Merckx not welcome in Stuttgart

andyp
andyp Posts: 10,071
edited September 2007 in Pro race
www.cyclingnews.com are reporting that Eddy Merckx has been told that he isn't welcome as an official ambassador. Apparently the organisers "have to be a role model".

This is lunacy. :roll:

Given the level of doping in the sport in the last ten years I'm amazed they've allowed any riders in.

I would ask the organisers to read about the Salem witch trials.
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Comments

  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    It's absolutely insane and has left me speechless.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • andyp wrote:
    www.cyclingnews.com are reporting that Eddy Merckx has been told that he isn't welcome as an official ambassador. Apparently the organisers "have to be a role model".

    I am assuming that Hein Verbruggen isn't going to be there then. Or Pat McQuaid.

    Boycott, anyone?
    I was only joking when I said
    by rights you should be bludgeoned in your bed
  • LangerDan
    LangerDan Posts: 6,132
    andyp wrote:
    I would ask the organisers to read about the Salem witch trials.

    Do bear in mind that Merckx did test positive twice, so comparison with the Witch Trials are not really valid. Whether someone should still be accountable for a doping offence over 30 years later is a separate matter.

    Unlike a lot of individuals and groups, the organisers ban is at least consistent with their position regarding doping offences. Others seem to take a very schizophrenic view that while current doping is an abhorrence and should be punished by life-time bands, doping in the past is acceptable as a) everyone was at it and b) it avoids us having to ask ourselves some very difficult questions about some of the icons of the sport.

    I'm not at all sure that people would be as incensed if it was, say, Tricky Dicky rather than Big Ted.
    'This week I 'ave been mostly been climbing like Basso - Shirley Basso.'
  • cougie
    cougie Posts: 22,512
    Jeez - we'd need to scrap all the records and winners and start afresh. OK he doped - but didnt everyone in those days ? That was the way it was back then, and the same ethos carried on and is only now getting stamped out.
  • LangerDan wrote:
    I'm not at all sure that people would be as incensed if it was, say, Tricky Dicky rather than Big Ted.

    You're damned right they wouldn't. Merckx might have tested positive twice (I'm sure one of these was disputed) in a completely different moral climate, however Virenque admitted to systematic doping in a team that systematically doped when it wasn't just considered completely unethical but also illegal. It's a bit like comparing someone who broke the speed limit once to a joyrider who steals cars compulsively and drives around town at 90mph. Who is more unpallateable?
    I was only joking when I said
    by rights you should be bludgeoned in your bed
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    Have the demanded Millar is not there yet?
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • iainf72 wrote:
    Have the demanded Millar is not there yet?

    He's OK, because he is now gobbing off continually against doping.
    I was only joking when I said
    by rights you should be bludgeoned in your bed
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    Yeah, but Zabel cried and all. And they don't want him there.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • That's a very good point. Maybe it's because he's German and it's in Germany, and by excluding one of the most poular German cyclists of all time they'll be proving how seriously they take doping and that this time they mean business and... and...how hard they are...
    I was only joking when I said
    by rights you should be bludgeoned in your bed
  • ricadus
    ricadus Posts: 2,379
    Yes they're not interested in Millar because he's
    a) not German
    b) not a cycling icon
    c) not won a big race in Germany (yet. :twisted: )
  • vermooten
    vermooten Posts: 2,697
    cougie wrote:
    Jeez - we'd need to scrap all the records and winners and start afresh. OK he doped - but didnt everyone in those days?

    You could say the same thing about, say, 2005.
    You just have to ride like you never have to breathe again.

    Manchester Wheelers
  • drenkrom
    drenkrom Posts: 1,062
    It's one thing to be tough with current riders, as that will tangibly change something. Being tough with riders that ended their careers when the current crop of pros were in kindergarten serves no practical purpose, apart from posturing on the part of the organizers. They can't legally stop the rider's they don't approve of from starting, so they act on the ones they do have control over: the guests of honor. Seems rather pointless to me.
  • It's the double standards of it that is hard to take. But cycling has dug this particular grave for itself, to be totally consistent in this sort of thing is to pull the sport to pieces and disown the past. However drawing a line in the sand and saying from 01/10/07 onward we are only concerned with active riders is to ignore very recent and very real problems. Whichever way the UCI or organsisers go it is going to be the wrong way because of their past attitudes and policies.

    Perhaps more disappointing is that yet again a major showpiece cycling event is being drowned in a see of doping scandal. Someone somewhere should be learing the lessons and deciding what to do about it. Lurching from one crisis to another while shooting first and asking questions later, followed by inchoherent policies that aren't really helping while bringing the sport into such disripute as we are currently witnessing......well.....the UCI is unfit to govern isn't it? This isn't to absovle everyone else of any blame of course, they are all in this mess together. The skill (that the UCI is so far failing to display) is getting everyone to agree on what to do about it. Blaming each other isn't helping.
  • acorn_user
    acorn_user Posts: 1,137
    THe German governments response through all this has been bizarre. Allegations of former, not current malpractice surface, and they pull funding.

    The atmosphere in German has been really weird, during the Tour as well. Tour Magazin even pulled it's Tour de France summary book...
  • I guess they are trying to 'send a message' especially as their TV money is a large chunck of the overall (I remember reading that for the Tour it was a huge percentage of overall TV money). I agree that I'm not sure they are sending the message consistently or coherently though and it just goes to prove what a can of worms the whole sorry mess is.
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    I am starting to find the German organisers behaviour seriously disturbing.

