Book Reviews: Racing Through the Dark, The Secret Race
I must admit to not having read most of the cycling memoirs in the Works. I may eventually but the local public library doesn’t carry any of them and never will so I’ll have to buy them or ask Frank to tote everything he has to Hawaii. I did get off my wallet and buy these two and it was money well spent. David Millar and Tyler Hamilton have produced two excellent cycling books, parallel stories in very general terms and times. The contrast of how two people in similar straits handle the truth and the divergent roads it puts them on is compelling.
Doping in professional cycling is still secretive enough that it is best told from someone all the way on the inside. Journalists will be lied to by cyclists. Federal grand juries do better at getting the truth but we usually don’t hear it. Cyclists who lived the lie and need to unburden themselves make a good conduit. I can’t begin to explain it as well as Tyler or David did; their inner world of professional cycling is nothing we hear much about. In the 1990s it was the wild west where the law was absent. Spanish “doctors”, syringes and mini-centrifuges ruled the day. It’s such a huge subject, too interwoven with passion and pressure, so much grey area. For a person like me who likes to talk about doping in black and white, I’ve learned how institutionalized and insidious it was (past tense, I hope). It’s not so simple. It’s tragic. To feed the young ambitious athlete into a system where there is no choice but to accept the drug system is criminal. When money is at stake and the UCI is complicit, as is team management, those are some criminals.
Racing Through the Dark-by David Millar. I’ll also admit to being a long time admirer of David Millar. He has always been well- spoken and not afraid to confront, two qualities I admire and personally lack, but they make a good writer. Millar is a military brat who found his cycling talent in the 10 mile British time trial club races. He ended up living his dream, riding on the Cofidis team, France’s well- funded but dysfunctional squad. He spent his first few years with Cofidis riding clean, yet watching how others “prepared”.
“In my youthful exuberance, I was telling anybody who would listen that I’d won in De Panne and broken the course record with a hematocrit of only 40 percent. I went to see Casagrande and his roommate, whom I refer to as L’Équipier (the teammate), so that I could show Casagrande the test results.
I stood there, a big grin on my face, expecting Casagrande to congratulate me and say something morale boosting. But he didn’t. After a pause, he handed the results back to me and then turned to speak to his roommate in Italian.
“Perché non é a cinquate?” Casagrande asked L’Équipier, puzzled, Why isn’t he at fifty?
No one talked about doping and no one talked about not doping. Eventually, after VDB self-destructed and Casagrande was busted, Millar became a team leader. And with that mantle came the responsibility to produce results, be a professional. And eventually he was implicated by a teammate, evidence was found, he was out of cycling, deeply in debt, and drinking his way to the bottom.
For some interesting video here is a recent Spanish documentary from the inner ring.
The Secret Race-by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle. Tyler Hamilton and I grew up in the same end of Massachusetts, he went to the same prep school @rob and I dropped out of, so I always felt slightly connected to him. So I was a fan boy and stood by his fantastic excuses for too long.
The whole wretched story of doping in cycling is right here. Tyler Hamilton cheated and lied for so long, it took until 2011 before he could tell his parents the truth. And despite his decade of lying, this book rings true. His reward was getting out from under the lie. I think he would have written the book for free just for the unburdening. He states many times the lightness of being after testimony and though he knows it’s very unlikely, hopes Lance can feel the same lightness that comes from telling the truth. This book is Tyler Hamilton’s story but it is closely linked to part of the Armstrong saga.
Like Millar, Hamilton was unaware of systemic drug use until he had joined the professional ranks. US Postal drugs were at first team- provided and paid for. Once you proved yourself as one of the best riders on the team, as someone who could help Lance win the Tour, you earned the right to use EPO. It is fascinating reading, it’s horrifying, it’s depressing. Most unsettling is Lance Armstrong’s behavior. There are many revelations regarding Armstrong’s psychotic need to win. I’ll share just this one.
Tyler was eased out of US Postal because he was too strong a rider and perceived as a threat to Armstrong. So Tyler left and signed with Phonak in 2004. There was a time trial up Mont Ventoux in the 2004 Dauphiné Libéré weeks before the Tour de France. Tyler beat Lance in the TT. Later during the Tour, Floyd Landis, who was still riding for US Postal rode along side Tyler.
“You need to know something”
I pulled in closer. Floyd’s Mennonite conscience was bothering him.
