Cycling is hard; I’m not leaking any trade secrets with that statement, but it feels good to say it anyway. No Cyclist avoids suffering, but of those who venture into our world, there are some who seek to limit it while others choose to embrace it. Then we have a handful of characters who consider playing Whack-a-Mole with the Man with the Hammer to be good sport, particularly when playing the part of Mole.
In the current climate, it’s impossible not to consider the impact doping has on our sport. I, for one, have happily watched professional bike racing and delighted in the spectacle for close to thirty years, aware to varying degrees that doping is part and parcel of that spectacle I enjoy so much. In the last decade, I’ve gone so far as to assume most – if not all – riders are doping; a regrettable situation but one which has done little to temper my enthusiasm for the sport. After all, when all the riders are doing it, then surely what we’re watching is a level playing field of willing participants who understand how the game is played. Cheaters cheating cheaters hardly seems like cheating.
It’s all beautifully romantic so long as all the riders are doping. This is not the case, however; there are those who are racing clean against dopers. These riders are truly being cheated out of a livelihood by a culture which not only turns a blind eye to cheating, but who ostracize those who don’t. These riders who refuse to dope have few voices and last week, the sport lost one of the most forward of these with the retirement of Nicole Cooke.
Nicole has been a force in Women’s Cycling since turning Pro in 2002. A powerful rouleur, she excelled in every terrain and in any race format, but was nigh unbeatable in uphill finishes, taking a total of three La Fléche Wallonne Féminine titles, each of which required such a large laying of The V that it brought her to collapse. I was aware of her as much as anyone can be with the state of the coverage of Women’s Cycling, but she became one of my favorite riders after reading a piece in Rouleur about my favorite hub manufacturer, Royce. In the article, Royce’s Cliff Polton described being at a trade show when a young girl better described as a ball of loosely-contained energy bounded up on his booth and started asking about bottom bracket axles and wondering aloud if he could help her achieve her goal of becoming the wolds most dominant female cyclist.
Given what I understand of her personality, I get the feeling it was more like executing a plan than achieving a goal.
Cooke raced at the top of her sport for thirteen years; she scaled the heights of achievement with wins in every major race on the calendar including the Ronde van Vlaanderen voor Vrouwen, La Fleche, the Giro d’Italia Femminile and Grand Boucle (women’s Tour de France), the Olympic Road Race, and the World Championship Road Race. What’s more, she accomplished it while remaining staunchly anti-doping to the point that she faced sackings for refusing doping products.
Anyone who is a fan of Cycling should read Nicole’s retirement statement – I could never do it justice here. My personal hopes for the Pharmstrong Legacy is that it yields a a blood letting in the UCI and that the energy it spends on covering up its own corruption goes instead into promoting Women’s Cycling.
I’m sad to see Nicole go. Yet, for a rider who thrived in the hardest conditions and who unyieldingly stuck to her principles, I find it very fitting that the final two wins of her career came in Stages V of the Giro Femminile and Energiewacht Tour, respectively. Bravo, Nicole.
Here is the finale of her last Giro stage win:
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@Chris Adams
Yes indeed! We have offices in Scacroft near Leeds and myself and a colleague are planning a "business trip" around those days with bikes in the back of the car. It may be necessary to stay over for such important "business meetings"!
Maybe a Cogal around the time would be good?
@Deakus
Hope the back gets better....if it is muscular then 10 minutes a days with an icepack followed by 10 minutes with a hot water bottle (in a cover of some sort) will work wonders.
I am stunned by how little GPs know about this sort of stuff these days...spent quite some time with Osteos, Chiros and Physio trying to sort out an old neck injury until a wise old GP suggested this course of action....6 weeks later...all fixed!
@Deakus Agreed!
It starts in the home and encouraging the kids (was referring to the dude at the UCI in particular).
@Marcus
You've forgotten where you are again haven't you grampa. Derelict-fucking-triathletes-who-run-even-when-they-haven't-stolen-something.com is another website.
