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After the Giro. Was it clean?
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| Aquarius |
Posted on 02-06-2008 17:01
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issoisso wrote:
Smitho wrote:
To be fair you actually saw that all riders apart from ricco where in trouble in the mountains! Therefore i think it was clean. Astana definetly wont beon drugs as if they get caught nobody will invite them into races.
the counter-argument to that is extremely simple: there are a fair few drugs that they can use as much as they want because no one will catch them. why? because they're undetectable in tests. Freezing samples and testing them again 5 years later is the solution, as well as forcing caught riders to give the money back.
That's more or less the commitment athletes had to sign for Athens Olympic Games. Lance Armstrong then felt it was urgent to spend some time with his family in August. :cry: |
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| jacknic |
Posted on 02-06-2008 17:48
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The question is, will this approach stop the dopers? In my mind Bjarne Riis' win in 1996 was still one of the most memorable because he beat Indurain. His admitted epo use does little do take away experience that years tour gave me. The same goes for a lot of Pantanis wins in the mountains. He remains my all time favourite even though he was one of the worst dopers.
The thing needed is a mentality change in the game. It boggles the mind that the riders, sports directors and team doctors keeps on doping. The mentality seem to be like "it isn't cheating if you don't get caught."
How do we change this mentality? Certainly not by making the stage races harder and harder. This years Giro was one of the hardest in memory. It takes a really tough race to make iron man Jens Voigt cry about it. And he did.
Another thing is that on saturday several people in the Giro thread were angry that the riders didn't attack more. Even though they had given us a fantastic stage on friday. We can't demand clean riders AND fireworks on every single mountain stage. |
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| brun sweater |
Posted on 02-06-2008 17:54
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To answer the topic question: No. WADA have a budget of app. 25 mio dollars this year, and they have to cover all sports. You do the math!  |
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| Macquet |
Posted on 02-06-2008 18:10
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To ask was it clean is tough...I think the top guys were clean, but it is like baseball here in the states, a large percentage of the guys who used steroids in the "mitchell report" were borderline major league players, that needed that extra edge to make it...I think that in cycling you have a similar problem, the border line guys will take whatever edge they can get to make a pro team, the greats already have that "edge" in their natural talent. |
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| brun sweater |
Posted on 02-06-2008 18:12
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All top riders were once borderline! |
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| issoisso |
Posted on 02-06-2008 18:20
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what brun said, plus this
In 2004, in an interview in the French newspaper Le Monde, Greg LeMond said, "In 1990 I won the Tour and my team [Z] won the top-team classification. One year later, not one of us could follow the pace in the pack. There had been a radical change." He went on to note that when he when he was winning, his VO2 Max (maximum oxygen consumption, the basic measurement of an athlete's aerobic capacity) was tops among professional racers. Today, LeMond said, he would be in the fifty-first percentile. In other words, the Greg LeMond of 1990 who won the Tour de France would be sent back for water bottles today.
Commenting on this interview in an open letter, Andy Hampsten wrote "Like Greg, I, too, saw what I believe were the effects of EPO when it entered pro cycling in the early '90s. In the first years it grew from a few individuals reaping obscene wins from exploiting its 'benefits', to entire teams relying on it, essentially forcing all but the most gifted racers to either use EPO to keep their place in cycling, quit, or become just another obscure rider in the group."
Edited by issoisso on 02-06-2008 18:21
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| soda |
Posted on 02-06-2008 18:53
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chuckie wrote:
I mean good stage racers,with grand tour winning potential...who'll continue to under achieve for the rest of their careers. Karpets never did anything super amazing (7th in 2005 Giro, 13th in the 2004 TDF, and winning the tour de suisse last year) so is he realy underachieving atm ?
about Menchov his aiming for the TDF so his peak still has to come normally. So finishing 5th in this years Giro ain't that bad. |
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Posted on 24-11-2024 04:42
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| chuckie |
Posted on 02-06-2008 18:58
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soda wrote:
chuckie wrote:
I mean good stage racers,with grand tour winning potential...who'll continue to under achieve for the rest of their careers. Karpets never did anything super amazing (7th in 2005 Giro, 13th in the 2004 TDF, and winning the tour de suisse last year) so is he realy underachieving atm ?
about Menchov his aiming for the TDF so his peak still has to come normally. So finishing 5th in this years Giro ain't that bad.
Time will tell 
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| kadel |
Posted on 02-06-2008 19:13
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I am very sceptical about the whole Navigare team and Sella. Their superperformance in the Giro seems too good to be true, and it might be.
I think it's a shame Astana was invited to the Giro, teams with a history like theirs shouldn't be allowed into the top races before they have proved for some years that they stay clean.
I support ASO 100% in their battle for a clean sport, it seems as though the UCI and the other parties in the cyclingworld doesn't have the guts to take the necessary steps to clean up the sport. Hard measures are needed, and the ASO are taking them.
ASO is saving cycling, the UCI is corrupt like FIFA and is no good. |
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| chuckie |
Posted on 02-06-2008 19:21
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kadel wrote:
ASO is saving cycling, the UCI is corrupt like FIFA and is no good.
ASO is not saving cycling.
If ASO and UCI came to reasonable terms that would save cycling,and possibly the protour too.
It would be true to say however that Pat McQuaid is a d*ck and is single handedly tearing cycling apart.
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| issoisso |
Posted on 02-06-2008 19:26
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kadel wrote:
I support ASO 100% in their battle for a clean sport, it seems as though the UCI and the other parties in the cyclingworld doesn't have the guts to take the necessary steps to clean up the sport. Hard measures are needed, and the ASO are taking them.