“Lance called the UCI on you,” he said. “He called Hien, after Ventoux. Said you guys and Mayo were on some new shit, told Hien to get on you. He knew they’d call call you in. He’s been talking shit nonstop. And I think it’s right that you know.”
This little story is amazing for many different reasons and the only good one is Floyd Landis telling it to Tyler. I’m guilty of saying some negative things about Floyd, mostly because he was such an idiot liar. But at a point, when he has nothing to gain and he has lost everything else and he starts telling the truth, he gains back my respect, just like Tyler Hamilton has.
I ended up reading these books one right after the other. As I said before, I recommend them both. David Millar is a better writer. He actually has more demons to battle than Hamilton so his story of redemption is inspiring. Tyler Hamilton’s story is more depraved (in a doping sense) but both books are important. A lot of people in cycling are now admitting to past deeds in very unspecific terms. These two authors are both shining lights into some dark corners and making the inevitability of drug use in cycling more human and understandable. Also, in reading these books back to back, it highlights the contrast in how these two people dealt with their fates.
Both had the bad luck to be nearly singled out as dopers when a large percent of the riders were dopers. Millar realized it was the doping that killed his passion for even riding a bike. He took no joy in his EPO-assisted victories, only a temporary satisfaction that the task at hand was completed. He decided to come clean and to become an advocate for clean racing and changing the corrupt system.
Hamilton could not admit to anyone but his wife (who already knew) that he had been a cheat. His lie was so crushing he couldn’t even see a way out. He then spent all his money and energy protecting the lie for years, for nothing, obviously. It was the threat of perjury in that finally broke open the dam. It’s a cruel lesson to learn; the truth will set you free, even if it takes forever.
@TommyTubolare
@Mikael Liddy
I was a bit “meh” too. Merely a summary of what was contained in the USADA testimonies, Hamilton’s book, etc. Whilst it was a bit interesting to see Armstrong in action in the deposition, the transcript of the testimony was in the USADA material.
Conclusions: Armstrong is a COTHO, Betsy Andreu is pretty sexy, and Phil Liggett could be the stupidest most gullible man on the planet.
I suppose it was inevitable. Levi will be looking for a new team.
http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/10/news/omega-pharma-terminates-leipheimers-contract_261636
@TommyTubolare
Watched a bit of it. The words from COTHO at the beginning are quite incredible now.
Apparently I’m the only person in the world who could care less about the whole USADA case… Maybe it’s that I came the realization that Lance (and pretty much everyone else) was hopped up on Rocket Fuel and Gorilla hormones a decade ago but I still think Lance is a giant douchebag and a great champion. I don’t find it shocking at all that cheating is sophisticated in million dollar sports, whether it’s the “cream” and the “clear” of BALCO fame or Lance intimidating people who spoke out against him. I don’t see his statements as shocking or even slightly incredible… What would you expect him to say? “Hey kids, you should dope just like me”. If you read the testimony from the witnesses, pretty much to a man they all pretty clearly say that the majority of the peloton was doped and that they all felt that they had to cheat to make it… yet they make it out to be that Lance invented doping. Lance just faced the same dillema they all did but embraced it fully and completely mastered the process. That Lance cheated ‘better’ than the rest isn’t surprising. He’s a calculating madman on the bike… But, if we’re honest with ourselves, just avoiding an untimely flat or crash in that many Tours is impressive… and as far as I’m aware, there’s no anti-crashing or anti-badpositioninthepeloton dope availalbe?
Crucify the sport, crucify the era, crucify the poor managment structure that let it all happen… but crucifying Lance for doing what we all know pretty much everyone was doing for really nothing more than doing it more effectively is flat out silly.
Funny, after reading Hamilton’s book, I watched The Road to Paris (cool movie, despite all the COTHOing). Hamilton said that Pharmy’s favorite saying was, “Whatever you’re doing, those motherfuckers are doing more.” Oddly, this Taoist saying is flashed when the movie starts.
Somehow the original is more poetic than Armstrongs take on it.
