MICHAEL ROSENBERG: Steroids news cycle keeps spinning

July 30, 2006

What? You mean the winner of the Tour de France -- a guy who came out of nowhere to stun the field -- is being accused of doping?

What's next? Will somebody tell us figure-skating judges haven't always been on the up-and-up?

Floyd Landis tested for unusually high levels of testosterone. He is awaiting his next test. And maybe he's innocent and this is all a terrible misunderstanding, like the time I reached for an Oreo and accidentally injected myself with three cycles of stanolozol. It could happen to anybody.

But even so ... it's getting hard to watch any sporting event that measures pure speed, stamina or strength. Sprints, shot puts, bike races through the mountains -- technique matters in all of them, but not nearly as much as it matters in, say, basketball. That means the benefits of doping are huge -- bigger than for a hitter in baseball.

It's sad. Speed, strength and endurance sports, while never great television, have a timeless beauty to them. People have been running marathons for two millennia; they have been riding bicycles since the mid-1800s. Now we can't watch a race without wondering if the winner is chemically enhanced.