I cycle competitively and t is almost impossible to think that top athletes could compete at races like the Grand Tours and not do anything more than just water and regular food. They cycle competitively daily over an average of 100 miles for three weeks and we are shocked that the human body can not do this simply. Before you cast a stone, try half a Grand Tour's milage while only drinking bread and water with no other aids and I bet there is nobody out here that could accomplish it. The body is simply not built for that level of athleticism!! However, we still want to see our favorite athletes accomplish great things naturally...really?....really? Let's get over ourselves!
Why are we so hung up on doping positives....We ask these top athletes to do superhuman stages of cy
- Thread starter TexasTriathlete
- Start date
Okay, I'll bite...
Well, it's safe to say that we now know who cheats on his taxes, cheats on wife, lied on his resume to get a job, cheated on his tests in school, steals from his employer, etc...Rationalization and justification are just couple of the many ways a person may choose to deal with the emotional conflict brought about by engaging behaviors that are in fact illegal/anti-social/against public policy, etc...
edit: and I have to add that the fact the OP may be from Texas probably has nothing at all to do with his apparent lack of a stance against doping - seems one rather famous pro cyclist hails from Texas as well, and he happens to be under some current scrutiny...more than likely just pure coincidence...
Look, in any competitive field there will always be people who will try to gain an unfair advantage over others. You can make any arbitrary competition as arbitrarily easy/hard long/short, and so long as there is a competitive aspect people will cheat.
Is it our fault that we demand so much from our athletes? No. They don't have to dope if they don't want to. No one is forcing them to stay in the sport and if they don't like it they can quit and get a regular job. Riders are free to choose what to put in their bodies, it's their choice, so it's their responsibility.
I guess that the vast majority of riders on this board ride for the sake of it and have no desire to do drugs. Do we have a right to criticize the pros who use drugs? Yes, of course we do. Their actions make it worse for the rest of us, and worse for the sport as a whole. As members of the sport we have a right to say what's necessary for its improvement.
Where in Texas do you ride anyway, are you on the TXBRA circuit? See you at Walburg...
Is it our fault that we demand so much from our athletes? No. They don't have to dope if they don't want to. No one is forcing them to stay in the sport and if they don't like it they can quit and get a regular job. Riders are free to choose what to put in their bodies, it's their choice, so it's their responsibility.
I guess that the vast majority of riders on this board ride for the sake of it and have no desire to do drugs. Do we have a right to criticize the pros who use drugs? Yes, of course we do. Their actions make it worse for the rest of us, and worse for the sport as a whole. As members of the sport we have a right to say what's necessary for its improvement.
Where in Texas do you ride anyway, are you on the TXBRA circuit? See you at Walburg...
Given everything coming out, Lance is going down. He will deny it to the bitter end but his record will forever be tarnished with a little star next to it and read below attached.
-js
-js
Are you serious? This isn't about casting stones. It's about cheating. It's about a hell of a lot of athletes who don't cheat, and who get their asses handed to them by those who do. Don't make excuses for dopers and cheaters, and don't mock fans who expect cyclists to compete fairly. If you really are a competitive cyclist, then you know that cyclists are completely capable of riding 100+ miles a day for three weeks (and they consume a lot more than bread and water). The cheaters just do it a lot faster and recover more easily from their daily efforts. I'm guessing that maybe you don't mind bending the rules a little yourself if you can find the rationale for it.
In that case, we might as well put an asterik beside the names of most winners and contenders from every generation, be it at the Tour or some other great race....Coppi, Anquetil, Simpson, Merckx, Moser, Kelly, Fignon, Delgado, Roche, Virenque, Riis, Ullrich, Pantani, Armstrong, Contador, etc, etc, etc, it's a long list.....Some are proven cheats, some were never caught, some were caught but never convicted through various means and influences.
And yes, I believe LA is guilty.
And yes, I believe LA is guilty.
Of course it is possible to compete without doping.
I'll rephrase that, it is possible to compete cleanly if your competitors are also clean.
Wouldn't it be a much better if the races we're viewing contained athletes who were clean?
Of course it is inevitable that some participants will try to cheat. This is human nature.
Many of the riders who have been caught cheating deny that they've done anything wrong - even though the evidence against them is conclusive.
