did lance cheat?

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by longanecker4
just curious what everyone thinks about lance's "le detour" yesterday to avoid the falling beloki. what do uci rules say about such a move?

by the way... a terrible day for the tour. as an american, i hate to see lance's primary challenger go down.

Cheat??? That's just silly. He did what he had to do to avoid being involved in a terrible crash.

Even the UCI with their arcane set of rules found that he did not "cheat".

What Lance did was demonstate a level of rational, calm thinking that would escape almost anyone bombing down a mountain at 50mph and then made a move that would have killed any human cyclist (ever try hitting a patch of field at 50 MPH???)

In fact, I think that if Beloki did not crash we would have seen either he or Lance win yesterdays stage.

on a side note: The Beloki crash was horrible and truly sad. I hope he is able to recover his form. He really did a tremendous job this year and has removed the stigma of being afraid to attack Lance. Bravo Beloki...

Did he cheat?

Of course not.

That wasn't a serious question was it?

the only thing about he's maybe cheating is his form,cos it seems that he's out of gas but i'm sure he'll surprise everyone and will do a great TT and will take some edge on his opponents :p

GO LANCE GO!! 🙂

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by mjolnir2k
Cheat??? That's just silly. He did what he had to do to avoid being involved in a terrible crash.

Even the UCI with their arcane set of rules found that he did not "cheat".

What Lance did was demonstate a level of rational, calm thinking that would escape almost anyone bombing down a mountain at 50mph and then made a move that would have killed any human cyclist (ever try hitting a patch of field at 50 MPH???)

In fact, I think that if Beloki did not crash we would have seen either he or Lance win yesterdays stage.

on a side note: The Beloki crash was horrible and truly sad. I hope he is able to recover his form. He really did a tremendous job this year and has removed the stigma of being afraid to attack Lance. Bravo Beloki...

geez... i didn't say I thought lance cheated... i was just posing the question in terms of the uci. oh, and yes i have been in a similar racing circumstance. in texas we get lots of melted tar. i agree that lance did an amazing job of recovering, and i think the chase group would have closed the gap (if the crash was avoided), but i don't know that i agree that lance or beloki would have won the stage... hard to say.

Lance didn't cheat as such, but technicaly the UCI could have penalised him for not completing the course, same as if someone jumped over the barriers on a hot dog circuit and avoided riding the last 500m of the course.

But obviously even the UCI and the tpour directors have some comon sense and know that Lance didn't go cross country in order to shorten his race.

no way was that cheating and he didnt exactly gain an advantage. it was a superb move under the circumstances.......lucky he didnt puncture though.

does any one remember charly mottet in the 1987 (i think ) tour whilst riding up a col in the peleton , dismounting putting his bike on his shoulder, running up the bank thus getting ahead of the peleton who had to go round a hairppin bend. i think he did it as a joke as the peleton were going quite slowly at the time.

its not like he took a road to bypass climbing the mountain!

I think the rules AND the officials are so strict that if they deemed there was no infraction, there was definitely no infraction...

Watching the replaysI am continually amazed that Lance was able to keep under control and miss Beloki. He was too far left to go right on the inside, he couldn't stop in time without running over Beloki, all he could was go left...

Besides... if he had stopped completely somwhere in the middle of that dirt and grass bend, and then run backward to the road exactly where he went off, I have absolutely no doubt that the group (including Jan Ullrich) would have waited as long as it took till Lance rejoined... Even if he waited for Beloki to get aid from the medics...

One of the aspects of bicycle racing on this level that I truly enjoy is that it is one of the very few sports where sportsmanship is actually rewarded, as opposed to most where "kicking your opponent when he is down" is an acceptable and encouraged tactic...

Feanor

Yeah he did. He is a 7 time Tour de France cheater. 8 with Contador.

Wow, where'd you dig up this thread. 2003. That's a lot of pages to scroll through. :p