The inaugural Velominati Super Prestige continues with its last installment of the Spring Classics, Liége-Bastogne-Liége, on Sunday, April 25. This will be the fourth race in the season-long series and with the unpredictability of the Ardennes classics continuing as it has, the competition is doing nothing to open up but is instead closer now than ever.
Thankfully, the eruption of Eyjafjallaj̦kull has mellowed out and travel seems to be opening up across Europe, so we are not expecting a lot of uncertainly about the start list at this stage Рespecially since most riders who have Liege on their race program have already managed make the journey to Belgium.
Of all the classics, La Doyenne is the most likely to yield a successful breakaway, which lends even more excitement to the possible race predictions. Rob continues to hold the lead which he took at Roubaix; but much like Contador’s performance on the Mur de Huy corroborated the notion that perhaps he’s off the sauce, Rob’s lackluster performance at La Fleche eases our minds that he isn’t working within any illegal sooth-saying rings.
This winner of this Super Prestige edition will again earn an “Obey the Rules” bumper sticker and all reader’s points qualify towards the final prize of the free Velominati Shop Apron. As always, if you are inclined to enter, simply post your predictions for the top five placings in the comment section. Check back here or on the Super-Prestige main page for updated rules as we will be introducing a bonus-point program for this edition.
Good luck.
Rules and results are posted Velominati Super Prestige page.
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Yes. Extract your cranium from your rectum. "Hey, what's that I can see? The light! Oh shit, they are all doping!"
Go back as far as you like, Coppi, Merckx, Hinault, LeMond, Indurain, Riis, Pantani, oh my God even Armstrong... all dopers.
I don't care... let em jam needles into their eyeballs, fuck, as long as the racing is as good as what we saw today, I don't care, let em drink pure fucking EPO!
Having said that, if they are all clean, and Veino is too, then still good fucking on him for a great ride.
I was cheering for him because of all the whiners who condemned him, but hold a torch up for Pharmstrong still. Fucking hypocrites.
I think Brett has to be listened to - it looks close between him and Frank, so he must know something we don't?
This one was fun, the lead up, the run in and now good conversation about did they didn't they. I think they have all done something, roids at the least and blood shite or more. So is it still fun to watch or does it ruin it for you?
@john
I'm with John. Brett, I hope you're wrong about the "everyone". But even if you're right, "everyone cheats so it's OK" doesn't work for me. Sporting competition is not just about winning, it is about winning within the rules. Whether or not those rules are arbitrary (as they often are - excluding "The Rules") or broken by others (as they often are - including "The Rules") is not relevant to what is besically a moral issue. People like Millar, who show genuine regret and become determined ambassadors for doing it clean, are of course different (unless and until they do it again, which I trust will never happen with DM). But the "I've done my time, so let's move on" attitude which Vino seems to display, seemingly without any real and ongoing acknowledgment of the immmorality of the offending, strikes me as almost as cynical and corrosive as the cheating in the first place. Unless and until he does a Millar, I won't be cheering for him.
@Geof
Thanks Geof, that's what I wanted to say.
@Rob
I won't argue that they haven't all done something(past tense), but I don't thing that are all doing something(present tense). I just don't buy it. If I thought they were all cheating it would ruin it for me, but I don't think that so I dig it the most. I would argue for the lifetime ban, first offense, who wouldn't?
Oh I'll listen to Brett, but a man with tan lines like this can't be right all the time.Brett's Head
I'm not saying cheating is right, it's not, but cycling is a cheats sport, plain as that. Everyone that has ever won anything has been on something. You can't not realise that.
Fucking Millar, he wouldn't have said shit if he hadn't been caught red-handed. His "genuine regret" only applies to the regret that he got caught; otherwise he'd still have a world TT medal by ill-gotten gains, and his mouth shut.
You guys seem to think the Schlecks are gods gift, but they should be held under as much suspicion as Valverde, who you all condemn. Valverde has only had his name linked to Fuentes, nothing more, and F Schleck was caught paying large sums of money to Fuentes. Where's the difference? Has he ever said he regrets paying Fuentes for 'training advice'?
Ok, are you listening? I DON"T condone cheating. But don't vilify some when the others you support are just the same.
@brett, @john, @Geof, @Rob
Wow. I get on a plane for a couple hours and that's when the Velominati jump into the émission de la dopage? Christ.
The simple truth is that this is one fucking complicated matter, and all of us are right and all of us are wrong.
Brett and Rob, you're right that everyone is on the sauce. You can't compete at this level, distance, and speed without a little external support; the excitement comes from the racing, not from whether or not they're clean - otherwise we might as well go shopping in the neon glow of the mall where everything is nice and controlled. And today's racing was bike racing at the highest levels. The fact is, I hate Veino and Piti and that made it a result I wasn't hoping for. But it's nothing against the racing.
