Tears for souvenirs.

Tears are not enough, tears are not enough.


Bernard Kohl is welcomed back to the peloton.


Well alien number 2 (Kohl) has admitted that he doped. Er, yep, we all kind of new that already. Anyway, just to show there's no hard feelings he has made a tearful confession and admitted that he 'succumbed to temptation'. So that's alright then is it?

Whilst we had tears, a good helping of excuses and a lot of feeling sorry for himself, what we didn't have were any apologies. Apologies to the riders who lives he's managed to damage. The track riders who have lost a 6-day race, the riders now unemployed since the pull out of sponsors, the riders and fans who have lost the Deutschland Tour. Oh no, it was all about how terrible alien number 2 felt and what terrible pressure he was under. Still he did say he wanted to clean the slate, so everything's OK.

So will increasing the ban for doping to four years and a raft of new tests, including the alleged one for autologous transfusions rid us of the plague? Obviously not, but any steps that make it harder to dope, any measures that increase the risk of dopers being caught and any increase in deterrents are to be welcomed.
You could introduce the death penalty for doping and there would still be idiots who would be willing to take the risk, in sport so as in life. There's little can do as fans, except abuse busted dopers from the roadside, an activity, which is great fun for all the family, next time you're at a race try it, it's a great way of letting off steam.