Tour de France '04

Indurain regularly took salbutomol, legally, for asthma.

cheers

Nigel

My own cycling career has currently been derailed by a strained lower back. Luckily there is no mandatory testing for people in the Finsbury Park Extreme Freeride comps so I am free to abuse my Deep Heat spray and Ibuprofen at will.

Matthew

Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
My own cycling career has currently been derailed by a strained lower back.

Cycling related or do we not want to know? Surely if it were done while getting big air we would have video proof?

cheers

Dan

p.s. Has ag returned to London's extreme biking scene yet?

ag,

Obviously they have no appreciation for your extreme lifestyle. Next year seems a bit over the top - what the hell did you do to that finger?

Dan

It's a bit of a mystery. I went out for a 2 or 3 hourse of "messing around in the park" on Monday evening -- bit of dirt jumping, some attempted bunnyhops (they are getting quite big now), some chick impressing, etc.

Nothing I hadn't done before, but next morning I could barely move and spent most of the day in fear of dropping anything important enough to require me to bend down.

Matthew

PS My commiserations once again Alex.

ag,

I'm wincing just reading that list. I hope the rehab goes well, and you'll soon be sailing effortlessly over those Inner London speed bumps.

Dan

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
It's a bit of a mystery.

---

It's called "getting old." Something that's very much on my mind having turned 49 yesterday.

Blimey - the house was just swiped by lightning and the CD player started playing Elis Regina all on its own.

I'd better shut everything down for a while.

Davie

Alex

I am truly gutted for you. I hope at least the next bout of rehab goes well.

Ian

quote:

---

Originally posted by alexgerrard:
My extreme lifestyle now consists of one handed typing, online shopping and televised cricket.

---

Sounds dreadful. Maybe it's a good time to catch up on some of the "quirky" films from that other thread? Or learning another language? Taking singing lessons? Hmmm... I'll get back to you...

Patrick

Theoretically tempting qualifications, but not practical.

Drugs that are unsafe in the short term (like amphetamine) are just as much an issue as those with long term sequelae. The long term effects of drugs are poorly understood anyway. Long term effects of extreme exercise may not be entirely 'healthy' in some ways either.

Transparency would only be possible with perfect testing procedures which detect all agents at all times. Never going to happen when the dopers have more resources (and motivation) than the testers.

The list of banned substances is long and contains agents which are medically pretty safem and probably harm performance but which may represent a risk to other competitors (alcohol, marijuana etc).

Bruce

Following is a letter that one of my teammates in sending to the editors of VeloNews. Perhaps it will be published. Either way, I would be interested in hearing reactions here.

-Mike
=====================================
Dear VN Editors:

Why did the peloton thank Lance for chasing down Simeoni? The answer
gets to the heart of the doping problem:

---> The problem is structural - Riders are blamed, but management goes
unscathed
With doping, only the riders pay - with health problems, sometimes with
their life, or, if caught, by being ostracized within their sport. The
rider caught doping is personally devastated and publicly demonized,
stripped of his integrity, and called a "cheater". The general public
needs to understand that the riders do not want doping. They hate it.
Right now, they are the only ones who suffer as a result of it. But so
far they have been powerless to change things. Since biomedical
technology offers the chance to improve performance, the bar is raised
and everyone who is a contender must do it to compete on an equal basis
with all the rest.

(Lance may indeed be clean, in that the combination of clearly superior
genes (he has always been a freak of nature in athletics) along with
altitude tents may give him an equal footing with those using EPO, HGH,
Steroids, and blood boosting. Saying there is no way he found a legal
way to compete against a peleton full of EPO and HGH-juiced riders may
be assuming too much. We must be careful not to point fingers and name
names, as we could be wrong in certain cases. But everyone who is an
insider knows the majority of the peleton is juiced, and has been since
Greg lost that fateful TT to Big Mig in 1991 by several minutes.)

