LE GRAND-BORNAND, France—Linus Gerdemann hadn’t even finished celebrating his first Tour de France stage victory before sounding a loud drumbeat from the winner’s circle: Races can and should be won clean.
The 24-year-old German, riding in his first Tour, captured the leader’s yellow jersey as cycling’s premiere event entered three days in the Alps with Saturday’s seventh stage.
Gerdemann’s T-Mobile team has been scarred more than most over doping revelations, and has responded in the last year by enacting some of the toughest anti-doping policies in the sport.
In post-race press conferences, Gerdemann used the word “clean” at least six times. He spoke about blood tests he had undergone. He decried the harm done by doping in the sport, and said he understood fans have doubts.
“It’s really hard for young riders to take the responsibility now,” Gerdemann said. “But the sport gave a lot to me in the past—and now I think it’s the right moment to give something back.”
It was a fresh voice at an event where many riders and staffers refuse to discuss doping or get short-tempered even when the word comes up—saying they want to focus only on “the sport.”
Moral high ground
T-Mobile has sought publicly to stake out the high ground.
“I don’t want to say that just T-Mobile is a clean team,” Gerdemann said. “I think many, many teams realize that the old-school way is not the way anymore—but for sure, we have to show the way more and more.”
The team’s former star, 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich, was disqualified from racing on the eve of the start of last year’s Tour after his name turned up in a Spanish blood-doping investigation. In recent months, several former riders from the Telekom team—as T-Mobile was formerly called—admitted to doping in the 1990s.
New messengers
The team and Tour organizers are eager to hoist up young riders like Gerdemann as potential harbingers of a new era.
“It’s the fresh air we were hoping for, with a team that has taken exemplary measures,” Tour director Christian Prudhomme said.
The ride into the Alps has been expected to weed out the potential favorites in the three-week race, but two time-trials and the Pyrenees also lurk down the road.
Gerdemann won by speeding out from a group of breakaway riders during the 197-kilometer ride from Bourg-en-Bresse to Le Grand-Bornand, featuring a winding ascent up La Colombiere Pass, the first category 1 climb this year.
Spoiled
After last year’s climb of the 16.1-kilometer La Colombiere ascent, 2006 Tour winner Floyd Landis tested positive for synthetic testosterone after the 17th stage. An arbitration panel is deciding whether Landis should be allowed to keep his title.
Gerdemann clocked 4 hours, 53 minutes, 13 seconds. Inigo Landaluze of Spain was second, 46 seconds back, and David de la Fuente of Spain was third, 1:39 back.
Overall, Gerdemann leads Landaluze by 1:24 and De La Fuente by 2:45, and will don the yellow jersey Sunday for the second of three punishing Alpine rides. (AP)
