First off, cycling needs a different term for what it would like to convene. To equate cycling’s past with South Africa’s and Liberia’s dark histories is just wrong. Maybe the “I was a lying dick” tribunal. When I hear riders I admire say the past is the past, let’s look forward, I now assume they cheated. Cipo, Bugno, Faboo. Do I care? That has become harder to answer over time but yes, I still do care. Should I be surprised? No, I should be surprised if they were clean, like Jens, from East Germany. That actually does surprise me. If I was a “clean” rider, like Jens or Stuart O’Grady, I’d be rather pissed off about the missed opportunities. I would be damn angry rather than mildly surprised. They wouldn’t be lying to me too, would they?
Gianni Bugno seemed to take little pleasure in some of his greatest victories. When he beat Museeuw in the 1994 Ronde van Vlaanderen he looked a little guilty to me. If there ever was call for some Italian chest thumping and end-zone dancing I would think that might have been the day. Yet he seemed to want some privacy and there was no blinding smile a top the podium. Even back in 1994 the thought flickered in my head that my man, Gianni Bugno, didn’t just beat Museeuw on cunning alone.
Professional cycling is a brutally hard sport. It’s hard enough that drugs have been associated with it since men have been racing each other over unholy distances. I’d rather have cycling known for that than have cycling known as The Liars Club. As cycling fans we have been lied to by most everyone involved with the sport. I’m sick of being lied to much more than I’m sick to know Cipo was doped to the gills during the best season of his career. Let’s get this over with. Let us get to the Truth. It might even be fun reading. You did what how many times? Are you that stupid? Wow, that really resets the perfect amount of dumb meter doesn’t it?
If cycling does completely air its dirty past it will be a first. I don’t see American football or baseball ever addressing their doping issues. If it wasn’t such a hard damn sport doping wouldn’t be such a temptation: bike racing, horse racing and syringes. If it was just money that corrupted sports every golfer would be doing something besides drinking alcohol at the 19th hole. And fat bastards named Fuzzy or Daly wouldn’t be stubbing out their cigarettes on their caddie’s hat before teeing off. Will it ever happen? Not if the present UCI has anything to say about it. A lot of people who are involved in cycling above the level of the riders don’t want the dirty laundry snapping in the breeze.
Reconciliation…let’s call it freedom from legal prosecution. The reconciliation is going to happen between riders and fans in the cafés not in court. I don’t believe it will be a big deal, we still love cycling, I still love Bugno and Cipo. Nothing will have changed except everyone will know the truth. What will the record books look like after the smoke clears? Maybe nothing different, maybe that’s part of all this. Yes, Cipo finally won Milan-San Remo sprinting against other racers who were not clean either. He was the best of them that day.
Cipo, you worry too much. The tifosi won’t turn on you. Has the pope been roughed up yet? No? You are good then.
All right, enough talk, let’s look at some Spring Classic action, 1994, the Ronde van Vlaanderen
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
@eightzero
Ha! The Floyd Fairness Fund. F'ing beautiful. Thank god Tyler didn't have " get to know my chimera fund", I was dumb enough to listen to that crap. Who knows, I might have sent in some money. Luckily I'm a cheap yankee bastid.
@Steampunk
Oh man, wash your mouth out with Canadian Club. Bad Steamy! Why should I defend him? I don't know him. I shouldn't defend any of them, for the Tyler/chimera reason mentioned above...But I will anyway only because he is racing for Garmin. Shut up Gianni, listen to yourself. Don't you ever learn, FFS? Bad Gianni, sit, dowwwwnnnnn. Bad, bad, Gianni
@brett unfortunately, i agree with you. And that makes me feel sicker than dubious doping denials.
Did you read Cuddles' latest interview after the Tour of Oman, where he said he hopes he comes back a better rider after his break. "Guys like Lance Armstrong and Laurent Jalabert came back as better riders after they took a break. I hope the same happens to me."
WTF was he thinking with that one??
Sounds like a roo might be loose in the top paddock again.
@Steampunk
Add Ryder to that list. He got very, very quiet as teammates came out and the Chicken (with whom he trained) finally confessed. Compare the press and interviews he's given since the Giro with other GT champions over the past few years.
Now a guy is guilty basis how he reacts?
@wiscot
So, if you are not doing backflips, chugging champagne, and dry humping the podium girls you are on the juice? How about the guys that choose to keep it classy and act like they've been there before? I hate the guilty until proven innocent our sport has taken. How to fix it? Not a fucking clue...maybe public stoning?
@ Tobin : I always thought there were a couple of reasons for not celebrating, 1st as you mentioned above they are pro's 2nd the fact that they just rode 150 - 200k all out with a 40+km avg was the other. Might be a little naive on my part but after all it is my delusion.
Okay, so I try to resist talking about doping & also inserting myself. It's such a darn complex situation.
But, I have two real parts of this whole mess that I don't understand.
The "everyone was doing it" claim. Were they? Or, were some at the top doing it Big Time and Real Deal and the rest of them were taking amphetamines & bourbon. Surely totally different ball games. And again, if some at the top were on full-on doping regimes how level was the field? Maybe the good were better and some donkeys got sorta good, with the rest remaining as domestiques which they'd have been even clean.
I completely don't understand the "fans wanted this and pushed me to dope." Really? The average goddman fan, especially a COTHO-file has no fucking clue what they're doing on the bike. 220 km might as well be 20 km. At the high level of any damn sport, the average person has no fucking clue how insane what they are doing actually is. Who demanded they set new PRs up Alpe d'Huez? Not me.
Fucking Merckx. While this is a very well written article (it is, truly), I'm sick to fucking death about talking about the doping right now. Yes, I realize that it has to be dealt with. But I really want to talk more about proper bar tape and is it gonna be a cold and wet P-R this year.
Rant over..............
@brett
Thanks, just checking my "blind spot".
@scaler911
Yeah, I started to write about Het Volk this Saturday but my heart wasn't in it. Somehow this is still the Cardiff Giant in the room and I can't leave it. Hearing Cipo's half-assed lawyer got me all into a frenzy. Cipo, why do you lie to me?
The problem the Velominatus has is that of knowing too much. We know that driving the front at 44kph into the wind for an hour is not normal ( thanks Tyler ). But we represent maybe 5% of the earning potential of guys like Stuey and Jens. They're not giving it all up for us. They're cuddling up to the blinded/adoring/all-trusting majority. And this shows contempt for the whole. Waiting until retirement to fess up is weak, greedy and grossly indulgent.
FWIW I have no moral high ground. If I was on the pro peloton in the 90's I'd have been juiced to the eyeballs. Drugs and me used to get along fine. A little too well really. I can imagine EPO feels great. It sure seems to work OK. If you offered me a shot on KT14 I'd probably go for it. I could give it up anytime...
@scaler911
Cycling and cycling fans are fucking weird because the conversation around doping has been going on for years - while good hearted, honest, genuine people like yourself are disgusted with the situation, people with blackened, filthy souls like me, have a part of us that fucking loves this shit. Yes, it's a part of me I wish wasn't there, and yes, the sport would be much, much better off if it was clean, but all this stuff, to the part of me that loves the spectacle of the fall, is like catnip and heroin shot straight into the emotionicles. And not surprisingly, cycling journalists have learnt how to scratch that itch, for those cycling fans who are that way inclined.
In Australia at the moment, the major sports (Footy, Aussie rules and whatever) are having their own doping strife. It lasted a week and has fallen off the radar as far as the public is concerned. No-one gives a shit about drugs in other sports the way cyclists are horrifically fascinated by drugs in cycling.