@Leroy
As a massive Armstrong fan (and apologist) until the release of the Reasoned Decision last week, the thing that really turned me was the enabling and pushing of drugs onto the younger riders. Naively, I always looked at the doping as either an individual decision, one that came out of mutual agreement, or even peer pressure among consenting adults. What never occurred to me was that heavy pressure and threats were being used to coerce young riders who wanted to stay clean to take up a doping programme. If I ever found out someone was forcing one of my sons to take drugs against their will I don’t think I could be responsible for my actions, and I feel about this the same way.
@frank Daniel Friebe talks about Eddy having exactly the same philosophy in the opening stages of the ’69 tour when he was suffering from the effects of an “enforced break” from racing.
@Oli exactly. +1 to everything you’ve said.
Agree with much of what you say Leroy.
Reading some of the reports one could be forgiven for thinking that Lance invented EPO and personally administered it by force to the entire peleton. Yes he was a ruthless operator. But it’s far too easy for riders of that generation to imply that they had no choice. I’m sorry, but they did. Otherwise I’ll have to invoke Godwin’s Rule to prove my point. I really don’t want to take this fine site down that route.
Yes it would have taken courage. Yes it would have put their careers at risk. Which I recognise isn’t easy. But please, don’t give me the “I had no choice” sob stories. By all means explain the context. But, those riders have to take personal responsibility for their actions. That’s the path to atonement and redemption. (Which Millar has done admirably)
The other aspect of the reporting that bothers me is the USADA assertion that US Postal were significantly more advanced than other teams in the doping programs. Maybe they were ahead of the others, but given that they only investigated US Postal, how do they know what other teams were doing?
Have they forgotten Festina? What were Team Telekom doing? Not riding on bread and water that’s for sure, given the admissions of EPO use in the 90’s by many riders on that team including Zabel, Riis and Ullrich and the sequence of failed tests by Telekom riders all the way to Sinkewitz in 2007.
Which brings me to some of the discussion above. Unfortunately I’m now struggling to believe *any* rider who rode and won races in that era claiming that he didn’t dope. Look, I love Jens as much as the next man: I want to believe his repeated denials, but I’m losing respect for him the more I hear them.
Which is why I do think a ‘truth and reconcillation’ approach is the right way to go: give the opportunity for admission, with limited penalties and no re-writing of palmares. Draw a line under it and move on.
Because I am convinced that the riding now is cleaner than it was. Analysis of the times taken to ride up climbs up Alpe d’Huez (as mentioned above) and other climbs suggest power outputs in terms of watts/kg and implied VO2 max levels that are lower than 10 years ago and are now within believable physiological parameters. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t doping still going on, but surely less of it. So I’m also more optimistic about Wiggins being clean than Frank is …!
Ken
@Oli I can see where you’re coming from, and I’ve admittedly not read the entire “reasoned decision” so I might not have all the info, but I don’t see where Lance or Johan or anyone else held some rookie down and shoved a needle in their arm. Telling someone “if you want to be a pro on this team, then you’re going to need to follow our ‘medical advice'” isn’t the same as forcing someone to do something against their will as I see it. It’s leaving the choice to them… granted, the choice between continuing to live your dream while riding under the needle or packing it and calling it quits on a dream you’ve chased since childhood is an incredibly hard choice to make but it’s still a choice. I also think it’s disingenous to suggest that US Postal was massively different from other teams. They may have been the most effective and most sophisticated but I think we’re kidding ourselves if we believe that these riders wouldn’t have been faced with the same choices at other teams.
Another thing that I keep in mind is that, at some point, Lance was that young kid coming up clean who was forced to make that choice as well… We can demonize him now because he is an asshole on so many personal levels but Lance didn’t invent doping. Any dream crushing decision that any cyclist had to make, Lance at some point had to make that same decision. Lance and any one of these other guys could have (and some apparently did) decided that they weren’t willing to do drugs to be professional. Looking back now and blaming Lance for the choices they made just seems a bit of a cop-out to me. Also, if the peloton was as doped as everything suggests it was, then really it wasn’t much of a choice for team managment either. We can be a clean second tier team or we can organize our doping just like we organize our training and traveling and be a top level competitor… With millions on the line, I’m just not shocked that teams went full-in on the doping game.
