Baseball isn't the only sport with a problem

In case you missed it - like most Americans - the Tour de France is in its third and final week. Today was a rest day, but that didn't stop news from coming out of France. Alexander Vinokourov, one of the sports biggest stars tested positive for an illegal blood transfusion prior to his stage win in the individual time trial over the weekend. Vinokourov missed last year's tour when his team had so many riders implicated in a doping scandal that they could not field enough riders. Prior to that tour and this one, Vino was the hands down favorite to win.

This year, the organizers of the great bicycle race had every rider and team sign a vow to remain clean. Even with the signed vows in place, Vino was not the first to be implicated this year. Patrick Sinkewitz crashed last week and the next day it was revealed by the German Cycling Federation that he failed a test several weeks ago. Over the weekend it was revealed that current Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen has been banned from competing for his native Denmark after no-showing for multiple tests without informing the cycling federation of his whereabouts.

Vinokourov had been struggling in the tour prior to his victory in the individual time trial which brought him back into contention. The day after the time trial, he lost nearly 30 minutes on the leaders in a mountain stage effectively ending his pursuit for the Yellow Jersey. Again, the next day Vino shocked the Tour by running away with a stage victory in the mountains and winning by more than 5 minutes.

The travesty is that his team mate Andreas Kloden of Germany was in 5th place in the Overall standings and very much a factor to be dealt with over the last week of the tour. The entire Astana team, Kloden included have been asked to drop out of the Tour de France.

The Tour de France once again has a dark pall cast over it. The spectre of dopping hangs over even the "cleanest" teams. At the end of the year Team Discovery Channel, one time home of Lance Armstrong will be without a sponsor. The only American team competing on the grandest stages has never had a rider test positive for doping or performance enhacing drugs, yet sponsors are unwilling to support them due to guilt by association.

Many will say that cycling is an non-entity, but that would be short sighted as 750,000 spectators turn out daily over 3 weeks to watch the Tour de France. That is a total of 15,000,000 total. An astounding number of people. Yet it is all in jeopardy now. A sad state of affairs indeed. Since most of the management of cycling and its teams are run from within, its time for the UCI (cyclings international governing body) to reach out of its own ranks for new leadership. It is the only way the sport can overcome.