Ah yes, drugs in sport. Tyler Hamilton has been busy and has just released a book that appears to be partly about him and mostly about Lance Armstrong's small er,...drug problem.
At the risk of adding another irrelevant opinion to the bottomless pit of public opinion on this topic, let's go back...
I must say I applauded Lance Armstrong's struggle back to professional sport from his death bed, sort of enjoyed reading the books and would like to have believed he was clean...but I never could - anti-cancer fundraising squeaky cleanness, or not. The Tour de France is too hard and the rest of the (mostly doped up) peleton too good that it was always too good to be true (that's a lot of 'toos', but that's a lot of 'wins' as well). The idea that one punter could train, compete and most importantly recover, day in day out to win 7 on the trot is absurd. More power to his pharmacist though. Also to the organisation that went into getting him on/off/on/off the juice with such efficiency and timing between the famous 500 tests. To the true believers in Saint Lance - good luck (btw I saw Santa Claus and Elvis having a beer in the East village yesterday).
The only outcome that would amount to any justice at this point would be to call a doping moratorium ending at the start of the 2011 TDF - being the most likely the first TDF won by someone not doping in the last 50 years - nice work Cadel...goes to show that if you aren't on the juice backing up two years in a row is a bit of a stretch. Let all past riders fess up and walk away with their wins/losses/careers intact. Lance Armstrong could keep his 7 tainted titles and so could all of the others that have won/lost/had a placing in the last 50 years in hundreds of bike races and we can all move on. My moratorium offer comes with mandatory long term biological passporting for the pros and mandatory public humiliation for any amateur caught doping (more on that later) for being so cravenly pathetic.
Incidentally, it is a bit rich stripping him of his titles when so many previous winners were on the juice as well. Yes, yes Contador had his taken off him but it's a bit late to reverse that one. Pretending that Lance Armstrong was the most egregious offender of past winners is absurd. He is certainly the most blatant and unrepentant but then he had the misfortune to be winning at a time that drugs in sport is (quite rightly) a huge issue. Bad timing old boy. Oh, well.
Which brings me to why this issue irritates me. For a start, he is full of shit and has taken the 'walk away, I'm too tired to keep fighting this' defence - ie the coward's way out. Either fight it to the death or confess. It's not like he has run out of cash or has anything better to do (triathlons?). But worse, amateur morons think that doping is a good idea - eg David Anthony (amatuer doper). That poor punter has been beaten up enough so that's not my intent, or even my right for that matter - sorry, professional 'althetes' get paid to compete and are fair game. As has been well documented, Anthony was busted at, of all events, the Granfondo NYC (aka the weekend ride to Bear Mtn and back).
A moment of full disclosure - to my eternal shame I rode in the Grandfondo NYC. I promise never to repeat this mistake. I have also ridden to Bear Mtn a few times and can confirm that riding without 5000 friends is much more enjoyable, less dangerous and you don't all have to wear the same stupid jersey. Most importantly, you can do it any weekend (except grandfondle weekend) for free. Anyway, the doping controls were a great laugh and a pathetic attempt to lend some credibility to a group ride so to be actually caught doping was a staggering performance by D. Anthony.
Which brings me to my point. Lance et al, either win cleanly or piss off and get an honest job (politics, investment banking?). You are a bad example to youth and middle aged men dealing with a mid-life crisis. Fuck you.
No comments:
Post a Comment