    Showcase for cycling? Pile of rubbish is more like it.

    Why don't they just decide who wears the rainbow because they like them and skip the cycling part all together.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • andyp
    andyp Posts: 10,071
    The latest, according to www.cyclingnews.com, is that ZDF, the host broadcaster, are threatening to not cover the race on Sunday if Bettini starts. His crime? To modify the unenforceable, and frankly stupid, UCI pledge before signing it.

    This really is becoming a case of mass hysteria isn't it?
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    Looks like the UCI have managed to screw up their own sport.

    AGAIN.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • drenkrom
    drenkrom Posts: 1,062
    "Let's find a reason to chuck out all the other favorites like Bettini and Di Luca so that Schumi can win"

    sounds like a good plan.
  • What with the French fixing things so that they get a French winner, or at least a non-American winner at the Tour and now the Germans trying to shoe-in one of theirs at the worlds I think the doping scandal is the least of our worries. This is organisational corruption.

    Possibly. Or, perhaps in fact not.
  • Excuse me for not jumping on the hysteria bandwagon here, but if everyone is so keen to sort this out, then why not state how to sort it out instead of bemoaning stuff that we all know is already there.
    So answer this, what should the organisers do?
    Doping has been systemic for how long now? Correct me if im wrong but i was of the understanding that drug use, in particular amphetamine used was banned in 1966 or 1968 (i cant recall which year it was) and the problem has been with us since. So how do we fix it?
    Companies are not backing this sport for the love of it. Its a commercial decision based on the fact that it gets your company name on the TV. Simple as that. Sponsors will withdraw from teams when drug stories break, we've all seen this.
    Just for a change i'd love to see someone on here propose a solution rather than bemoan the fact that cyclist dope in order to win (or sometimes just survive in the peloton).
    Am i going to hide behind my post and not throw up my solution? No im not, so here goes.
    The UCI give all cyclists one year from a set date to get clean. There would be no dope tests at any stage during this year, so no one would fail and be able to claim they were weaning off the gear. But in a years time from this pre arranged date, anyone who fails a dope test gets a lifetime ban with no excuses accepted and no appeals process. And the ban would be complete. You would never be allowed race at any level in any discipline again.
    Thats my tuppence worth, what you think?
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    Am i going to hide behind my post and not throw up my solution? No im not, so here goes.
    The UCI give all cyclists one year from a set date to get clean. There would be no dope tests at any stage during this year, so no one would fail and be able to claim they were weaning off the gear. But in a years time from this pre arranged date, anyone who fails a dope test gets a lifetime ban with no excuses accepted and no appeals process. And the ban would be complete. You would never be allowed race at any level in any discipline again.
    Thats my tuppence worth, what you think?

    We quite often come up with solutions. People have suggested your plan and here is why it won't work.

    - Why would an amnesty make people stop doping?
    - The tests barely work now, why would they work after a years worth of free for all?
    - If the tests are easy to evade, so there is little chance of being caught, why would a life ban have any effect on you at all?
    - No appeals process? The athlete should have the absolute right to challenge a positive. If the positve is postive, it will stand up regardless (see Landis case)

    Stronger punishments and amnestys are not going to help.

    The testing procedure needs to be look at - It's easy to evade tests.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • My tongue was firmly in my cheek earlier in this thread...and as for doing something about it, I think I'm getting the message from here that a UCI/WADA/National Federation organised blood monitoring/profiling/passport process coupled with greater numbers of out of comeptition tests, greater start line testing and increased finish line random tests would be a start. Getting everyone to agree to it and fund it is the trick and the UCI are so busy shouting at everyone and arguing over ineffectual 'pledges' that they aren't looking far enough ahead. Or if they are they looking ahead they are both upsetting everyone before asking for consensus (doh!) and not letting on to the press or the public what their rational, science based, processes and procedures will be and what sensible sanctions might be in place and what the rationale is behind them.
  • andyp
    andyp Posts: 10,071
    Has anyone else here seen the film Downfall? For some reason I imagine Pat McQuaid's world is currently resembling the one depicted in the film?

    To give you an overview there is an excellent clip on YouTube which uses subtitles to great effect!
  • Bloody idiocy!
    Remember that you are an Englishman and thus have won first prize in the lottery of life.
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    andyp wrote:
    Has anyone else here seen the film Downfall? For some reason I imagine Pat McQuaid's world is currently resembling the one depicted in the film?

    To give you an overview there is an excellent clip on YouTube which uses subtitles to great effect!

    Scheisse! This whole thing is a farce but we've seen it coming. For months there has been trouble due to inconsistency, no one has set out clear roles as to who could or couldn't participate. You'd hope the sports governing body would wade into to mediate and to set clear rules, after all the Worlds are a UCI event award to Germany. But no...

    I reckon McQuaid's probably been too busy trying to discuss skateboarding or designing new versions of the ProTour instead of bothering with mere World Championships.
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    The German court say Bettini ok to compete

    http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news?slug=re ... &type=lgns

    Lets hope the organisers shut their pie holes now.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • flattythehurdler
    flattythehurdler Posts: 2,314
    edited September 2007
    Dan
  • Why ? he's obviously a f@cking cheat.
    Dan
  • Why ? he's obviously a f@cking cheat.

    Who is? And what proof?
    I was only joking when I said
    by rights you should be bludgeoned in your bed