Cycling News

 By Simon Gerrans

What can I say about the positive test for EPO by Spanish rider Manuel Beltran? I first heard about it on the news after the 159km seventh stage from Brioude to Aurillac that was won by Luis Leon Sanchez (Caisse d'Epargne).The ramifications are huge, but what a way for one Spaniard to spoil the party of another - Sanchez - who won convincingly at the tail end of a great day of racing.But now we have this - Beltran testing positive. I really can't believe it. This news is the last thing the Tour needs.  It is really disappointing. One thing I really hoped for in this year's Tour de France was to go through it without one doping scandal. It just puts a dark shadow over the race once again which is the last thing we need. No one knows better than the riders how bad the situation is with some teams folding due to the bad publicity. Then someone like Beltran does that. It just lets every one down. And you know what? The thing I had noticed was that so far on this year's Tour was that there were no spectators bagging the race. In the last couple of years on the Tour you always had somebody on the side of the road with a sign or yelling: 'EPO or doping.' This year I had not seen one sign or heard one comment from a spectator. I was thinking: 'Geez ... this is really good.' Then you hear someone tests positive.There is nothing that we, the peloton, can do about it though.We just have to get on with the job of racing as hard as we can. You can't analyse it too much. We can't get down too much. It will just do your head in. The Tour is already hard enough to race, and today's seventh stage was bloody tough. It really felt like we were in the Tour de France today. It did not stop all day. You hardly had any time to eat, let alone take a breath during the stage. It was on from start to finish. I was trying to figure out how it felt afterwards ... It was like being back at school when the bully pulls you fingers back as far as they can go. It hurts real bad and you don't know whether he is going to break your fingers or if he would let go and give you a bit of relief. The pain was on all day. I was pretty lucky it was a short stage. It wasn't a pure climbers stage though. It was more of a strong man's stage. The roads were really slow and tough and there was that wind all day. So there was no real hiding on the wheel. There was always a bit of a cross wind or something like that. You really had to have the power. And our sprinter Thor Hushovd showed he is that type of rider. The main climb of the day - the second category Pas de Peyrol to 117km - was pretty fast. It wasn't steep until two kilometres to go and then the gradient picked up to about 10 per cent. That really shattered a few guys out the back. Hitting the top you could only see four guys in front of you.While I was with Thor most of the day, coming to the last climb with 10 km to go my legs had left me. So I made sure he was well placed and that was it for me. Unfortunately, though, the overall contenders still hit it up over the top of the climb and went off the front. Otherwise he would have been going for the win.For stage eight? We might be in for another day like today. It is an up-and-down stage with a bunch of three and four category climbs I think it really will suit a breakaway again. I am sure we will try and get someone in one.