I also think it diminishes the difficulty of cycling to suggest that doping made any of these guys… I won’t lie for a second, if all it took to be a pro cyclist was some EPO and testosterone, I’d be calling Dr Ferrari right now. But just like dudes with 30″ biceps don’t get jacked from taking steroids and sitting around, none of these guys went from scrubs to superstars thanks to just EPO.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that the whole reality of that era of cycling was pretty much disgusting… I just don’t see Lance as being any more or less disgusting or more or less culpable than the rest of the bunch. I think he’s right in saying that it was a witch hunt to catch him. I don’t for a second question his guilt but, when you give a half dozen slaps on the wrist and blow off conducting doping controls at the AToC two years in a row all to devote resources to get one man, you’re clearly not as interested in ensuring cycling is a clean sport today as you are in catching Lance.
@Oli
I think you make a really great point, and I used to feel the same way as well, that it was more of an individual decision, but that is far too simplistic.
Even if high-pressure tactics were not employed, if your team captain is doping there is going to be a subtle pressure to do it yourself, just to keep up with everyone else, if anything.
The whole thing is pretty sick and morally bankrupt. I really hope the sport can move on now.
@ken, @Leroy I’m not sure if you’ve seen the interview Bicycling.com put up yesterday with Bassons about how he feels now this has all blown up.
One of the things he mentions is his contract renegotiations at the end of 98 where he was handed a 30,000 francs a month contract if he wanted to continue racing clean or 300,000 francs a month if he wanted to join their program…can any of you guys say you’d look at a 1000% increase in salary to bend the rules in the same way as everyone else in the office, and you’d still just walk away?
I’ve been reading all the articles about COTHO and I’m thinking that calling that person a ‘cunt of the highest order’ really doesn’t do justice to what an deplorable and despicable thing he is.
For a while there I was sure that he doped but didn’t think that they should strip him of his titles and palmares, cause after all they were all doping at the time. He was the best of the dopers. Now I think that they should just go ahead and strip all these assholes of everything. Just leave a giant black-hole in the history of cycling they should do it for all the victims that COTHO bullied, bankrupted or sued for libel, all the young riders forced to make terrible decisions, and all the people that were vilified for being honest.
Also, and this seems pretty obvious, but maybe there should be a new rule about not wearing any discovery channel or u.s. postal kit ever not even being sarcastic or ironic. Just not ever.
Jesus living here in central Texas there are plenty of cyclists that have their heads so far there asses about the whole thing it is ridiculous.
It seems like the fallout from the USADA report has just started. Kinda like dominoes falling down first its COTHO, then Big George, then Levi, Matt White etc etc
I think that the pro peloton is going to look quite different next year.
A lot of riders might “retire” well I hope so anyway.
@San Tonio
+1
@Mikael Liddy
Nope… I would’ve signed on the line for the $300k without a second thought. But I wouldn’t stand there a decade later pretending someone else FORCED me to compromise my morals. I’d be a man about things, stand on my two feet, admit to the public that I was willing to cheat to stay in the game and make the cash.
Like I said… I have yet to see the portion of the reasoned decision that details Lance and Johan holding youngsters down and injecting them. Whether it was to earn 10x the salary, to chase a dream, or to win a race… People make their own choices in life and way too much of this whole case, for me at least, stinks of people trying to put some of the blame for the bad choices they made onto Lance.
@San Tonio I think calling Lance COTHO is insulting to cunts…
@Leroy
With respect, I think your take is a bit too black and white.
My brain still hurts…….. Santa no longer real ……. dont get me started on Easter Bunny
People, this happened over six days ago now! Could we move on to more important topics such as the GVA/Mario de Clerq Trofee.
It’s now on cumulative time like a grand tour instead of points. And mid-race sprints for a time bonus! Will this bring about a more exciting cyclocross season or kill it?!!!!
@G’rilla I’m ready for Velominati Super Prestige Superprestige Cyclocross
was / am tempted to have a go at LA through strava – but à just don’t feel like stooping to that troll like level …. but am tempted….. he posted 3 hours ago about some triathlon business……. some other douche said “” ooooo i love you dont’t listen to teh haters ooooooo you’re the greatest cyclist EVAAA ooooooh…..” – now he deserved a spray….
th line I had in mind was “how did Edgar go on the cycling leg?” or some such hilarity.
Any strava peeps who don’t already know and have the balls to slap Lance – he is registered as Juan Pelota.
