Is Pro Cycling a complete Farce?

Billy Whizzcp · May 2007

I'm almost at the point of throwing in the towel an stopping following cycling anymore.

Looking back, I realise that what I thought was a great heritage of cycling, turns out to be the biggest bunch of cheats you could ever have the misfortune of coming accross.

If you cheat to win, then you didn't win! It's not ****ing rocket science!!!!!!

****ers.

Ste_S · May 2007

Off the top of my head, reasons to keep following cycling :-

Nicole Cooke
Chris Hoy
Vicky Pendleton
Bradley Wiggins
Mark Cavendish
Roger Hammond

graham56 · May 2007

yeah you`re dead right , but because "****ers" need an edge to win,it doesn`t mean everyone is in the same boat,or i`d like to think they`re not.Don`t ever think of giving up something you enjoy because of a few cheats.

sylvanus · May 2007

Plus lots if not all the French peleton plus most of t-mobile. To be honest if one took the same attitude to all sport or life then you'd have to become a monk or commit suicide. Some humans will always lie or cheat in sport or elsewhere.

SteveR_100Milers · May 2007

http://www.supercycling.co.za/default.a ... ernational

difficult not to disagree with this. Zero tolerance might save fans like Billy Whizz. Personally I can separate pro bike racing on TV to actually racing myself, and no matter what happens in the pro peleton makes not one jot of difference to my interest in bike racing. I guess if you are an armchair fan then its completely different, and for cyclists to become better respected in the UK it needs more armchair fans.

Time! Time! It's always too long and there's never enough!

Unknown · May 2007

The problem with these kind of statements etc is that riders hardly ever test positive. The Telekom stuff has come about because someone wrote a book. Puerto didn't involve positives etc. So yes, saying if someone tests positive and denies it then life ban. Fine - What would happen in a situation like with the EPO test a few years ago where it was proved to return false positives? Imagine if you were a 25 year old AAA rider, tested positive (whilst clean) and we banned for life. Then 7 years later you were cleared - That's not going to bring your earnings back, is it?

The best bet looks like going for constant monitoring and preventing riders from racing if their parameters change in a strange way. No bans, just do a T-Mobile and stop them racing for 30 days. If you continue to do dodgy things then you never get to race and what value is a pro cyclist who can't race?

chriswcp · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Ste_S

Off the top of my head, reasons to keep following cycling :-

Nicole Cooke
Chris Hoy
Vicky Pendleton
Bradley Wiggins
Mark Cavendish
Roger Hammond
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

and you're certain about them now?

This is a sad side effect now, no one is above susweeion.

laurencecp · May 2007

and all other sports are clean?

yeah, right.

"When the earth is ripe all the worms wake up, with their stars 'n' stripes and their swastikas"
"I may not go to heaven, i hope you go to hell"

DeanMoriarty · May 2007

No

Houllier · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by chrisw

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Ste_S

Off the top of my head, reasons to keep following cycling :-

Nicole Cooke
Chris Hoy
Vicky Pendleton
Bradley Wiggins
Mark Cavendish
Roger Hammond
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

and you're certain about them now?

This is a sad side effect now, no one is above susweeion.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I have no intention of weeion anyone

---\*/
----?
----/>'
--(+)(+)
You'll never ride alone

speedbump · May 2007

Your list of brits might or might not be clean, but they're not why I watch cycling. I don't really care if our home guys win or not, I just like a good race!

johndf · May 2007

It's looking as if the playing field in the 90's was pretty much level. Most of the peloton were at it, so in a sense the races were fair to those involved.

Just hope that it's now levelling out again, but this time because there are getting to be less and less drug users.

Unknown · May 2007

"It's looking as if the playing field in the 90's was pretty much level. Most of the peloton were at it, so in a sense the races were fair to those involved."

As in previous 9 decades also then!

WTF does it matter?

d.j.
"Like a true nature's child,
We were born,
Born to drink mild"

Anonymous · May 2007

Hands up those who watched todays Giro stage and didn't give a monkeys if they were juiced or not.
I know I didn't .

Eurostar · May 2007

I do. I'm repeating what I said in the thread I started earlier, but now that it seems CSC, T-Mobile and the French are widely thought to be clean I want to know that the others are clean too. There seems to be a question mark over the leader, so I worry that this will be yet another grand tour that turns out to be a farce, and atrociously unfair to the clean riders and those who sponsor and support them.

