If professional cycling was a Hollywood starlet, it would have just emerged from rehab, teetering on the edge of another relapse. The sport’s reputation has long been tainted by those who have resorted to doping and a handful of such offenders are found every year.

In the 2007 Tour de France dual stage winner Alexandra Vinokourov was found guilty of doping and his Astana team immediately withdrew from the race. The following year, teammates Riccardo Ricco and Leonard Piepoli were fired from the Saunier Duval squad after both riders admitted to taking the banned substance, MIRCERA. In the 2009 Tour de France, stage 16 winner Mikel Astarloza was found guilty of doping in the weeks leading up to the race.

While this year’s Tour de France yielded no cases of doping, there is a storm brewing and it hangs directly over the sport’s greatest champion, Lance Armstrong.

According to Armstrong’s former teammate Floyd Landis – the man who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France victory after failing a drug test – Armstrong used banned substances in 2002 and 2003 while riding for the U.S Postal Service team. While Armstrong has denied the claims, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), International Cycling Union (UCI) and US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) have all signalled their intentions to investigate Landis’ allegations.

But Landis isn’t alone in making allegations against Armstrong. Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond told The Denver Post that the upcoming doping investigation would find “overwhelming” evidence of wrongdoing on Armstrong’s behalf.

In fact, Armstrong’s career has been littered with allegations of doping. On one such occasion, the French newspaper L’Equipe claimed that six of Armstrong’s urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France had been found to contain the banned substance EPO. At the time, drug tests weren’t able to detect EPO – a hormone which induces red blood cell production – but later tests apparently found evidence of EPO use.  In 2008 Armstrong refused further testing on the samples on the grounds that they had not been properly maintained.

Despite this and other accusations levelled at Armstrong throughout his career, the seven-time Tour de France winner has never tested positive to an official drug test. The agencies responsible for investigating Landis’ claims will be hoping they don’t find cause to disrupt that record.

While the suspensions faced by riders like Vinokourov and Landis have damaged the reputation of professional cycling, to find Armstrong guilty of doping would be catastrophic for the credibility of the sport. After all, with the greatest story in cycling history, Armstrong has the most to lose.

After being given a minimal chance of surviving a bout of cancer that affected his lungs, testicles and brain, Armstrong not only made a comeback to professional cycling but managed to win the sport’s greatest race, the Tour de France, seven times in a row. The Texan’s cancer-comeback and unprecedented success at le Tour resulted in a huge increase in the sport’s popularity in the US and around the world. During Armstrong’s reign, television audiences for the Tour de France increased significantly and USA Cycling memberships rose considerably.

But for all of Armstrong’s influence on the popularity of the sport, the hard work will all be undone if he is found to have doped his way to the top. His frequent claims of innocence, his apparent “six hours a day” on the bike in lieu of drugs and his good-guy persona will all count for nothing if Landis’ damaging claims are proven to be true.

For the sake of the sport we can only hope that Floyd Landis is being as dishonest now as he was in 2006.

For those that haven’t been following #matttheintern on Twitter, I’m currently into my second week of a three week internship at Crikey. It’s been an eye-opening experience thus far and my first week and a bit has presented me with equal parts despair and satistfaction.

I  was lucky enough to have had a couple of pieces published in my first week. First there was my wrap-up of the UK election, with a little help from deputy editor Jason Whittaker. Then there was a silly little post for Crikey‘s travel blog “Back in a Bit”, about my relationship with airports. And on Friday my piece about the Adelaide Advertiser’s decision not to run an Australian Sex Party ad made it to the front page of Crikey.

As fun as it is to talk about the pieces that I have had published, I’m also keen to share with you the pieces that didn’t get published. Early last week I wrote up a silly little piece about a local footy team that recently managed to get beaten by 401 points. The piece didn’t pass Crikey’s quality control checks (which are decidedly more stringent than the ones I impose on myself here) and as a result it didn’t get published.

The good news for you, dear reader, is that Crikey’s decision not to publish the piece doesn’t mean you won’t get to read it. Without further ado it’s my pleasure to introduce ‘The Discarded’, the pieces that didn’t quite make the grade, and epsiode one, ‘For the love of the game…’

To all the Richmond fans who have been lamenting their side’s fortunes this season, spare a thought for the North Sunshine Football Club. According to a piece published in The Age today, the Roadrunners haven’t managed a single win in their last two seasons of football and Saturday’s match against the Albanvale Cobras did little to buck that trend.

The Cobras piled on a staggering 67 goals and 22 behinds to pummel the Roadrunners by 401 points – the sixth largest margin in the game’s history, according to The Age. Three Cobras players managed to kick 10 or more goals with 14 players making it to the goal-kickers list. Matthew Mallach was the only Roadrunner to kick multiple goals, snagging two of North Sunshine’s three.

While Saturday’s 65 goal loss is an obvious lowlight for the club, it’s not the first time this season that the Roadrunners have been defeated by an extravagant margin. In their four matches prior to the Cobras loss, North Sunshine have lost by 236 points, 231 points, 184 points and a comparatively succesful 88 points.

But it’s not all bad news for the Roadrunners with former Richmond star Matthew Richardson offering to hold a training session with the team. Club President Mark Neicho told The Age that Richo’s offer would help to motivate the ailing squad.

“Knowing he’s going to come down and do a training run might pep the guys up enough and keep them motivated.”