@Leroy Not sure I really follow you. Are you suggesting some sort of moral equivalence between, say, (i) DZ and Banged and Felled, who succumbed to explicit pressure to get on or get out but eventually confessed their trangressions and accepted their suspensions, and (ii) COTHO, who applied the pressure, abused his position as patron by becoming the uber-enforcer of the omerta and remains unrepentant to this day? “Too black and white” is one way of describing that view. Barking mad is another. Of course the DZ’s et al did wrong and deserve punishment. They’re getting it. One may cynically ask about their motives and question quite how much clemency they should receive, but that does not put them in the same category as COTHO. Take a read of the Reasoned Decision. Even though there are troubling aspects (e.g. the reliance on hearsay), the overwhelming picture painted is not reconcilable with a moral equivalence between COTHO and the confessed. It was orchestrated cheating of the highest order enforced by coercion. That no-one had a needle rammed into their arm while being held down doesn’t mean those doing the coercing are no worse than the coerced. They mainfestly are.
@Leroy I don’t say that USPS is any worse than any other team, but USPS is the one involved in these explosive revelations that finally opened my eyes. And I think you underestimate the pressures involved – I’m not saying the kids didn’t have a choice, I’m saying that it’s unforgiveable to put so much pressure on them they felt they didn’t have a choice. Damning the coercion is nothing to do with forgiving the complicity. As we see in the general population, there’s a big difference between a drug user and a drug pusher. I have plenty of sympathy for a user but little for a pusher. Whatever team or country they are from, or if it’s Armstrong, Bruyneel, Saiz, Pevenage or anyone else, fuck them.
I too am a little uneasy about some of the motivations of various people in all this, but the sheer preponderance of the various testimonies and the peripheral casualties (Matt White, etc.) who are also fessing up far exceed the doubts. I really think that if you think this is still just anti-Lance witch hunt you’re gravely missing the point.
@G’phant +1
@G’phant
Eloquently put Cap’n Pou Pou.
@G’phant & @Oli nicely put.
@Leroy
The closest any of us are likely to come to making such a decision would be if our kids display a bit more sporting ability or application than than we did, so it’s hard for us to truthfully say how we’d have reacted to the pressure in our youth (what we want for our kids is often a very different path to that which we chose ourselves). I suspect that a fair few of us would have gone with the flow and most of those would have then done everything within their power to maintain the lie. I’d say its more than likely that I would have.
@G’phant
Can you direct me to where anyone said they felt they needed to dope to ride for USPS alone? From what I’ve read; to a man, each rider is saying that they felt like they needed to dope to remain a PRO. That, by simple logic, means that USPS was no different than any other team and that any of those riders who may or may not have considered staying clean felt that they couldn’t ride clean FOR ANY TEAM. Singling out USPS is stupid… Singling out Lance is even worse. If it was all Lance than some of these guys would’ve refused and gone on with their careers elsewhere… But that’s simply not the reality of the era. It wasn’t that you had to dope to ride for Lance, you had to dope to ride Pro… period. If recognizing that basic and obvious logic makes me ‘barking mad’… so be it, but that’s really as basic as logic gets and you’d have to be ‘barking mad’ (or just looking for more reasons to hate Lance) to ignore that reality. Maybe it’s that you guys are eager to hate Lance while I’m entirely ambivalent about the man but you guys seem to ignoring the massive massive grey area that no one wants to touch.
You’re either saying that:
1. Lance personally introduced EPO and ‘roids to the peloton, in which case it’s too rediculous to even continue debating… Or…
2. You have to recognize the simple reality that, at some point somewhere, Lance WAS that young rider making the choice and some previous patron of the peloton encouraged/pressured him just as he would later do.
So, once you reconcile that obvious reality… and knowing the extent of doping as well as knwoing that it was common knowledge among riders (I can’t recall who exactly but one testimony mentions specifically that riders from other teams would share doping techniques even with competitors)… Then you have to face the reality that, at the time, the majority of riders knew they were skirting the rules and willfully helped one another do so to a disgusting extent. Once something reaches that level of acceptance, it’s no longer pressuring people to commit some huge moral transgression in the eyes of the peloton… it’s simply pressuring people to get with “the program”. Just like steroids in college football and amphetamines & roids in baseball years later, it reached a level of acceptance across the sport that makes any attempt to leave a single individual cuplable for the bulk of it is disingenuous at best.
The guy is a douchebag, which makes him easy to hate… I get that. Hate him for being a douchebag, hate him for doping his way to victory… but this idea of hating him because he “forced” everyone else to dope is a joke.