I think you hit an interesting issue to me atleast. I do believe all of these folks probably cheated in one form or another and the other riders not mentioned were not mentioned cause no one case about them anyway. I see cycling as different than football or baseball in that the bike technology has changed alot over the years while in these sports it is pretty much the same. So can we say that guys who rode with better bikes like when lemond used aero bars as a form of cheating? Should we always make sure that every rider has the exact same bike outside of fitting? If we accept the changes in technology in terms of the bike, do we accept the changes in terms of medical technology? If everyone is allowed to do it, is it cheating?
Last I have hereditary hemochromatosis, according to my doc that is very rare and gives you advantage over other in cycling as there was once an olympic cross country skier from Finland who lost his medal cause his level was found at above normal limits. Mine is always above and I have to give blood to keep it down. Am I cheating cause this is how my body is? They gave him back his medal cause they found from his village in Finland it was very common.
-js
There's no probably about it...
I'm not sure about Coppi but the rest of the riders named have been nailed for taking something or other. Not sure if Delgado was ever found positive for anything other than the Probenicid - which he was tested positive for several days before it went on the UCI banned list. Kelly stands out for the "best" positive though - he got caught with his mechanics **** and his spanner man had been taking speed to work on the bikes all night. bwhahahahahaaaaa.
Doping has been rife in cycling, even before the turn of the 20th Century (yes, I do mean 1900). Riders used to take all manner of weird and stupidly dangerous stuff, especially for the super long one day events and six day track meets.
There are rules to keep bikes pretty much the same. There has been instances in the past where there's been technological advances that some rider have used to their advantage but for the most part, the items like "LeMonds tribars" were a fairly mature technology elsewhere and had been used before.
There's a 50% hematocrit rule and unless you can prove that it's by natural causes then you won't be starting too many Pro Tour races...
swampy->What is the 50% hematocrit rule? They first wanted me to go for that damn test which I hear is no fun. I have had enough needles in my life with the LB ****. Luckily my hematologist said, forget it, your Dad has it so you have it. He is 85 and has not died, neither will you and he does not have polycythemia.
Since I do not see too many pro tour races at 46 I think I am safe./img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif
-js
Since I do not see too many pro tour races at 46 I think I am safe./img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif
-js
What? You can't be serious! You don't think the human body is capable of riding for 100+ miles a day for three weeks without the use of drugs? Why don't you research the Navy SEALs' BUDs training and see what the candidates go through during the portion of training called "Hell Week" and tell me if you still believe the human body can't perform superhuman tasks without the use of drugs.
And another thing. We don't "ask these top athletes to do superhuman stages." They do it because they want to. No one twists their arms and makes them do it. And besides, you don't become a top athlete by not being able to endure the stages in these grand tours. It may take years of training, proper diet and plenty of talent, but it is very much doable without drugs.
And another thing. We don't "ask these top athletes to do superhuman stages." They do it because they want to. No one twists their arms and makes them do it. And besides, you don't become a top athlete by not being able to endure the stages in these grand tours. It may take years of training, proper diet and plenty of talent, but it is very much doable without drugs.
Some famous dopers and doping cases from the early era of the pro peloton.
1924, Henri and Charles Pélissier admitted the use of Strychnine, cocaine, chloroform, aspirin, “horse ointment†and others drugs to keep going. The story was published in ‘Le Petit Parisien’ under the ‘The Convicts of the Road’. It led to no doping regulation though.
1949 – Fausto Coppi admitted using ‘’la Bomba’ – amphetamines during races. Coppi later joked that he only ever took dope when necessary – which was nearly always.
1955 Jean Malléjac of France collapsed on Mont Ventoux during the 1955 Tour de France. Drug use was widely suspected, though he pleaded his innocence from drug taking.
1959 Charles Gaul. The great climber was implicated when French customs found pills destined for him.
Kelly was trying to pull a "Pollentier".......
1978 Michel Pollentier Pollentier of Belgium was caught trying to cheat the drugs control after victory at L’Alpe d’Huez. He was found using someone else’s urine in a rubber bulb. He was ejected from the Tour, although ironically his own urine tested negative. Paul Kimmage would later say this kind of cheating dope controls was quite common during this period. – Mostly it went undetected.