The heart of the problem is that while riders pay dearly, UCI, team,
and
race management pay no significant price for doping. They continue to
be motivated to find ways to win at all costs and to keep the status
quo. Management pays no real price because if a rider is caught,
everyone points fingers at the rider, denies their own culpability,
"cleans things up", gets a new rider, cranks up the PR machine, and
moves on. In the current system, the persons most responsible for the
problem are paying little to no price.

---> The real story behind Simeoni
Which brings us back to the Armstrong/Simeoni story, and why the
peleton
was thanking Lance for his actions. Simeoni is offering himself up as
a
witness in a doping trial. He is "telling all", yet he is not even
implicating himself. If he had the bravery to tell his own personal
story, then he would be doing the right thing. To bring others down
while admitting no role himself is cowardly. And that is why he is
hated in the peloton. That is why Lance was thanked by the peloton.

---> If management were held responsible
Who has the best chance of catching cheaters and really cleaning up the
sport? Of course the ones closest to the riders - the medical support
team, team management, and race management. They are the ones who know
the riders best. They know if riders are cheating, indeed, they often
force it on the riders. If the riders went unpunished, but management
were held responsible, then management would do everything within their
power to prevent doping. THEY would conduct drug tests. THEY would
find ways to make sure riders are clean. They would go from being the
root of the problem to being the heart of the solution.

---> How can this change be accomplished?
Change in the industry's structure is obviously never going to come
from
the myopic ageing has-beens at the UCI. These are strong words, but
let's face it - these men who control so much have done nothing good
for
cycling in allowing the Festina debacle, the reduction of Marco Pantani
to a hopeless drug addict, and so many more sad situations to continue
to plague the sport year after year. Neither can law enforcement make
the changes needed. Team and race management have demonstrated
complicity. The only way to fix the doping problem is to affect real
change in the structure of the industry - and the only remaining choice
is the voice not being heard, that of the riders collectively.

---> The riders need to form a collective bargaining organization for
pro cycling.
Riders need to tip the power balance to a more equitable state. A
riders union would have the power to speak out about the current
inequity in how doping is "managed". They would have the power to hold
team and race management accountable for the doping problem everyone in
the peloton knows they are causing. [As a second point supporting the
idea of a pro riders union, it is clear something must be done to make
TdF sprint stages safer]

Mike

I am not sure what your colleague's opinion is on Lance Armstrong. Is he saying that he does cheat by taking illegal drugs or not "Lance may indeed be clean"?

Again, any cogent evidence that he is a cheat?

cheers

Nigel

Nigel,

I think the issue at hand is that drug use is rampant in the pro peleton. Whether Lance is or is not using does not take away from his achievements given that most of the peleton is doping (probably the sad truth). Lance and his team are solely focussed on getting Mr. Armstrong to Paris is yellow. No other team has the same type of focus or mission to that extent.

-Mike

Then again...

If you were the six-time winner of the TDF, and the object of "hero worship" by cycling enthusiasts, cancer patients, and the general populace, and you were using performance enhancing drugs...

Would YOU admit to it?

-M

What then of the former 5 times winners? Guilty too, without proof, trial?

cheers

Nigel

The point of my initial post was that it is only the riders who are suffering. If team managent was fined, they would not be encouraging use of banned substances, they would be policing it. It would be in a team's best interest to ensure their athletes are clean.

quote:

---

There is no hard evidence in respect of Armstrong either, but given the prevalence of drug abuse within the TdeF, and the fact the Lance can easily beat them all (including on several hard days in succession), even you must understand why some of us are so skeptical. The French in particular, just cannot understand how Armstrong couldn't climb, got cancer, and suddenly became a brilliant climber.

---

I don't understand why you keep singling out Lance - doping goes all the way back to the very first Tour. Even if you don't want to believe that, have you heard of Tom Simpson. Oh no, another one of those 'american' brits. What about Mercx, he seemed to be able to beat everyone easily. Never tested positive as far as I know - and you don't seem to be pointing the finger at him for not speaking out against drugs.
As for 'suddenly' being able to climb, if you lost most of you muscle mass due to cancer and had the chance to rebuild it (as well as changing your style) for climbing you'd probably make a good climber too.

