It is time to end the Tour de Farce.

Lance Armstrong will be stripped of his seven titles and banned for life from cycling after dropping his cases against the United States Anti-Doping Association today.

The announcement comes tomorrow.

I want you to go read this site, a Wikipedia list (which will be updated with Armstrong's ban tomorrow, I am almost sure of it) of doping in the Tour de France.

A quote sticks out to me right at the top, as I am reminded that this is a month-long race which goes through mountains and valleys of Western Europe...

"For as long as the Tour has existed, since 1903, its participants have been doping themselves. No dope, no hope. The Tour, in fact, is only possible because - not despite the fact - there is doping. For 60 years this was allowed. For the past 30 years it has been officially prohibited. Yet the fact remains; great cyclists have been doping themselves, then as now."

(Emphasis mine.)

This comment was made by a "German observer" to Das Spiegel -- in 1998.

When you get to the chart data, and add Armstrong's impending ban, you see why, without illegal steroids and doping, there can be no cycling events, especially of the length and demand of the Tour de France:

• Since 1961 (and including the 1957 Tour, in which the 1961 winner won), there have been 25 winners of the Tour de France.
• Twelve of them, encompassing 29 of the 52 victories in the Tour, have either tested positive, been found to be druggies, or admitted to it.  Armstrong will become the sixth man to be suspended from cycling, and the first for life, under this situation.
• This includes cycling legends like Eddie Merckx, testing positive four times over an eight-year period which encompassed his five titles.
• Miguel Indurain would be on this list, but he took a drug which was, not unlike the Hope Solo situation before the Olympics, proven to be taken for a known condition for which the drug could be prescribed (salbutamol for asthma).
• Three Americans have won the Tour, on the pavement.  After tomorrow, only one of them, Greg LeMond, will still be recognized.
• The last champion, once you take out the past five years (and that still involves Alberto Contador, banned for two years after his drug failure at the 2010 Tour), not either proven or implicated as a drug user and cheat...  Greg LeMond -- who won the Tour in 1986, 1989, and 1990.  Basically every champion from 1991 to 2007 is either Indurain's case of an accepted drug, or a drug cheat.

It is long past time to cancel the Tour de Farce.  It is long past time to remove the Olympic cycling events.  It is long past time to start admitting that, in many opinions (one, from Game of Shadows, reports a study done by a bunch of Canadian scientists which indicated the known human limit for speed at 100 meters without   performance enhancement for male athletes is...   11 seconds).

Effectively, this study, a study of the Tour de France, and many others, conclude a very sickening belief about sports, one which I, personally, believe to be true:

Sports, in present (extremely flawed) form as (corporate) entertainment of the masses, would not exist without the use of performance-enhancing drugs.  No one would watch.

Best evidence of this, on edit:  Donations to Lance's charity are up TWENTY-FIVE TIMES on a daily basis the day he gets banned...

This is why you have parts of the United States government involved, in the belief of at least one former Armstrong teammate, of covering up -- and BRIBERY -- to protect Armstrong.

But should anyone awake be surprised?