Meet Jimmy Casper. Potential two time winner of past Tours de France and the first French winner since Bernard Hinault. Photograph: www.ispaphoto.com
With news that Lance Armstrong is set to be tried, convicted and hung by a jury of his critics from USADA for crimes against humanity, I mean, for alleged doping practices throughout his career, it seems that there is a strong chance Mr. Armstrong could lose his seven Tour de France titles earned between 1999 and 2005, though to whom he might lose them to is still up for debate.
There's a chance that they will leave the records empty for those seven years, but knowing how these things work they might well promote the seven second place men up into first which, given their names and their own history of doping, it would prove absolutely ridiculous. On that note, expect it to happen.
Yes, that would make the new champions as follows: Alex Zülle (1999), Jan Ullrich (2000, 2001, 2003), Joseba Beloki (2002), Andréas Klöden (2004) and Ivan Basso (2005). Indeed, that would be Mr. Jan 'four times winner' Ullrich, to you. The same Jan Ullrich who himself has 'admitted it all'. You see where this is going?
To me, if you want the cleanest man to win it then you'll have to go a lot further down the pile than second. Actually there's no way of knowing who was the cleanest in that era -- an era now widely accepted to be littered from top to bottom with performance enhancing drugs -- so, I propose they crown the seven Lanterne Rouge winners as champions ... not because they were clean necessarily, but because they were the worst of those that doped!
So without further ado, the 1999 to 2005 winners of the Tour de France with their teams at the time and their original time gap to Armstrong:
1999: Jacky Durand (Lotto-Mobistar) +3hr 19'09"
2000: Olivier Perraudeau (Bonjour) +3hr 46'37"
2001: Jimmy Casper (Francaise Des Jeux) +3hr 52'17"
2002: Iker Flores Galarza (Euskaltel-Euskadi) +3hr 35'52"
2003: Hans De Clercg (Lotto-Domo) +4hr 48'35"
2004: Jimmy Casper (Credit Agricole) +3hr 55'49"
2005: Iker Flores Galarza (Euskaltel-Euskadi) +4hr 20'24"
And the French are bound to go for this. It would mean seven less wins for American at the Tour and four more (Casper x2, Durrand and Perraudeau) for them. Casper and Galarza would be written into Tour lore as one of only 21 men to have won the Tour on multiple occasions, and Greg LeMond would be reinstated as the finest American cyclists of all time.
