Podium girls aren’t thrill enough?

It’s been a relatively clean, exciting bicycle racing season so far, and with teams like Astana, Slipstream and High Road having great seasons and seeming to set the bar high for detecting doping among their riders, it almost feels like when someone puts in an amazing performance, you can believe it’s the athlete and his training, and not some bizarre or dangerous cocktail of drugs and blood that led to the result. So all the more disappointing that one of the best racers out there, and the winner of this year’s very exciting Paris-Roubaix, Quick Step sprinter Tom Boonen, has been caught recreationally using cocaine. (Oddly, and probably temporarily, it’s only barred in competition, but still illegal.) Apparently being one of the greatest athletes in the world, probably having your pick of the podium girls, winning races and making millions wasn’t enough. The stupidity of such an action goes so far beyond the athlete now — it affects the team, the brands that supported the team and him (Specialized won’t be running their Boonen ads anymore, I’m sure), and all his future endorsements. Cycling is a small enough pond that you can’t really be making those kinds of splashes.