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
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There is an element of "rubbernecking" here, we keep writing about it, so there is a market for people to continue to bang on about it.
Let's put it this way, in my mind I have already decided that they all doped....probably up until 2009. I don't really care if some of them say they did not, in my mind they all did, they were all complicit even if they were not stuffing the sherbert up their own noses. I am not interested in riders bleating about how their careers were cheated. If it were a banker crying over the fact that he sold out a load of peoples pensions because he would have been sacked otherwise...would he receive the same sympathy...I think not.
By concluding this I have already moved on. The shadows have faded and the past can bloody well stay where it is. Truth and Reconciliation...O please...this will just end up as a "who can be most contrite" competition....it won't get you to the truth.
Anyone doping now should be made to ride a Grand Tour on a Raleigh Chopper with a dunces hat on wearing a mankini. This is the definitive way of stopping it happening. Those who doped have to live with their own conciences, COTHO has shown crocodile tears, others have seemed genuine....it does not really matter in the end...
They were all doped up, or they were quiet about those who were, either way the guilt is the same. I feel sadness for those who died from doping because all life should be held as sacred but I certainly do not blame others for it. We are all adults, grow a pair and pick your career, don't follow along and bleat about it after the fact....
Yellow Fizik bar tape. Picked up a box and all i can say is itbwill put the screws to rule 8.
Ooops, that was for @scaler911. Reply button not working or im just incompetent. Likely the latter
@graham d.m.
exactly!
@Gianni
No matter what he says, Cipo is never going to call you the next morning.
@Gianni & @Tobin:
Re. Ryder Hesjedal:
No, he's dubious based on his history and the people he trained with. Signed in 2002 to Rabobank's espoirs team. Rode for US Postal and then Phonak. Wasn't there also a recent case of doping in the BC MTB world, too?
My coping mechanism has been to work on the naïve premise that doping is less advantageous in the Classics than in Grand Tours, where recovery is everything. We can all bury ourselves for one day and can afford an extra kg of weight in ways that are not possible in multi-stage events. Which is not to paint everyone with the same broad brush, but rather to want to believe in the Gilberts, Hushovds, Boonens, Cancellaras. These guys will kill themselves for one day. Then my season takes a hiatus at the end of April and reconvenes in the fall. I love watching the Giro, Tour, and Vuelta, but I feel much less invested in them.
But, of course, there's also this:
@Rob
It's still a big mess & even those who race at the top don't really know what to do.
Bassons says the media & fans need to focus on the human interest aspects of it, that new doping products will always keep coming along and it can't be stopped. On the other side, JV says you need to test more and more and more. Two quite different perspectives.
Bassons:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/christophe-bassons-where-the-war-on-drugs-is-going-wrong
JV:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/opinion/sunday/how-to-get-doping-out-of-sports.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
@Rob
You are wise Robbie-san. And yes, as you say, I love their style, not them personally as I will never become friends with them. I just lose it occasionally.
@roger
yeah, let's move back to the bar tape issues. Did you get the new stuff with a bit of foam underneath? Frank is rather foamed up over it.
@Steampunk Yeah, I mean, there is no way that Boonen has EVER doped, at least not in competition (he says while crying into his shirt as all of his heroes come crashing down around him).
@Gianni I didnt know they had some with foam. I saw the regular microtex and the packing that has gel inserts. nothing I ride requires the gel so went with the tried and true. have a box of white standing by at the ready, just in case it looks like the headset vomited all over the bars.
regarding winning and podium behavior: there isn't a scenario my fragile state of being could handle. win and be casually deliberate, and everyone expects you feel guilty and only time will flush out the truth of being a doper. win and celebrate like crazy, and people will do everything they can to accuse you of doping, be it the case or not. this could be a childhood issue though, as i've never handled doubt very well. my teachers were catholic nuns, and one accused me of ordering white milk in the morning, but taking a chocolate milk during lunch. i went off the rails, and was that close to being thrown out of school. that was over milk, i couldnt imagine how bonkers i'd go over doping allegations.