The Drug Controversy: A Smoke Screen?

gntlmn

Let's say you are with USPS in the late 90's, and you have come up with some pioneering training ideas to improve the team's performance in the Tour de France.

Don't you think that if the racing world believes that your team is doping that it will be far less likely for them to figure out what you're really doing, which is a combination of several different strategies, not least of which is extreme familiarity with every stage course of the upcoming Tour? In other words, if you are not doping but the world thinks you are, that's an advantage for you. You will never test positive because you don't dope. You will stay far ahead of the competition because the rest will think you're hiding the doping well and will not look for the other reasons for better performance. Why quell the controversy?

homeycheese

No smoke screen. It's all about money. The tour and its sponsors and the sponsors of the riders have a strong interest in the story playing out on several different tangents.

Keep in mind that much of this starting playing out before Lance was diagnosed with cancer. Some of the alleagtions and legal proceedings go back to the mid 90's.

Everyone is trying to protect and maximize their "investment" in the sport and keep it from becoming something akin to the problems faced in pro bodybuilding.

As for a revolutionary training technique, well it starts by finding that rare individual with the physiology of a Lance Armstrong and creating an organization that is focused on singular success.

Riding a course multiple times is not new or daring or secret. Riding it 4, 6, 8 or 10 times in a day takes a superior individual (both physically and individually) and a level of committment beyond going out to the disco that night.

Watch out for those "black helicopters!" They know where you live...

gntlmn

Black helicopters? You mean like the Rolling Stones own? Hmmm. I think I'd have a tough time getting them to show up at my place.

Ullrich hadn't ridden the course in advance until this year, as I recall. I don't think it's as common as you think. Bobby Julich says that CSC did a lot more advance course preparation this year, taking the lead from USPS. You may recall he is domestique for podium finisher Ivan Basso. But I don't know for sure how much course work these teams are doing. I can only guess by what I read through the media.

What I mean by smoke screen is not necessarily a deliberate attempt by USPS to cloud the issue but a propensity of the rest of the cycling pros and spectators to believe that dominance is more likely drugs rather than improvement in methods. I think they are cheating themselves to make this assumption. If they didn't assume this, they might figure out what they're doing wrong and correct it.

That's why I kind of look with humor on all these endless tirades about suspected doping at USPS. They are not going to catch them by rolling over and pointing the finger at dope. They're going to have to come up with something new.

homeycheese

I agree that it is easier for other riders and their sycophants to suggest drugs rather than question themselves.

My point is what USPS has been doing is not the secret and rather as I have eluded to on this forum before, much of the animosity is also aimed at the american capitalist system and the vendors who also came together to help build and support a "superior" product.

There were a number of stories about folks like Ulrich being offered the use of a wind tunnel, but chosing to forgo the opportunity. Meanwhile, Lance, USPS, Trek, Nike and Giro all worked together on a joint development project.

For the euro-centric america haters to admit the USPS process has worked without the aid of drugs they would also have to accept the tremendous contribution of a free-market, capitalist culture, wherein results are more substantive than "form."