Welcome to the Kermis. It’s not a recycling, it’s a reintroduction. The idea is to repost an old article that still resonates today and see where it goes. We will endeavor not to abuse this feature.
I’ve referred to Frank’s fantastic Perfect Amount of Dumb article at least five times in my own posts. My reference is usually that I’m dumb but it’s cycling related dumb. I’ve got the dumb part covered, not the Motorcus part. I so love his unexpected title and the post, it needs to do another lap.
I was just watching Tyler Mini Phinney’s post Dubai TT interview thinking, this kid has the perfect amount of dumb to be great. He shops at the Big and Tall shop, so I like him already. And his brain is way up there, in the thin air, so he choses his words carefully, like climbers at 8,000 meters. He’s got It.
No American Cyclist has won a Monument. Abandy has won more Monuments than LeMan? Merckx forgive me for uttering that last sentence. Greg was our last best chance but this new Phinney-Carpenter hybrid might somehow, someday get on the stones, get really incensed, and prove he has the perfect amount of dumb.
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Didn't Tyler I (or should we call him Tyler 1.5?) win LBL? Also, can we start calling LBL the Doper's Monument?
@Nate
I think in the last 10-15 years there have been a few suspicious wins (but I think that applies to just about any race), but Phil Gil won in 1911 and I'd rate that clean, Danny Martin's win last year too. Had Martin not won, Purito would have and I think he's clean. Look back to the 70s and 80s and you'll se lots of wins I'd consider clean. Perfect case in point: Hinault in 1980. You would be the biggest dumb-ass in history to put yourself through such hell knowing that you could produce a positive sample.
It's gotten better but from 99-10 we had the following winners: VDB, Bettini (x2), Camenzind, Hamilton, Rebellin, Vino (x2), Piti (x2), Di Luca and Frandy. If memory serves me only Bettini and Frandy haven't had positives of some sort among that group.
@wiscot
Actually Joseph Van Daele won in 1911. Phil Gil was 100 years later.
I was wondering who won in 1911; thank you paolo!
Friday afternoon - gotta put it on cruise control and recycle the articles. NICE!
Am I the only one to wonder what these dudes have done with all their shades from over the years? Do they have a big drawer at home with all the old pairs? Do they give them to cousins and nephews?
Bettini. We have a black cat named Cricket. He kinda looks like Paolo.
@Nate
Yes he did win and for some reason I thought it was officially taken away from him. I should check his book...OK, I just did. He said it was the first time he did LBL with a BB (blood bag). I bet he was juiced up something awful. It was a nice win, had he been clean. Either way, I don't consider him having won a Monument.
@Nate
He won in 2003, but I think he's been stripped of all his wins due to his confession. It was a great win, though.
@wiscot
Are you on crack? Purito is clean? Seriously? Katousha had to keep their ProTour license only through legal arbitration. Even the corrupt fucking UCI thought they were so doped they should be kicked out.
Martin? Maybe. Gilbert? I love the guy, but have you looked at his face? Those are fucking cortizone/roid zit scars, baby. Unless he was shot in a hunting accident. Also, he didn't win in 1911, although if a Gilbert won in 1911 and was clean, I'll take your word for it.
I agree to an extent; I think they were taking crap they shouldn't - caffeine, cortisone, amphetamine...any number of things. The thing about that kind of doping versus taking Human Growth Hormone or EPO (or blood doping) is the conversion from donkey to thoroughbred as they say.
I don't really care if Hinault took cocaine to win the 1980 LBL in a blizzard. It did him fuck all good. He still had to ride that with the same aerobic machine he was born with, maybe with impaired judgment, but he was still the same man. Same goes for all those drugs - as Fignon says in his autobiography, back then, a doped rider could never become a champion and a champion could never be routinely beaten by the same doper.
The drugs may have been cheating, but they were also a disadvantage - Andy Hampsten says as much in Hamilton's book, talking about how easy it was to race against dopers because steroid users were bloated and amphetamine users were stupid. A clean rider could beat them just by using their brain and their resources.
EPO and the widespread use of blood doping and human growth hormone changed that fundamentally.
Any race up to 1989 I consider a pretty clear win, with exception of the obvious outliers. After that it gets foggy. I think the 1989 Worlds and Konyshev getting second to be the ground-zero for EPO use, to be honest. Indurain on Luz Ardiden being the second major example. From there, it gets foggy.
@frank
ASO still have him as the 2003 winner: http://www.letour.fr/liege-bastogne-liege/2014/fr/histoire/
@frank
Spot on -- I've always read his name as ironic.
I want to believe he was clean in '11 and admit to being a fanboy but if it is revealed he wasn't, I'll be disappointed but not shocked.