Final question: if the current peloton are all so obviously drugged, why did nobody manage to beat, or even come close to, Pantani's (really obviously drugged) record up Alpe D'Huez. After all, Pantani set that time after riding a long stage. This year all they had to do was ride the mountain on special extra-light bikes with fast tyres and aerodynamic skinsuits.

Even if the whole peleton is drugged, that only raises the level playing field. The danger in doping is not that it is unfair, it is that it is unhealthly, and that is why substances should be banned. Athletes may be pressured by team management to comply with team "medical programs" and that is wrong, but if they are all doping, then they are all doping. It is true that some individuals may respond differently to performance enhancing substances (some may get more a benefit than others), but I still don't believe doping can make a tour winner out of a nobody. Training, and perhaps to a greater extent genetics, play a significant role in ability, PEDs are only a percent or two at the most. You cannot take away from the fact that Pantani was a great climber, and Armstrong is a great cyclist all around.

The big problem here is that competitive pressures are causing athletes to seek dangerous means of improving their performance, and in many cases this may be encouraged, or even mandated, by their teams.

Patrick

My point is to do with the concept of natural and criminal justice: that someone is held to innocent until proven guilty.

You seem to take the view that, on the basis of doubt alone, or envy, spite, prejudice, someone should be condemned first and we'll worry about the proof later.

Is this the attitude you would take if summoned for jury service?

cheers

Nigel

I'm sure all pontential contributors to any threads on the Olympics will be really looking forward to your input Patrick.

Tim

quote:

---

Originally posted by Patrick Dixon:
I think the onus is on the 'champion' to prove to us he's worthy of the label.

---

I think he did - by winning.

The authorities in charge of the race did perform tests on all the top teams. That should be good enough for the fair minded.

What should be enforced is the random testing during all times of the season and at a totally random time, without prior notice.

Tim,

My question is still why is Lance singled out just because he won, and because he won the GC at that? What about Verenque, who stayed away for quite a while on some very long solo mountain breakaways to claim the climbers jersey? AND what about all the other riders? I guarantee that IF Lance is doping, he is DEFINATELY not the only one.

Just to return to the point raised in Mike's article-I have some issues with that. Seems to me that ultimately an athlete should be responsible for the products that they put into their body. I accept that they are in vulnerable situations and may perhaps be replaced if they refuse to follow team orders but until the cyclists (or other sportsman) take the step of refusing and then naming/shaming those who offer drugs then little will change. It has hardly been the case that those athletes who have apparently exposed doping have been lauded as heroes either.

Athletes will only refuse drugs if they believe they will a) be caught b) if caught are banned completely for life from that sport. Neither of these criteria is met at present so we mostly rely on morality in a competitive environment where winning has very great reward, and morality does not pay the same wages.

Bruce

I think the point is, Patrick, that your rather uncompromsing and, arguably, rather pious attitude allows no room for enjoying cycling. Other people seem able to be concerned and appalled by its well known problems with drugs and still manage to enjoy the sport. You seem to think it, morally, mandates stopping watching and enjoying the sport.
Of course you have every right to stop watching the sport becuase of its problems but to argue that others should inhernetly adopt your moral standards is wrong headed IMHO.

I watch Baseball and I know a bunch of them are on drugs but it doesn't really spoil my enjoyment. I wish it would stop and think the game should take the issue more seriously but I am not going to stop watching becuase of the drugs rumours however unpleasant and uncomfrotable they may be. I think most people take this view so when you come along with an attiutde which (more or less) says "Stop watching or you support drugs" you are going to annoy people. Annoy them enough and they will be rude.

There is also a question of double standards. Football has drugs (not as many as cycling but it still has drugs), financial corruption is endemic, many of its star players have drug and sex orgies, etc. Morally you might want to stop watching football for the similar reasons.

Personally I think the problem with drugs in sport, especially athletics, is that people will stop watching. But they wont stop watching beucase people are taking drugs, they will stop watching beucase all the stars have been banned for taking drugs. So bans don't stop drugs but they do seem to ruin sports -- which is why somebody needs to approach the problem froma different angle.

Matthew