Lance Armstrong admits to doping

I agree with much of what you say, winky, and whilst all sports probably have rotten men/women, not all sports men/women are rotten to the core.

And whilst I hardly ever watch sports either live or on tv, it does provide entertainment for millions and entertainment is essential to our well-being.

Cheers

Don

Not all sports are equal. Some sports are basic, some other are complex.

The skill to ride a bike can be learned at 4.  By the age of 5 a child can know how to use brakes.  Using gears comes a bit later, definitely before 10. From there it is mostly a matter of physical intensity and stamina.

Soccer is a very complex and sophisticated sport, as is hockey, or sailing for instance. To master the skills required for these sports takes many years of training and also require mental maturity from the players.

Do much cycling yourself, Alamanka?

John

Soccer is not all that requiring of intelligence. Look at the participants at the highest levels. Most would not even know their trainers have them on a drugs regimen, and Alzheimers would not be recognised early on ...

ATB from George

Soccer is just kicking a ball about. How much mental maturity does that take? Children master that skill at a young age.

Pretty much anyone can sail. Just pointing the boat in the direction you want to go and adjusting the sails.

I am being facetious of course.

Bicycle racing is an incredibly nuanced tactical and strategic sport. To suggest that one has the skills and knowledge they need to race a bicycle at the highest level once they have mastered the basics is ludicrous.

But I'll stop now. You're trolling.

Hmm............ thanks for the insight.............. erm.....

Or maybe not. I am no expert, just an ex footballer and cyclist. Sorry, but you don't know what you are talking about.

I would like to see Alamanka teleported onto a bike doing one of the 100 kph+ twisting and turning mountain descents in the Tour de France and ask him over the team radio if he still feels he mastered the requisite skill aged 4. Assuming he is able to answer that is.

Then drop him into the bunch sprint on the Champs Elysees just before that final right hander. Have him sitting on Cav's wheel at 65km/hr up against the right-hand barrier with Griepel on his left shoulder looking for the wheel. Ask him how that works out. If he can answer through the broken jaw once he has regained consciousness.

I was thinking something relatively unsophisticated.  Like at the 170 km mark of a flat stage with a head wind, drop back to the team car, pick up about a dozen water bottles, then ride up and distribute them among the team members in the lead.

The most important success factor in competitive bike riding is a combination of strength and stamina, which is exactly why doping exists and works.

When competitors are level on the most important factor, because they all use the same dopes or training techniques, then secondary factors come into play.  Only in these situations can the secondary factors - a better trajectory in the descent or picking up the water bottles quickly– determine victory.  

Cycling is one of the most basic sports that exist.  Only running is probably more basic than that.

 Pretty much anyone can do it.  In the case of running it is even possible sometimes to compete next to professional athletes in the same races. And there are cycling races open to everyone, including in the Alps, on the same roads used by the Tour de France.

The physiological differences between a champion organism and an average body cause the differences in performance between pros and amateurs, not a superior understanding of technique or tactic.

On the other hand, if you enroll into a sailing race and do not have the skills, you will not leave the harbor. And then, even if you know how to sail and you possess superior physical strength, this will be of no help against an experienced tactician.  Transfusing your own blood before a sailing race is unlikely to give you a competitive advantage. OK, maybe it could help sometimes on Sunday morning regattas, but for different reasons...

This kind of sports - golf, sailing, soccer as well - require expertise, as opposed to sheer physical power.

Advanced skills are needed, even to practice at the lowest level. They are intrinsically more complex.

Coming back to professional sports and entertainment value, I suspect the fascination for Lance Armstrong had a lot to do with nationalistic feelings in the US, as watching one competitor being so obviously stronger than anyone else tends to be rather boring. That said, Lance Armstrong has been a great professional. He signed contract to win the Tour and he did everything to achieve that. Probably he did a great job for the sponsors and made a lot of publicity for charity. He was not caught breaking the rules. The doping he did, others could have done the same – and we know that many actually did.

So I view the witch hunt against Armstrong as big hypocrisy.

Riders have died on the Tour de France in the past. Accidents continue to happen every year. Yet the race keeps going on year after year and everyone is perfectly fine to let riders take risks for the purpose of mass entertainment. After all, are they not consenting adults, paid for that?  

Fine by me, but I do not see what ethics or moral has to do with the whole thing.

I respect your thoughts, Alamanka.  I'm just trying to stimulate some conversation here .  

Here's a question for everyone - Had the playing field been level with all cyclists competing fairly, how many Tours do you think Lance would have won?  

I'd still have to give him three or four.  Say what you want against him, he is a tenacious competitor and had a great team around him.  He was a very good all-arounder and excelled in the mountain stages.

assuming everyone was doping too, i'd give him all the victories. The real pity is that you were out of the sport if you refused to put the drug into your system or were forced to do so since everyone else was doing it too. The sport consisted of not getting caught.

I get what almaka is trying to say. however there is more to it than physical dexterity alone. otherwise everyone would finish at the same time if everyone doped, no? what about the mental anguish ofgoing on long after your body asks you to give up.

I invite Almka to do a 5K without any practice, that should give him a taste of what its like.

Cycling as an activity is perhaps basic. You do not understand the sport of bicycle racing.

Cycling with finesse is not basic, though many cycle without finesse, and that is really basic.

ATB from George