We don't wonder why they dope; the reason they dope is because they're not strong enough to compete normally. If a rider needs to dope to keep up with legit riders, then he doesn't belong! The only way doping would be fair is if all the doped up riders got together and had their own competitions.
The average speeds in the TDF continue to increase year on year.
What is doping?
Taking a cocktail of stuff, like they did in the 1920's, to numb the physical pain?
What is doping?
Taking a performance enhancing drug which literally alters the physical parameters whereby a donkey can become a ferrari?
Greg LeMond stated that something fundamentally altered in the peloton in the early 1990's when average speeds in the professional races
increased expotentially.
What is doping?
Taking a cocktail of stuff, like they did in the 1920's, to numb the physical pain?
What is doping?
Taking a performance enhancing drug which literally alters the physical parameters whereby a donkey can become a ferrari?
Greg LeMond stated that something fundamentally altered in the peloton in the early 1990's when average speeds in the professional races
increased expotentially.
an abstract view, I think.UCI laws, and the rest is just a soap bubble. everything is bought and sold. Otherwise, who as an UCI , WADA does not cover the LA in his victories. I apologize for my English)). I am a Ukrainian. Two days ago, interviewed Yaroslav Popovich who is interested can read. Like your forum. learn more English here
had a laugh at linus gerdemann's hope that the german press would rally around the clean riders to help recuperate cycling's reputation. seriously, haven't they all, to a man/woman, claimed they are clean but were set up, nipped by shoddy lab work, and so on? does anyone really think the writers want to be burned again when clean rider a, who has a lovely mother and supports a ban on whaling, gets nicked with a blood bag dragging behind him?
linus should have learned by now that if there is a desire for clean racing, the pressure will come from the clean riders clubbing together to oust the dopers from their ranks.
linus should have learned by now that if there is a desire for clean racing, the pressure will come from the clean riders clubbing together to oust the dopers from their ranks.
There's nothing "supernatural" about tour de france or other sport competitions...it's only the individual athletes desire to win, that makes them cheat and use doping....People are doing 10 x Ironmen without doping...that 380 KM swimming, 1800 KM cycling (roughly half a tour de france) followed by 422 KM running..without any resting days inbetween or teammates to take the wind foor them or anything....
We have a saying in Denmark, which rouoghly translates to "A thief think that everyone else steals also"..I guess it's the same in sports..some athletes thinks that everyone else is cheating, so that justifies that they cheat as well...the only way to stop it is to get the doping testing up to same level as the medical industry that are always 1 step ahead with inventing new things that can and will be used to cheat... I doubt it will ever happen though.
We have a saying in Denmark, which rouoghly translates to "A thief think that everyone else steals also"..I guess it's the same in sports..some athletes thinks that everyone else is cheating, so that justifies that they cheat as well...the only way to stop it is to get the doping testing up to same level as the medical industry that are always 1 step ahead with inventing new things that can and will be used to cheat... I doubt it will ever happen though.
I've read Gerdemann's interview too.
Interesting point of view from an ex T-Mobile rider. It's needless to comment T-Mobile's contribution to current German media stance.
The other thing regarding this interview is interesting to me. Gerdemann is Leopard-Trek's rider and their attitude towards doping and internal controls has been clearly acknowledged. Maybe they feel it wasn't strong enough, especially in actual Contador - Ricco development, and now are sending messages over their riders. Who could be better spokesman about clean racing than riders themselves? Nygaard did it right by leaving talk about doping to riders, and not speaking by himself.
It's good PR, but far from reality (like PR often is). Looking at their roster, you can assume that all (or if not all, then vast majority of) the riders are familiar with system inside big teams with biggest ambitions. No one of them has been caught or sanctioned, off course, but certain rumors were surrounding some of them, some of their ex team mates were sanctioned, some of their managers and colleagues have had sincere confessions and so on. In addition, Leopard's management is clearly rejecting internal controls system and saying that they believe in UCI's system and their riders' honesty (it sounds a little bit like Bruyneel's "look in the eyes".
It sounds to me like they're saying they'll do it right, with no mistakes and scandals. Similar to US Postal during their rule.
And regarding the topic, doping was always present in cycling. For a long time it wasn't even a secret. They did it to win, just like they're doing now. No one is asking them anything. It's their desire to win, and they're choosing the way.
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