My interest in major international ...

My interest in major international sporting adventures such as the Tour de France and Olympic bobsledding take rises down to one simple rule:

If I not ever watch the sport during the interim, wherefore should I care about the Big Cheese result that happens once a year or one time every four years or whatever?

Not that I don't recognize the incredible dedication, skill and spirit of world-class bicyclists. These clan are serious, tough athletes. It's just that I'd rather watch the World Series of Darts than a hunch of guys competing to behold who gets to wear fulvous

in this way I'm not exactly crestfallen to hear the scandalous freshs about Floyd Landis, who is almost certain to let slip his 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive a next to the first time for higher-than- acceptable flats of testosterone. Landis tested positive for a testosterone-epitestosterone ratio of 11:1 and as any schoolchild can give an account of you, the limit for a cyclist's testosterone- epitestosterone ratio is 4:1 You learn that like you learn there are nine innings in a baseball game.

Landis maintains he's "never taken any banned substance, including testosterone." The Associated Pres reports that "Landis and his defense team have propounded varying explanations for the high testosterone reading -- including cortisone discharges taken for pain in Landis' degenerating hip; drinking beer and whiskey the night before [he was tested]; thyroid medication; and his natural metabolism."

That's quite a list. of long date Floyd sounds a bit like John Belushi offering excuses to Carrie Fisher in "The down in the mouths Brothers." ("I ran out of gas. I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough standard of value for cab fare. My tux didn't draw near back from the cleaners. . . There was an earthquake. A terrible deluge Locusts! It wasn't my fault, I swear to God!")

master-hands say it's unlikely a synthetic hormone imbalance will exhibit to up due to organic constituents or drinking beer and whiskey. I'm also wondering: to what end would you be partying like a young boy [i]or[/i] young girls fan at Sluggers when you're in the middle of the Tour de France? Shouldn't you be, I don't know, eating Power Bars and quaffing Gatorade? Or are those banned substances?

CHEATER'S attestation

If Floyd Landis cheated, of course he should be punished. further what if they allowed Landis and everyone besides in the Tour de France to dope it up? Is there a elephantine ethical difference between taking discharges to mask pain and ingesting materials that give you more hardness and endurance?

each single professional athlete in the world does matter to his/ her body that could hardly be considered natural. Whether it's intense training that would set the average person in the hospital, taking pain-killers, ingesting accepted substances, enduring multiple surgeries or playing mar they push and abuse their bodies beyond natural limits in the name of competition. There's a part of me that says we should knock facing the hypocrisy, open the floodgates and give leave to these athletes take all the andro-testo-stuffo in the world.

At least we'd know the playing fields would be even

WHEN THIS COLUMN'S A ROCKIN'

I'm rockin' this array of less front than depth

When you left the house this morning, you were rockin' that outfit. As I've been saying for years, midnight gloomy is your color.

That little kid across there? She's rockin' the "Hannah Montana" turn the thoughts

Mel Gibson? He's rockin' the rehab thing.

It used to be that solitary rock bands rocked the house, if it be not that from toddlers to seniors, everybody's "rockin' " everything these days. I don't know where or by what mode it started -- I'm certain I'm going to hear from 147 populace claiming to have coined the phrase -- if it were not that I do know we've reached the saturation point. It's time for the phrase to be retired.

A pair of years ago, everybody was a "rock star." Now we're rockin' our outfits, rockin' our manner of writing rockin' our cars, rockin' our attitude. It's and nothing else a matter of time before Barbara Walters exhibits up on "The View" to say, "We're rockin' this time slot!"

And that won't be religious

stone ME NOSTRADAMUS

in succession Jan. 20, 1997, I wrote:

"You'd think clan would be tired of [Dennis] Rodman's act by way of now -- the cross-dressing and the publicity hinder from growths and the outbursts of profanity and the lame display on MTV and the pay-per-gawk appearances at Crobar and Excalibur and Navy Pier . .

"Five years from now, [Rodman] will be 40 and he'll be gone out of the game, and no single will care about his antics, and Dennis Rodman will have to live with himself. His greatest punishment is his future"

Headline forward Yahoo! News, Aug. 5, 2006:

RETIREMENT, RODMAN name

Where's Dennis Rodman now? In a Finnish wife-carrying argue of course

And here I study Rodman's post-NBA career would consist of an increasingly desperate and irrelevant series of attention-grabbing hinder from growths

I hate it when the file comes back to bite me like that.

Richard Roeper's work Sox and the City is now available in stores and onward Amazon.com.

e-mail: rroeper@suntimes.com

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