@Oli
Calling Lance the “pusher” is a bit extreme as well… I see this as more akin to meatheads in the gym who share steroid and hgh techniques and encourage their buddies to do what they do. Lance wasn’t out there pushing EPO to get kids hooked, he was endorsing it to win. He wasn’t passing out free hits of crack to get unsuspecting kids hooked… he was bringing young riders into the reality of the sport as he knew it, as he himself had been brought into it. But, Lance being Lance, he doesn’t do anything half ass… whether its his riding or his training or even his lying, he does it vigorously, extensively, and with a fury that few can match. So, just as all these poor kids were introduced to doping by Lance, Lance himslef was at some point introduced to doping and simply embraced it fully as a training tool and doesn’t look back with remorse. Truth be told, I don’t buy the supposed remorse from any of these witnesses either. I think the only remorse they feel is that they had to testify to avoid getting busted themselves. How much choice did a guy like Hincapie really have? You lie before a grand jury, you go to jail… Once he’d told the truth to the Feds, if he lies to USADA he’s perjured himself and goes to jail… Jail time or a slap on the wrist suspension after you’ve retired with no stripping of your own accomplishments??? That’s a far easier choice than to dope or not to dope.
I don’t think we’re going to change one another’s minds… just agree to disagree I suppose.
There is the pusher aspect of it. There is also the bullying, character assassination and witness intimidation. Absolutely despicable.
@San Tonio
I second that!
@Leroy Have you read the Reasoned Decision? If not, I think you should.
@Oli
Also, the rider declarations.
@Leroy I am not asserting that Lance is the baddest man ever to walk the face of the planet. Or even that there was no-one else involved in applying pressure rather than succumbing to it. Much less that he introduced drugs to the peloton. I am simply saying that there is a world of differene between those who were pressured to dope and those who applied the pressure. Whether or not Lance was at one point the impressionable youngster who felt pressured into doping is not relevant (though I don’t get the impression that he was). The point, rather, is that he ended up applying the pressure.
Moreover, your casual implication that everyone doped themselves to the gills because they wanted to and felt they had to in order to keep up is not easy to square with the testimony of the confessors – for example, VDV and DZ. Armstrong’s pressure seems heavily implicated in at least the extent of doping, and probably the fact of it in at least some cases.
I don’t feel at all, personally, that I am looking for excuses to dislike the guy. (I never liked him. At one time I admired him. But that is now a thing of the past.) I am simply reacting to what seems patently obvious to me – that there is a world of difference – in terms of culpability and degree of deserved condemnation – between, say, a David Millar and a Lance Armstrong. (Besides which, as others have pointed out, there is the character assassination, enforcement of the omerta, etc – none of which, so far as I can see, are behaviours evident in many, let alone all, other memebrs of the peloton.)
If your moral compass swings a different way, so be it. While I am passing moral judgment on Armstrong, I am not seeking to do so on you. And I apologise if my “barking mad” comment was too much playing the man rather than the ball. At the end of the day, we come here to talk shit and have interesting conversations, not trade insults (unless you’re Marcus and Minion, before they fell in love with each other). So I shall loosen my grip on the handbag strap …
@G’phant
Is that a falling leaf or an olive branch next to your name there?
@brett I am tranquilo. My sensations are good.
@brett My sensations are also good.
And I would like a decal with that phrase to put on my top tube.
@G’rilla Hell yeah. A+1.
Good take on the ‘Yellow Years’ from the ever excellent Cycleboredom
http://www.cycleboredom.com/confessions-of-a-former-fanboy/
@G’rilla you’ll enjoy his most recent screencap sets too, all about the cross races in Europe…
@Oli
@Nate
While I’ve admittedly not read it front to back, I’ve read a considerable portion of it as well as many of the rider statements… Particularly statements like those from Dirty George (“it became clear to me that, given the widespread use of performance enhancing drugs by cyclists at the top of the profession, it was not possible to compete at the highest level without them”) or Leipheimer (” A sport where the athletes at the highest level, perhaps without exception, used banned substances. A sport where doping was so accepted that riders from different teams, who were competitors on the road, coordinated their doping to keep up with other riders doing the same thing”) or Vande Velde (Then, one day, I was presented with a choice that to me, at the time, seemed like the only way to continue to follow my dream at the highest level of the sport.”)
