<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The topic of the day is moral ambiguity.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Yes, I&rsquo;m writing about France, which brings us the Tour de France.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The race that lives up my definition of why it&rsquo;s worth watching professional athletes on TV &ndash; they are doing things most people never could. Like ride up a mountain where I&rsquo;d struggle to walk my bike, and do it way faster than I can ride on a flat road.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Oh, yes there is that other annual tradition, the doping scandals. This year it resulted in 3 riders kicked out of the race so far, and there&rsquo;s always the chance that more could follow, even after it wraps up this weekend. </font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It&rsquo;s enough to make myself, and a&nbsp;lot of other people, wonder if the whole thing is absolutely hinky. It&rsquo;s been&nbsp;enough to drive away many of the biggest&nbsp;sponsors. But I&rsquo;m over that. </font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To me the question isn't is there cheating?, it's what are they doing to get rid of it?</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;After doping scandals going back a decade, the tour is paying a high price to kick out stars who have used banned substances to up their red blood count for a punishing trip.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; With the Olympics coming up, lots of sports fans will have to deal with the reality that the old baseball maxim: if you ain&rsquo;t cheating you ain&rsquo;t trying,&rdquo; is a common enough credo in sport, and life.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The number of&nbsp;cheaters kicked out of the race, which had weeded out quite a few contenders even before the start, shows the powerful urge to get an edge.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Riders do seem almost demonically driven, which is part of the appeal to me.</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> Like the guy who crashed into a sign and was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N9uZupdGhQ">shown </a>on this You Tube clip flying over the handlebars as his bike snapped in half. And then he got on another bike and finished that day, a feat that now rates him a small place in Wikipedia.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The race will come down to a time trial Saturday where the leader, Carlos Sastre will try to hold off contenders like Australian Cadel Evans. Sastre said he expected, &ldquo;the usual pain in my legs.&rdquo; </font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I&rsquo;m more interested in Evans&rsquo; contribution to the doping debate. He was asked in a New York Times&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/sports/sportsspecial1/18tour.html?pagewanted=2&amp;sq=tour%20de%20France&amp;st=nyt&amp;scp=8">story</a> about third rider kicked out of the tour, Riccardo Ricco, why people should believe anyone in cycling is clean. He first pointed out that cheating is part of life: </font></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana"><span>&nbsp;</span>&ldquo;The cheats are being caught and the sport is being cleaned up in a serious, fair and transparent way, which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of other professions in the world, Our sport is trying to do the right thing, and we&rsquo;re being crucified for it. What are they supposed to do, have a free-for-all like some sports that don&rsquo;t have testing at all?&rdquo;</span><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;</font></blockquote><p style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt" class="MsoBodyText"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That comment raises a good question: do fans want clean racing or just no talk about cheating? For years there was no steroid problem in baseball, though there was plenty of accusations,&nbsp;because there was virtually no testing. Last winter it was a problem when a report came out same there was cheating, but that's now forgotten in the middle of some hot pennant races.</font></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt" class="MsoBodyText"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This sort of dilemma is hardly unique to&nbsp;sport. As long as corrupt political regimes control huge oil reserves, there&rsquo;s going to be the same quandary for the oil business &mdash; some competitor is likely to do what it takes to get an edge. And the public misdeeds of a few oil companies lead to assumptions that everyone is dirty. Recently a person in the oil business turned that around by asking me, based on my time in the news business, why don't papers&nbsp;prevent some people who making up things to sensationalize stories. All I could say was: they do try hard to keep that stuff out.</font></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt" class="MsoBodyText"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But as Evans pointed out, trying hard to reform a sport has a way of making everyone look dirty. But it is the right thing to do. So on Saturday morning I&rsquo;ll have no qualms about those crazy fools riding way too fast on what are likely to be rain-slicked roads. It&rsquo;s what I do in July.</font></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt" class="MsoBodyText"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So am I just an apologist for sport that gives me some cool scenery and a Nascar-like fascintation for crashes?</font></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt" class="MsoBodyText"><span><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp; </font></span></p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">&nbsp;</font>