Geof, you're right that saying "that's the way it is" is not an excuse to accept it. Doping is cheating and accepting that everyone does it does nothing to lessen that fact. I think big steps have been made recently in the fight against doping (not to eradicate it, but to tame the jetfuel), but, to label it a moral issue is grossly oversimplifying matters. These aren't kids with college educations (for the most part); they're youngsters who are brought up through the ranks by their mentors who show them the ropes and introduce them to the "methods". Then, they become the mentors and the mentors the directors. And so the cycle continues. I don't know if you can say that these 18 year old, under-educated kids can understand that what they're doing is making a moral decision. They're being told what to do, and they are doing it. I don't think it's much more complicated than that, but it's still cheating. It's like when Brett drinks a soy fucking latte and breaks the Rules.
John, I'm with you on why Millar = Good and Veino = Bad. It's a matter of acknowledgement. I hate Pharmstrong for the same reason I hate Vino and Piti. There's an arrogance in their attitude that I think is much worse than doping or cheating. It's that George W Bush mentality of "don't you dare question me" that infects everything those people touch. It's unsportsmanlike behavior. Ullrich, topped up on EPO, still waited for Pharmy after he idiotically rode so close to a fan that he fell on her fucking Musette bag - a mistake anyone should loose a Tour for. Drugs or not, that was sportsmanlike behavior and that's what I love to watch.
And that takes me to why it doesn't change the sport if they're doping or not. It's not the drugs. It's the lack of sportsmanship displayed by these guys and the fact that we know (or are pretty sure) they're on drugs is just an easy thing for us to point at.
I don't care about amphetamines or 'roids. I care about the drugs that make thoroughbreds out of donkeys. The ones that change the races. That make a team so strong they control a race from start to finish and it sucks the excitement out of the race. Like Postal, Discovery, Astana.
When it comes down to it - anyone who says they will stop liking a sport if the athletes are on drugs might be watching the sport for the wrong reasons. Sure, it sucks that I'm not about to compare my split riding up Alpe d'Huez against the big boys knowing it's not apples to apples (aside from the other factors like "fitness" and not exhibiting the property of being "fat".) But what matters is the sportsmanship between the athletes and the spectacle of these brutes beating themselves and each other to shit on cobblestones and over the highest mountains.
Show me a good fight and I'm hooked. Spit in someone's eye, and I'll hate you until you at least pretend to show some remorse. In the end, drugs don't have much to do with it.
@brett
Just for fun, I tallied your "revised" score and you had a worse pick than you originally did. Still sticking with the first, official one, though. Lucky for you.
@all:
The results are in for the Liege edition of the Super Prestige:
Liège-Bastogne-Liège, April 25, 2010
1. Frank: 6 points
2. Brett: 4 points
3. Rob: 2 points
3. John: 2 points
3. Joe: 2 points
3. Geoff: 2 points
7. Marko: 1 point
8. James, Dan O, Jim: 0 points
Geof takes his second sticker by merit of heeding Rule 5 and throwing his picks into the game first. Well done, mate.
Current Standings:
1. Frank: 16 points
2. Rob: 14 points
3. Brett: 12 points
3. Marko: 12 points
5. John: 11 points
6. Joe: 8 points
6. Geoff: 8 points
8. James, Dan O, Jim: 0 points
The V-Cog that my name bears as a Keeper of the Cog takes precedent over a leaders' cog, which means that while Rob is no longer officially the leader, he will continue to wear the Rainbow Cog with dignity and honor as the second-ranked Velominatus in the competition.
The competition is still wide open and as we finalize the schedule for the remainder of the season and the scoring criteria for the upcoming Stage Races, the Super Prestige is still for anyone to claim.
@brett
You're right about Millar, but whatever the reason, he's on the road now, and I respect it. Who has ever lied and owned up to it before getting caught?
As for my boy Frank; I do believe he admitted it was wrong and the whole story is pretty cloudy, but he paid someone associated with Fuentes and when the connection was made, he bailed out. But, he didn't admit it until he was caught, and that's also idiotic.
Finally, as for Piti, the Italians actually did tie his DNA not only to blood from the Fuetes circle, but blood that had EPO in it. That's a double-hit. The only thing keeping him from serving a suspension is a weak UCI and a sand-bagging Spanish Federation.
While on the subject, I say the UCI should go and fuck themselves. They are completely incompetent and complacent and then play innocent when the other shoe drops. They're like the Catholic Church and this pedophile business.