“As a sport, cycling is dead. As a spectacle, it is still running – like a chicken with its head cut off.”
French journalist Laurent Joffrin, on the news that Tour de France cyclist Riccardo Ricco had tested positive for a previously undetectable form of a banned blood-boosting drug. Two Spanish cyclists have also been disqualified from the race for doping (Libération, Paris, 18 July)
“Pea-soup air at the opening ceremony would be their worst nightmare.”
Victor Cha, director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University in Washington DC, on China’s “Olympic shutdown”, in which half of Beijing’s 3.3 million…
