Tyler Hamilton’s win in La Doyenne in 2003 was one of the highlights in what was generally a fantastic season. A great Spring campaign, a great Giro, a great Tour, a great Fall; unpredictable races, and closely-fought battles littered the events. But, with the luxury of 20-20 hindsight and a quick cross-reference of results listings to doping scandals, it’s safe to assume that season landed smack in the middle of an era of jet-fueled racing that rivals the 1990’s in their indulgence.
It’s a tough time to be a cyclist. Death, doping scandals, corruption in the organizing bodies of the sport. We test our athletes more than any other sport, but the tests are flawed and incomplete, and rumors persist that teams and riders pay off not just the labs to surpress positive tests, but also the UCI. Hamilton’s confession on 60 Minutes this week is the latest in an unsettling chain of events that keep peeling back more layers of the onion. I was a big fan of Tyler’s and part of me even believed in his innocence. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy – much too nice a guy to get involved in cheating. But there he was on television, talking openly about the magnitude of drugs-taking within the USPS team.
On the other hand, I’ve never been a fan of Armstrong’s. I find him to be arrogent, controlling, manipulative. His Tour wins were too formulaic; in sharp contrast to his fight with cancer, his racing showed no element of humanism. I have taken it for granted that his wins came with considerable assistance from a carefully planned and executed doping regimen. But these beliefs were woven together by a thread of doubt, and the possibility always existed that his were clean wins.
Hearing Hamilton talk of the seemingly nonchalant attitude towards doping at USPS and, in particular, by Armstrong, is surprising not in the content of the message, but in how hard the message hit. I expected the words. I had read them. I have even written many of them myself. But there was always a tangible element of speculation about them. For me, that element is now gone, and it feels strange to say the least.
Even as someone who generally accepts that doping is commonplace in the peloton, it hurts me every time another allegation of doping comes out. It takes me days to recover from it. But even if the worst happens, if Professional Cycling as we know it today falls apart, cycling will continue. Because cycling is more than watching others race bikes. It’s about racing or riding the bike yourself. It’s about overcoming your own limitations. It’s about the rider and the machine working together. It’s about cleaning, caring for, thinking about your bike. It’s about taking photos of it so you can look at it when you’re away.
Cycling rides through a storm today, but we will always have the bike. We will always have la Vie Velominatus.
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@Chris
Farce is too gentle a word Chris. Doping yourself then getting busted is one thing, but Clenbutador's actions are just sh1tting all over the peloton and us the fans.
Despite the Spanish President making a statement (political threat and order, really) that he thought AC was innocent, the whiny little guy has been busted, cold. He's not arguing that he didn't dope, he's using the dog ate my homework excuse. That Chinese Radio Hack rider who also got done for Clenbuterol and received two years must wish he had powerful mates like AC.
This goes back to Operacion Puerto and the fact that the good doctor stated many 'patients' were not cyclists, but were in fact La Liga players from Real Madrid and Barcelona, as well as a certain tennis star (Rafa..?).
Clenbutador should do the honorable thing and cop his right wack, but then I guess he's been doing it a long time and doesn't care how much he f@cks up the sport of cycling...
@SupermanSam
Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to defend the guy and I'm not a fan but regardless of the whether or not he thinks he has a legitimate case for his positive test, the way in which this has been handled by the UCI and the CAS is doing more damage than the original offence. In my mind he should not be allowed to race until he has been cleared or served a ban you cannot have people riding on a positive result pending an appeal but at the same time, deciding which it should be should not take over a year.
@il ciclista medio
No, the origins of the Japanese "Oiiiii" is not English. It originated when Godzilla traipsed all over that place and freaked them all out.
@SupermanSam, @Chris
Yeah, farce to say the least. Deplorable. Back to the governing bodies. How can they let this happen? Incredible.
It will be interesting to watch ASO in the coming weeks; they prevented Boonen from starting the Tour because of damage to their image after his partying got a little rowdy. They tried it again and lost the court case against Quick Step because they couldn't prevent someone from doing their job.
Here's hoping they keep him out; but I don't have very high hopes.
I went ahead and tried to find approximate weights for the riders listed when they did those climbs. This is what I came up with:
Contador 62kg
Riis 68kg
Pantani57kg
Leblanc 62 kg
Armstrong 75 kg
Ullrich 73 kg
Soler 70 kg
Indurain 80 kg
I don't know enough about stats or sports science to determine any outliers or who's producing what watts per kilogram. Maybe I could figure it out with more googling, but I don't care enough too. Seems like Riis and Contador are too high on the chart for their weights, however.
@frank
This shouldn't need to be down to the ASO, as cycling's governing body the UCI should be the organisation to say whether someone should or shouldn't be cycling. That's the whole point of governing bodies (although going by the current palaver at FIFA...)
And before anyone points back to my previous post where I talk about being innocent until proven otherwise, suspending Clenbutador until his hearing is more akin to holding someone on remand until they come to trial.
@Chris
Agreed completely - but the governing bodies have already proven themselves to be as effective as a hipster stopping a fixie without a brake, so the last line of defense is ASO. But, of course, while I cheered for Boonen when he won his last case to be allowed to start, I'm afraid that now set the precedent to allow Bertie. Bugger that.
@Pakrat
The more research I do, the more I find that it is basically impossible to make any assumptions about physical capability based on a single climb with so many variables. We don't know how much the bikes weighed, the strength of any tail or head winds, the intensity of the riding before those climbs, rolling resistance of tires on pavement, or even how much water weight the riders lost by the time they got to those climbs. Tons of variables that can all make for fractions of a percent difference in calculated power output. Science of sport notes that Contador's power output was 440watts on the high end and well under 400 on the low end. That makes the difference between the number of w/kg you can probably only produce by doping, and an attainable level.
Records are, by definition, outliers. Quirks. Did most of those riders break the bounds of human possibility? Probably. But not definitely.
@frank
@Chris
Yes, that was my thought also in so far as what the ASO will do. My guess is that Prudhomme will be tearing McQuaid and assorted yes-men at CAS new ones in the next few days. Will Saxo be dis-invited from the TdF? Will Bertie then get all whiney and threaten to retire again? Personally, part of me almost hopes that he's allowed in and that Frandy kicks his ass on the Cols and that he's popped for another positive to boot.
This positive that's still in arbitration is from LAST YEAR'S TdF for f&*k's sake!!! The testing system is broken. The arbitration system is broken. The UCI has lost all legitimacy as an organization with any impartiality or a shred of ethics.
Someone needs to distribute see-thru ketchup packets to the tifosi to use to pave his way up the mountain top finish tomorrow.
@frank
don't get me started on talentless fuckers riding brakeless bikes! If you thought it was a problem trying to stop a fixie with no brake try watching your eight year old daughter get flattened by a brakeless (brainless?) bmxist trying to stop his bike by jamming his unlaced sneaker into his wheel.