Reading those statements, to me at least, it seems pretty clear that it was a problem in the professional ranks of cycling that was anything but limited to USPS. None of those riders are suggesting they had to dope to ride for USPS, they had to dope to ride at all.
@Nate
You could just as easily apply that statemet to any number of powerful men throughout the ages… from Obama to Gates on back to Carnegie, Vanderbuilt, and Rockefeller. That’s what powerful men do… honestly, for them the money is secondary, they compete (be it in business or otherwise) to destroy the opposition and the money often comes secondarily to that.
Maybe I’m just jaded about human nature enough that I wouldn’t expect any less… but I’m honestly more surprised by the number of riders who were willing to turn on Lance after all these years than I am by the extent of the efforts to surpress the truth.
@G’phant
No worries at all G’Phant.. I didn’t think you meant any offense and none was taken. That’s actually one of the things I love most about this site… we can all disagree on even something as volatile as the Lance situation but still keep it reasonable and informed without resorting to the typical internet insult match.
I’m not at all surprised that so many have turned on him. He was a tyrant, a dictator… that’s what happens.
You rule for years by fear and intimidation combined with people’s natural unwillingness to stand away from the crowd, until one day they work out that they’ve all had enough, and the next thing you’re hanging upside down from a lamp post.
@Leroy
Leroy – I really respect your contrarian position on all this – its good for the debate.
You are clutching at straws here, either just for the sake of it – or the alternative, which is that you are insane. Which of course you are not.
We are agreed this has zero to do with doping ( who did what to whom and when and what and zzzzz ) and everything to do with brazen, gutless and morally void behaviour – the guy is a criminal. He’ll be tried as such, found guilty beyond reasonable doubt and will go to jail.
Will you defend him then?
@Leroy Your point seems to be that because other people behave reprehensibly we shouldn’t be angry about the shape that pro cycling is in because of all this? I don’t know why you keep making out like I’m only hating on Lance and USPS, because I don’t have any agenda in that direction – until a week ago quite the opposite! I’ve explained my thoughts on this several times now so I should probably stop before I get my dander up…
@G’phant
What? While I was in new Zealand I picked fights with some Aussie Wanker who claimed to be a lawyer (He may have a deep understanding of the law without being a lawyer…) but now I’ve traded my soul for shit beer and sunshine, you f**king kiwis are really starting to get on me tits (especially Bretto. Bald git.) Admittedly you’re no Marcus, since there’s no frothing diatribe based on sports no one in the civilized world gives a shit about, but you are impeccably mannered, you are a lawyer and you are over there. So if Minion and Marcus’ internet feud is really over, you’re on my list for potential targets.
Actually fuck all that. Marcus is still wrong about everything ever so there’s no way this is over.
It did make me smile in last weeks Cycling Weekly on the page that sells all the DVDs for £19.99….the two featuring COTHO were priced at £2.99! Not sure if it was a misprint but a wry smile crossed my lips…it was not even advertised as a special price..someone somewhere has stock issues!
@smithers
I’ll put up $100 right now that says Lance never does so much as a day of community service over this case. He stands to lose some cash in civil suits but he definitely won’t be doing jail time over any of this. The burden of proof is considerably higher in a court of law than anything the USADA has to deal with and, in a court of law, high powered attorneys change the game in a big way… just ask OJ.
@Oli
First of all, I’m not defending Lance’s actions as being RIGHT. I’m not saying I would want to raise my kids or see anyone else raise their kids instilling that type of behaviour in them. Let’s clear that up straight off.. I DO NOT AGREE WITH LANCE’S ACTIONS.
Second, I’m not saying that you’re “hating” strictly on Lance and USPS Oli… But you seem to be laying a big part of the blame for the “shape pro cycling is in” at Lance’s feet. That’s the part of the opinion that I don’t agree with and am debating. Yes he was a willing participant but, if you’re going to be outraged… be outraged by cycling in that era, not by Lance being the driven manipulative douchebag that he is. Really, if pro cycling is in bad shape today because of these revelations, we have Tygart and the testimonial of confessed dopers to blame more than Lance… he’d have done anything to take these secrets to his grave and keep his (and by association cycling’s) name out of the mud.