Unknown · May 2007

Well, I'm proud to be a cyclist and a cycling fan, and so should we all be. We are members of the only sport in the world with the courage to both admit to having a doping problem and is not afraid to take steps to combat it even if it does mean airing our dirty washing in public.

Athletics alone is riddled with doping to at least the same extent as cycling, and these days probably more so because they are content to virtually ignore it. When Arsne Wenger told the media that EPO use was a problem in football it merited barely a mention in the press and was soon forgotten, just as the involvement of people from other sports has been in Puerto. One day, thanks to people like Sepp Blatter the truth will out, and then everybody will be pointing to cycling as an example of how a sport can clean itself up.

Nobody ever got laid because they were using Shimano

Houllier · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Anton de Lacey

Hands up those who watched todays Giro stage and didn't give a monkeys if they were juiced or not.
I know I didn't .
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

As I said in a previous post, in years gone by the spectators could identify with riders necking pills and stopping at bars to nick booze, largely because they were doing it to attempt to dull the pain of the near superhuman efforts that pro cycling demands.

As we all know, many of the spectators are cyclists too - and we know how hard it is and how much it hurts.

But now, cyclists pay professional doctors tens of thousands and fly up the climbs. It was reported recently that the authorities suspected Fuentes was back in action when riders were grinning and talking when racing the hills in early season. Look at Basso last year. Look at Riis.

The racing has changed, these performances bear no relation to amateur riding or the races of the past. It has fostered an arms war, survival of the richest.

So yes, I care if the Giro riders are doped. The racing is poorer for it, far too predictable.

The sport is poorer for it - why should we care about the suffering of the riders? Modern doping has fundamentally changed the relationship between the rider and the fan.

The spectacle is poorer for it, who do we acclaim for a legendary escape - the rider or the doctor?

Its a testimony to cycling and its many facets, quirks and heroics that the sport has remained watchable despite the doping. But the fans are not stupid, and the falling crowds at the roadside and tv audiences suggest that the cyclists, teams and apologists on this forum who think everything is hunky-dory show little appreciation of the impact this is having on the present or the future, or any appreciation of the history of the sport.

---\*/
----?
----/>'
--(+)(+)
You'll never ride alone

Unknown · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Anton de Lacey

Hands up those who watched todays Giro stage and didn't give a monkeys if they were juiced or not.
I know I didn't .
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

My hand is up!

No one gets to the top at any profession - sport or otherwise - without adopting morally dubious at best and/or illegal at worst practices. Why should cycling be any different?

d.j.
"Like a true nature's child,
We were born,
Born to drink mild"

kavcp · May 2007

No, no, no, no, no, NO. I'm with Houllier, couldn't put it better. Dave, if/when riders can alter their DNA, will you be cheering the fella with three lungs?

sylvanus · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">No one gets to the top at any profession - sport or otherwise - without adopting morally dubious at best and/or illegal at worst practices<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

That is one of the silliest and most mean-minded statements I have ever read tells me all we need to know about you.

I hope the rest of your life show's some improvement and that one day you feel intellectually capable of a more nuanced and intelligent appreciation of the complexity of human experience and some of the pleasures it can provide.

Unknown · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by sylvanus

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">No one gets to the top at any profession - sport or otherwise - without adopting morally dubious at best and/or illegal at worst practices<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

That is one of the silliest and most mean-minded statements I have ever read tells me all we need to know about you.

I hope the rest of your life show's some improvement and that one day you feel intellectually capable of a more nuanced and intelligent appreciation of the complexity of human experience and some of the pleasures it can provide.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I view it simply as realistic - given my experience of senior public servants, politicians and businessmen! Your experience may of course be different. I do not see that that gives you either the right or the knowledge to assume that my life needs improvement nor that I am in some way intellectually challenged.

Cheap and pretty meaningless insults are hardly likely to convince me of your greater experience of life and human nature nor of your intellectual superiority.

d.j.
"Like a true nature's child,
We were born,
Born to drink mild"

sylvanus · May 2007

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I do not see that that gives you either the right or the knowledge to assume that my life needs improvement nor that I am in some way intellectually challenged.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
You dismissed the whole of the human race, or at least its top echelons as dishonest or criminal. I dismissed you as a cynical and nasty fool. I think there's a lot more evidence to back up my opinion than yours and that statistically its far more likely to be true with real evidence to back it up. What right or knowledge do you have to make poisonous and unpleaant generalisations? If you have that right then surely I have it too?

