Mop your brow and cross your fingers - Kittel took a lie detector test

Marcel Kittel, the German sprinting sensation who won four stages at this year's Tour de France, has took a lie detector test for German magazine 'Sport Bild.' 

Kittel has always maintained a staunch anti-doping stance, and has always proclaimed himself as a clean rider - well now the psychologist who controlled the test, Holger Leutz, agrees with him;

"The things that we measure during the interview remain very even. This is a sign of credibility. Kittel makes us believe in a pure generation of clean cyclists." 

Now onto why Kittel took the test in the first place. He states that he had nothing to hide, so why not do it. Well there are plenty of reasons why it wasn't such a good idea to do it. Clearly he hadn't remembered Tyler Hamilton's lie detector test. Hamilton passed, despite lying, by reportedly clenching his buttocks to make it seem as though he was telling the truth. 

This means that anyone saying this has added another layer to Kittel's innocence is probably mistaken, because he has been discredited by those before him. There is every chance that Kittel is indeed telling the truth, and is a clean rider, and that is my belief, but the lie detector does not serve to back up that, because of the actions of Hamilton before him. 

The most it accomplished was probably publicity for the German magazine, which has been in world wide cycling news for the last few days, and hopefully for Germany's sake, some faith from German TV executives that their stars are clean, so they can get the TV coverage they clearly deserve. Tour de France coverage hasn't been broadcast in Germany since halfway through the 2007 Tour, when they pulled the plug after Patrik Sinkewitz's positive test. 

So if this means that Germany is one step closer to seeing the Grand Boucle on their televisions again because of Kittel's test, then it has a positive outcome, even if it does not add anything to the German's innocence.