Bill Strickland on Ricco

donrhummy

Strickland has a way with words. I just love reading his writings on cycling.

http://sittingin.bicycling.com/

Excerpt:

Because I felt sure Ricco would get caught, I felt free to enjoy his performance. He was beautiful when he rode, and he was doomed, and he carried around a picture of Marco Pantani. I love the quote he gave, after he won Stage 9: “I was impressive, I went very fast.” It reminded me of a stoner saying, “I’m so high,” as if he, too, had become a spectator to the feats of his own body, as if he were standing outside of himself somehow and couldn’t hold back his own wonder at what was happening.

What part of Ricco knew he was going to get caught? What was it like to live inside that knowledge? How does it feel to win in shame? Or to bury the shame? Is it worth the loss of the thing you do best in life, the thing you were born to do, to know how it feels to ride like an angel just once? And what about Manuel Beltran, at the end of a long career, with what hope, desperation, desire did he stare into the needle?

That last paragraph is just perfect. It's all the questions that get right to the heart of this. What does it feel like to ride like Ricco did? And what does it feel like to ride like he did knowing you had to do something illegal, illicit, unhealthy to do so?

Squaggles

Excellent stuff , hadn't seen this before .

treize vents

Thanks for the introduction to Strickland. We don't read a lot of his stuff in France.

donrhummy

treize vents wrote:

Thanks for the introduction to Strickland. We don't read a lot of his stuff in France.

If you get a chance, read his book "Ten Points." Absolutely phenomenal cycling book and also a great, well written (and at times horrifying) book about his life and his quest in his local criterium.

flattythehurdler

Now the don, I seem to remember getting flamed by you for suggesting that it was odd that ricco was barely breathing heavily after a 9k uphill sprint in the Giro.
I don't think he ever thought he was going to get caught. Why go to the trouble and expense of taking a substance for which he thought there was no test? The author makes the mistake of presuming all people think and react in a similar manner, and ascribes some sort of nobility to ricco who, in fact, is a lying, cheating thief of careers.
I admired his style, but Cadel could cycle with such style if he was epo'd up to the eyes. Pantanii with a HCT of 40 would barely have made the peloton I suspect.

SteveR_100Milers

I don't like his smartarse hindsight - its so easy to claim that you "knew"he was doping now he has been caught. Technically that's utter bllx, you can't know this to be true until the test result has revealed it! Confusing suspicion for act is not helpful.
This doesnt mean I am defending Ricco n any way, my views on doping are very clear, its cheating and has no place in any form of competition or indeed life no matter how great the resulting spectacle.