I’m no sports psychology expert but I reckon it’s going to take a bit more than a single training session to motivate the team after a loss like that. As a junior footballer I played in one particular match where we found ourselves losing by the comparatively respectable margin of 20 goals. The memory of that slaughter at the hands of the Under-12 powerhouse that was the Vermont Football Club sticks with me some 12 years later; I can only imagine what it must be like to lose by 65 goals.

However, full credit must go to North Sunshine club president Mark Neicho for facing up to the flurry of interview requests that have come his way since the weekend. His ability to put a positive spin on things is quite impressive.

“These guys are local boys that enjoy playing for a local side and enjoy the mateship – playing football with their friends”, he told The Age.

I enjoy team sport and the associated camaraderie as much as the next guy but I can tell you now, there would be nothing enjoyable about being beaten by 401 points.

Once upon a time it was possible for professional athletes to ply their trade without having to deal with the stress of the modern media. It’s hard to imagine the ancient Olympians facing public scrutiny about their personal lives, for example. But nowadays, with the rise of the global media and a collective devotion to celebrity culture, being a professional athlete entails far more than simply being good at the sport in question. Just ask Michael Clark.

As attention on professional athletes has increased, so has an awareness that athletes need to be savvy when it comes to interacting with and participating in the media. Rather than allowing athletes to speak their minds, great care is now taken to promote good sportsmanship and maintain the reputation of the game in question. While a fight may well break out during an AFL match, for example, it is highly unlikely that the confrontation will continue off the ground, such is the desire to uphold the reputation of the game.

To this end sportsmen and –women are taught skills that will help them act appropriately when interacting with the media. For example, they are taught to be humble and not big-note themselves; they are taught to have respect for their opposition and for the game’s officials; and they are taught to take responsibility for their off-field actions.

While all this might sound fairly reasonable the reality is that it makes the whole process rather dull and predictable for the public. In his address at the conclusion of last year’s AFL grand final Geelong coach Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson said the following;

‘Firstly to the St. Kilda footy club, footy sucks sometimes and you guys have had a fantastic year. You’ve done so much right and you’re one of the hardest teams to play against’.

An undoubtedly noble gesture, but also a rather predicable and unoriginal one. If only he had said something along these lines;

‘Firstly to the St. Kilda footy club, you only lost two games for the season and you finished two games clear on top of the ladder. You also outscored us in three quarters of today’s match and yet you still managed to lose the game. Good effort.’

Sure, it wouldn’t have made Mr. Thompson the most popular man in footy but at least he would have been the most original.

But more than making the whole process extremely predictable it would seem that the regulation of media interaction in the sporting world has reduced such interaction to a series of clichés.

An example of this can be seen when an AFL player is asked to assess his team’s finals chances. Rather than answering the question honestly the player will almost certainly revert to one of the great sporting clichés – ‘we’re just taking it one week at a time.’

Similarly, after a match-winning performance a player might well be asked to comment on his or her contribution. Rather than taking the opportunity to provide an accurate account of proceedings, the modern sportsperson will often reply ‘it was a great team effort’.

If the same player was on the losing side he might well be asked to explain why it was that his team lost. In this situation it is unlikely that he would call the opposition a pack of cheats, even if he had wanted to. The preferred response seems to be something along the lines of ‘we had our chances but let them slip away.’

There seems to be a cliché for every situation in sport and it’s not just the players that are getting in on the action. Sports commentators also seem to revel in language that is saturated with repetition and recurrence. Cricket commentators seem to be quite partial to the phrase ‘good line and length’, for example, while AFL commentators will often mention a courageous player’s ability to put his ‘body on the line’.

The final word today goes to The Australian columnist Chip Le Grand and his brilliant piece about clichés, jargon and the AFL. Hopefully someday I can write like this but until then I’ll just keep giving it 110% and taking it one week at a time…

It’s a little scary to think that the AFL season is almost over already. It seems like only yesterday that Geelong was making a mockery of Port Adelaide in last year’s Grand Final. Last Friday night I happened to watch Hawthorn dispose of the Western Bulldogs, or perhaps more accurately, Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin dispose of the Western Bulldogs, a man who became the subject of an argument between Dad and I. See, Dad gets miffed when players celebrate extensively after kicking a good goal – something which Buddy certainly isn’t shy of doing – arguing that it shows an unnecessary arrogance.

I can see his point – ‘let the footy do the talking’ they say – but I dunno. I just reckon that if you are as good as Buddy then you are kinda entitled to a bit of show-off time. His namesake, Lance Armstrong, was never the most modest of blokes, but why would he be? The bloke beat cancer and then won a lazy seven Tours de France in a row. I think he is entitled to a bit of arrogance.

The Olympics saw Dad and I clash over the issue as well, in particular the antics of Usain Bolt. For anyone who happened to be living under a rock while the Olympics was on, Usain Bolt is the Jamaican guy who happened to win gold medals in both the 100m and 200m sprints, while casually picking up two world records in the process. Besides his extraordinary performances, Bolt has made a name for himself for his showboating – before, after and would you believe, during the race – and it is this apparent arrogance that Dad wasn’t all that impressed about. Like I said, I can see his point but I can also see how breaking the 100m and 200m world records in one meet is a fairly impressive effort, worthy of a bit of arrogance self-praise.

But at the end of the day, this post is merely a vehicle for the following YouTube clip – a clever and witty parody of Usain Bolt’s efforts in the 100m final and possibly the funniest clip I’ve ever seen on Youtube…