Sports Round-up: Tour de France, MLB, Football

Lots of things happened over the past few days and weeks. First and most important, the Tour de France had its first doping case this year. German rider Patrick Sinkewitz was tested positive for Testosteron while staying at a training camp with his Team T-Mobile in June. Sinkewitz had to drop out of this year's tour because of a crash with a spectator after a stage in the Alps. Although it is only the A-test and the B-est has yet to be opened chances are he will be suspended for at least two years and he will be the first rider to pay a fine of his complete one-year salary.
This being just the facts right now a huge discussion is going on in Germany on how to handle this case. German public television stations ARD and ZDF who covered the Tour dropped out immediately. Now the private broadcaster SAT1 is showing the stages. You always have to keep in kind that while there were no German doping cases German broadcasters were always pointing the finger at everyone else for their weak approach on doping. ARD at one point was also one of the sponsors of then Team Telekom. When a number of riders from the 1990s Team Telekom admitted using performance-enhancing drugs in May this year it caused a huge storm and even back then their were voices demanding that ARD and ZDF should not broadcast live coverage of the Tour de France. The interesting thing will be to wait and see what will happen during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. It has to be expected that there will be cases of drug abuse and then we will see what German publich television will do. If they decide to pull out of the broadcasting this will be a huge blow to sports in Germany. Especially the disciplines that don't get that much of media coverage like track & field.
Meanwhile there were news that the Danish cycling union suspended the current Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen because he missed four tests for doping. He is still on the peleton of the Tour but nobody knows what will happen over the next few days. He performed unexpectedly well in yesterday's "contre la montre" still clinging to a one minute lead over Australia's Cadell Evans.


In Major League Baseball the Boston Red Sox are losing some of their double digit lead over the New York Yankees in the American League East. With Curt Shilling out of their rotation the turned to left hander Kason Gabbard who pitched extremly well. Yesterday he held the Chicago White Sox to just one run and three hits over 7 innings. The Red Sox went on to win 11-2.
Boston was struggling a bit over the past weeks. Their pitching seemed to be okay but their offense wasn't really helping them.


Elsewhere the Chicago Cubs closed the gap to leaders Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central.
The one thing that the whole of the baseball community on America seems to be interested in right now is when Barry Bonds will hit his Homeruns No. 755 and 756. Yesterday Fox was switching to Milwaukee for all of his at-bats but it didn't really pay off since he struck out, grounded out and was intentionally walked. San Francisco nevertheless who 8-0 with their starter Tim Lincecum pitching eight shut-out innings.

In Football David Beckham made his first appearances for Los Angeles Galaxy in a friendly against Chelsea FC. I didn't really follow this but it seems to have been a rather disappointing performance.
In Germany the League Cup, a completely useless competition before the start of the season, kicked off yesterday. Noone really understands the rules of the competition. In the past the champion of last year, the cup winner and the places 2-5 of last season took part, this year it seems the winner of last year's 2nd division season is allowed to play. So Karlsuher SC, the 2nd division champions played against Schalke 04 and lost by only 0-1.


The 2nd match that day at Düsseldorf was played between FC Bayern Munich and SV Werder Bremen. This was especially interesting because it was the first match in which Miroslav Klose was playing against his former club. The row over Klose was thrilling all of Germany during the summer break and after the deal was done there were some harsh words from his former team mates in Bremen. Midfielder Torsten Frings e.g. said that "Miro wanted to play for a european top club and now he is in Munich". Bremen lost the match 1-4 which might have its reasons in Diego, Naldo, Owomoyela, Hunt and Almeida not being able to start for them. Bayern meanwhile only had Luca Toni on the disabled list. this reminds me of the 95/96 season when the Bayern Munich team was considered to be the dream team of German football winning the first 7 matches of the season. Their coach was Otto Rehagel who came with a superb record to Munich. But in the end they lost the championship to Borussia Dortmund who went on to dominate the league for another year. So it will be interesting to follow this season.


In the AFC Asian Cup Japan won the rematch against Australia who defeated them in last year's World Cup group match. japan clinched the victory by beating the Aussies in a penalty shoot out 4-3. John Aloisi put Australia up 1-0 and Takahara Naohiro equalized. So Japan are still in for the title. If they win it this would be their third time in a row.