jersey.

As the film rolls in reverse, British singer-songwriter Paul Weller (Jam, Style Council) sings lyrics from his song, ‘Brand New Start’:

Versus marketing vice president Ryan Donovan told me this morning that the point of the spot is to reinforce the network’s role as a voice of authority on a sport in which it is heavily invested.

‘We want to create a dialogue with our viewers and to celebrate clean competition,’’ Donovan said. ‘But you can’t celebrate the guys doing it clean and the hard way without pointing out the guys who didn’t do it the hard way.’’

A considerable shadow of doubt still hangs over cycling -- reinforced by further doping incidents at this year’s Tour of Italy -- and I vowed a year ago not to write about the sport until it could stay straight for two years.

But that has not dissuaded me from observing my July ritual of watching Versus’ coverage of the race, for two reasons:

1.) I am an unabashed Francophile, and the views of the beautiful landscapes the race traverses are eye candy that sets me to dreaming about trips past (and hopefully future) to France.

2) I am ending my first year as a recreational road cyclist (thanks to a 61-year-old Achilles tendon that said ‘no more running’’) who rides with a ‘peleton’’ on weekends, has just endured his first crash and is unabashedly awestruck by the speed and handling skills (doped or not) of professional riders.

Versus recently announced it has acquired rights to the Tour de France through 2013, which provides me several more years of pleasure in what may be illicit entertainment. (Isn’t there an old saying about something being so good it must be illegal?) I may not trust the results, but I cannot beat my habit.

It makes me feel better that Versus wants to let everyone know that the event it is promoting is struggling to beat its habit too.

-- Philip Hersh