You should stop and think before you write and you should learn the humility to qualify what you say. If that makes it more difficult to make entertaining generalisations then so be it! [:)]

Unknown · May 2007

"What right or knowledge do you have to make poisonous and unpleaant generalisations? If you have that right then surely I have it too?"

My statement, opinion, call it what you will was indeed a generalisation. Yours were a particular, personalised, insult. There is a difference. Just as there is between "cynical" (to which I happily admit) and "nasty" and "fool", to neither of which do I admit (happily or otherwise). Try reading again: I did not say "dishonest or criminal", rather "morally dubious" or "illegal". Clearly another fine distinction which escapes your razor like intellect.

Where lies the evidence which you claim (not cite, I notice)? As I said my opinion rests on long experience - not sure I've ever seen evidenced argument to effect that all the "top echelons" (though you do have a delightful, if archaic, turn of phrase!) are honest, virtuous, folk! When I do I may or may not revise my opinion.

"You should stop and think before you write and you should learn the humility to qualify what you say. If that makes it more difficult to make entertaining generalisations then so be it!"

Humility is not pertinent to qualification. "Entertaining generalisations" are I think a perfectly acceptable form of expression on a Forum "chat": I was not attempting rigorous logic, hence my reliance on personal experience.

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d.j.
"Like a true nature's child,
We were born,
Born to drink mild"

kavcp · May 2007

Dave, that's all very interesting...but what would you put with, how far could they go before you thought "blimey, I'm not sure I can support that!". I reached that point about a year ago next month and had been trying to ignore the implications of Festina and the rest since '98.

Unknown · May 2007

"...what would you put with, how far could they go before you thought "blimey, I'm not sure I can support that!"."

It's not really that I "support", nor even consider that anything other than regrettable, rather that I recognise that *it* happens and has done so for a long, long, time. I guess that truth be known I regret that any/all sport is professional (but then that is probably an age/culture/class thing which has its own socially dubious undertones). Accordingly I have little interest in sport any longer - certainly not soccer nor rugby.

Yes, I still occasionally watch TV'd cycling and m'cycling, simply because I find it interesting and even sometimes exciting. And because I ride a two wheelers, engined and pedalled, I can sort of relate to it (as in "I couldn't do THAT!"!).

Once competitors actually genetically modified or whatever from (before?) birth, then I suppose I shall lose remaining interest. But in reality I shall in all probability have lost the ability to be interested by virtue of age/death before such manufactured beings reach the stage! One of the few advantages of being oldish.

d.j.
"Like a true nature's child,
We were born,
Born to drink mild"

jimmythecuckoo · March 2015

***BUMP***

How much we have moved on...

Turfle · March 2015

Tell you on Monday.

RichN95. · March 2015

jimmythecuckoo wrote:

***BUMP***

How much we have moved on...

Well none of those posters are around anymore.

No_Ta_Doctor · March 2015

Does this mean the search function is fixed?

ridgerider · March 2015

Eurostar wrote:

I do. I'm repeating what I said in the thread I started earlier, but now that it seems CSC, T-Mobile and the French are widely thought to be clean I want to know that the others are clean too. There seems to be a question mark over the leader, so I worry that this will be yet another grand tour that turns out to be a farce, and atrociously unfair to the clean riders and those who sponsor and support them.

With hindsight...

RichN95. · March 2015

Ridgerider wrote:

Eurostar wrote:

I do. I'm repeating what I said in the thread I started earlier, but now that it seems CSC, T-Mobile and the French are widely thought to be clean I want to know that the others are clean too. There seems to be a question mark over the leader, so I worry that this will be yet another grand tour that turns out to be a farce, and atrociously unfair to the clean riders and those who sponsor and support them.

With hindsight...

That's the Bob Stapleton's T-Mobile though, not the Ullrich/Kloden classic version. And say what you like about CSC, but they haven't actually had anyone involved in a doping case since Basso (other than Rogers who was cleared).

Is Pro Cycling a complete Farce?

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