That being said, I do not see his actions as at all surprising or as being the cause of any larger issue in cycling beyond his doping and his team’s doping. It would honestly be more surprising for a man in power to willingly admit their errors and lose their power than it would be to learn that they did everything within their power to preserve their position. Whether it’s a Rockefeller monopoly or Vanerbuilt collusion practices or Armstrong’s Strongarm intimidation tactics… that’s simply what men in power have always done. I’m not using that as a justification for Lance or freeing him from any culpibility for his actions… just pointing out that it’s very much to be expected with so much on the line for a megalomaniacal competitor like Lance. Lance was just another piece of the larger problem of doping in cycling and not the source of the problem that so many are making him out to be. No more than we can blame Barry Bonds for “causing” steroid use in baseball can we blame Lance for causing doping. If there were half as many dopers in the peloton or if Lance was alone on a doped up island, then voices would’ve rung out in unison supporting Simeoni or any number of other riders. Where was Dirty George all the years that people were blasting Hamilton & Landis? The peloton chose to support Lance’s actions through their silence which means they share the guilt. Had these guys spoke up five or ten years ago, it would’ve been a game changer… today, the only people really benefitting from it are the media outlets who just got months worth of sensationalistic garbage to report on that, at least in my opinion, will ultimately do more harm to cycling’s image than good.
So really, my point basically comes down to three things..
1. If we’re going to condemn doping, condemn ALL doping not just those who did it best or most or most effectively or efficiently. All the riders who cry about sleepless nights and broken dreams now were all too happy to go along to get along until, in the twilight of their careers, they were faced with “turning states” or taking a bullet themselves. And we’re supposed to laud their “honesty”… It doesn’t take courage to go turncoat when you’ve got little left to lose. I have considerably more respect for Landis and Hamilton than I did a year ago… I have the same level of respect for Armstrong (which is to say very little) today compared to a year ago… and I have considerably less respect than I did a year ago for all the riders who testified.
2. If we accept that Lance was a highly sophisticated doper, which you pretty much have to in light of the evidence, then we have to accept that everything about the sophistication of his doping was geared around hiding that doping and any steps taken to that end shouldn’t be a suprise… what’s more surprising is that it was so well known but everyone continued to ALLOW Armstrong to intimidate and coerce others into silence. If these 11 guys would’ve stood up a decade ago, THAT would’ve been good for cycling. Today, it’s just an easy out for them as they’re wrapping up their careers. If Armstrong intimidates Simeoni and then Hincapie and Vande Velde (or even a few other riders from random teams) step up and back Simeoni, THAT would’ve been a game changer… but that’s not how it happened.
3. This has done nothing to “help” cycling in my mind. The sport had already moved on IMO. I do not believe for one second that there is a rider in the peloton who was doped last year that will not be doping this year because of these revelations… Nor do I believe that young riders like Vangarderen, Phinney, or Dombrowski are currently doping or would have resorted to doping in the absence of these revelations.
That’s really the clearest I can make it… I’m not playing at being contrarian, I’m not trying to get your “dander up”, and I’m definitely not supporting Armstrong, I’m condemning the whole reality of that era equally and completely along with condemning the usefullness of this whole USADA investigation which seeks to “clean up cycling” by dragging its name through the mud while selectively chosing which riders to persecute… and while ignoring their testing responsibilities at the major American races TODAY, right now. Personally, I care far more about whether Horner and Levi were doped in dominating the AToC in 2011 than I do about Lance being doped in 2005 (or how he avoided getting caught) because its simply more applicable to cycling today. The USADA failed us in that regard, and they failed us because they made a choice to hunt down Lance instead of hunting down doping.
@Leroy
” Personally, I care far more about whether Horner and Levi were doped in dominating the AToC in 2011 than I do about Lance being doped in 2005 (or how he avoided getting caught) because its simply more applicable to cycling today. The USADA failed us in that regard, and they failed us because they made a choice to hunt down Lance instead of hunting down doping.”
I could respond to each of your misnomers in that post en masse, but really these last sentences are just too hilarious and I shall now go to sleep with a smile!
@brett
Would you care to elaborate on that a bit rather than just being needlessly condescending? Are you suggesting you don’t care if riders are racing clean right now??
…and you should probably look up “misnomer” because you’re using it wrong.
@minion
Hallefuckinglujah! The weeks of doubt have passed. God is in His Heaven and all is right with the world.