They'd need much harder measures, but I agree with them up to a point. however the UCI is also doing a lot to clean up cycling. McQuaid excluded
kadel wrote:
ASO is saving cycling, the UCI is corrupt like FIFA and is no good.
The ASO is doing no such thing. the ASO's main goal is to stop cycling from spreading to other countries than the 4 main ones, so that all the top races and riders will stay there. The result of this is that the ASO's profits skyrocket while the popularity of cycling plummets.
Don't paint ASO in white and the UCI in black. nothing in life is black or white. everything is a different shade of grey. Both the ASO and the UCI are doing some wonderful things and at the same time doing others that are dragging cycling down the drain.
Edited by issoisso on 02-06-2008 19:26
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| chuckie |
Posted on 02-06-2008 19:42
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Someone answer me this.
What makes the UCI corrupt ?(excluding McQuaid)
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| Macquet |
Posted on 02-06-2008 19:48
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kadel wrote:
I think it's a shame Astana was invited to the Giro, teams with a history like theirs shouldn't be allowed into the top races before they have proved for some years that they stay clean.
I support ASO 100% in their battle for a clean sport, it seems as though the UCI and the other parties in the cyclingworld doesn't have the guts to take the necessary steps to clean up the sport. Hard measures are needed, and the ASO are taking them.
1. Astana may have the same name and some hold over domestiques but that is it....they are essentially a whole new team with new management...so the "sins" of the previous management should not be held against the current one. If the same crew that was running things last year was still there you have a point.
2. The ASO is not looking for a clean sport at all, they are just looking for a profit, like what was stated before...they care less about clean cycling and more about making money. |
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| kadel |
Posted on 02-06-2008 19:59
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Astana isn't a completely new team, they have lots of the same riders and trainers. Adding Contador and Bruyneel doesn't mean you're clean. Remember who Contador was tutored by, Manolo Saiz and the old ONCE/Liberty/Astana team.
Edited by kadel on 02-06-2008 20:53
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| Nota |
Posted on 02-06-2008 20:13
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I think Sella and his teammates doped in this Giro. Look at the last TT, it tells everything for a people who know these riders. I know him well because I'm making a DB for PCM06. Sella made a very good TT much better than his abilities. Bruse was tired, and Menchov too. It is normal because of the mountain stages.
I think it was a beautiful Giro. I don't need huge Armstrong attacks, and cyclists like Merckx. |
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| CrueTrue |
Posted on 02-06-2008 20:18
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kadel wrote:
Astana isn't a completely new team, they have lots of the same riders and trainers. Adding Contador and Bruyneel doesn't mean you're clean. Remember who Contador was touted by, Manolo Saiz and the old ONCE/Liberty/Astana team.
Whoever you are, I like you
And to the guy who asked why UCI is corrupt: How else would you explain names suddenly disappearing from the liste of Puerto riders? That's just one example |
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| chuckie |
Posted on 02-06-2008 20:21
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I think Sella was doped too.
I'm sure the Armstrong attacks and cyclists like Merckx will develope once the riders get used to their lack of dope.
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| issoisso |
Posted on 02-06-2008 20:28
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kadel wrote:
Astana isn't a completely new team, they have lots of the same riders and trainers. Adding Contador and Bruyneel doesn't mean you're clean. Remember who Contador was touted by, Manolo Saiz and the old ONCE/Liberty/Astana team.
exactly. and having Bruyneel in the team is perfectly enough to show the team is doping. |
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| kadel |
Posted on 02-06-2008 20:43
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I think the fundamental problem with professional cycling is that doping is woven into the fabric of the UCI and professional cycling, and there is some sort of reluctancy towards getting into a showdown with the problem and clean up most of the sport ever since L'Equipe in 1955 proclaimed: 'The fight against doping seems to have been won.'
The French cycling sport changed after the Festina affair I think. Reality mugged them and they understood that if doping continued, the sport would be destroyed. Other major nations like Italy and Spain has not had this experience yet and doping is more accepted. I may be wrong but I think French riders are some of the cleanest now.
The problem isn't necessesarily the riders themselves, it is the apparatus around them. A lot of the trainers, doctors and directeur sportifs today have a history with doping and the leaders in the UCI have washed their hands, reluctant to deal properly with the problem. It's like a corrupt policeforce, they catch a few criminals to please the public, but they let the mafia operate in peace. The same way the UCI has let the dopingmafia of professional cycling operate more or less freely untill the big crackdown last year with Operation Puerto.
However, it didn't happen on UCI's accord, it happened because the Spanish police investigated the case.
When you let teams like Astana continue to exist in the top tier of professional cycling, and take part in big races like the Giro, you legitimate them, also when riders like Basso are able to return to the big scene so quickly, and small teams hire former doping riders freely, something is wrong.
The sport needs to change from within, but now there are too many people that don't take the issue seriously enough, like the teams that hire former dopers. This could destroy the sport and the UCI has not been taking any proper actions to save it, the ASO is cracking down on doping because it sees that its own livelyhood could be gone if this continues.
Excluding teams with a reputation and introducing 100 000 Euro fines for teams that are caught cheating in le Tour is just the first step towards a cleaner sport, and that step has been taken by ASO, not the UCI. UCI should follow, not protest measures taken to clean the sport.
I think the UCI should do some housecleaning themselves.
Edited by kadel on 02-06-2008 20:57
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| jacknic |
Posted on 02-06-2008 21:20
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The ASO isn't excatly angels themselves. They had played a big part in the embarrasing Paris-Nice circus this year where the Riders were taken hostage by both ASO and UCI.
And why is Astana excluded when Cofidis is not? Both teams embarased the Tour twice but only one is french? Looks like double standards to me. And how can we take ASO serious when they aren't consistent? |
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