@Chris Adams The injuries are a work in progress most importantly not restricting my cycling. I'd be up for a TDF Cogal. Having recently destroyed myself on the hills in Harrogate
This is a very interesting article - it's a scientific paper so not an easy read but basically discusses the principles of anti-doping and the consequences of allowing medically supervised doping, with the conclusion it might not be such a bad idea.
Some very interesting examples given.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1851967/
@ChrisO
This was a really interesting read....if nothing else to demonstrate what Bad Medecine is and how unsubstantiated, circumstantial evidence, with a very obvious lack of evidential data can lead to so called "common sense" conclusions being written.
Far from being a balanced medical paper this starts with a premice and then seeks to prove it by selectively picking anecdotes and avoiding some of the glaringly obvious negative evidence. Very little mention is given to athletes who have died from doping and in fact in parts the paper contradicts itself....especially when it starts to talk about anti-doping driving the behaviour underground.
It is written to sound like a medical paper, published in a medical context giving an impression of being a quality piece of research, without actually being so. I had a quick scan through the bibliography and mostly found articles, papers and scripts in a similar vein equally lacking in rigour or any type of peer review.
Interesting to read @ChrisO but I would have to say largely biased drivel.....some valid points are made, but they remain unchallenged or tested so can be given no creadence....this is more like a group of 3 people who have decided they want to state a case and carried on and done so...
@ChrisO
Just by way of example, I picked one of the bibliography entries that sounded most likely to be a peer reviewed piece of medical research. It actually led to a piece on death in young people through heart attacks which is in fact entirely hereditary.....this has nothing to do with doping and is in fact about pre-screening sports people for a genetic heart defect.
Med Pregl. 2012 Sep-Oct;65(9-10):396-404.
[Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy as a cause of sudden death in young people--literature review].
Institut za medicinsku fiziologiju, Univerzitet u Beogradu, Medicinski fakultet, Beograd.
Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy/dysplasia is a progressive condition with right ventricular myocardium being replaced by fibro-fatty tissue. It is a hereditary disorder mostly caused by desmosome gene mutations. The prevalence of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy is about 1/1000-5000. Clinical presentation is usually related to ventricular tachycardias, syncope or presyncopa, or ventricular fibrillation leading to cardiac arrest, mostly in young people and athletes. It may be difficult to make the diagnosis of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy due to several problems arising from the specificity of electrocardiograph abnormalities, different potential etiologies of ventricular arrhythmias with a left bundle branch morphology, the assessment of the right ventricular structure and function, and the interpretation of endomyocardial biopsy findings. Therefore, standardized diagnostic criteria have been proposed by the Study Group on arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy of the European Society of Cardiology. In order to make the diagnosis ofarrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, a number of clinical tests are employed, including the electrocardiogram, echocardiography, myocardial perfusion scintigraphy, myocardial biopsy, right ventricular angiography, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and genetic testing. The therapeutic options include beta blockers, antiarrhythmic drugs, catheter ablation, and implantable cardioverter defibrillator. The implantable cardioverter defibrillator is the most effective safe-guard against arrhythmic sudden death. Preparticipation screening for sport eligibility has been proven to be effective in detecting asymptomatic patients and sport disqualification has been lifesaving, substantially declining sudden death in young athletes.
@ChrisO
If you find this kind of stuff interesting I cannot recommend more highly Bad Medicine by Ben Goldacre. It rips apart everything from Homeopathic remedies to Thelidamide and MMR press scares and analyses in a very entertaining a evidenced based way how and why these things occur.....it changed the way I view medicines and the medical establishment and its relationship with drugs companies and the press...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Science-Ben-Goldacre/dp/000728487X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358949974&sr=1-1
@Deakus
You may disagree with it but it is a peer-reviewed piece of research. The author is a professor in the faculty of medicine at the University of Geneva who has authored or co-authored more than a hundred articles - not the type usually given to getting together with a group of people and dressing up spurious opinion.
It was cited by Professor Ross Parker of the Science of Sport website. He doesn't agree with it either but doesn't seem to question that it was a valid contribution. In fact he said he had previously co-authored papers with the writer.
I'm familiar with Ben Goldacre's work but his baddies tend to be those who interpret science in media or marketing/advertising, rather than the science itself and I don't see that as applicable in this case.