- HOT TOPICS:
- The new VeloNews.com (BETA)
Doping, doping, doping and ... no, just doping
Do you want to contribute to Mailbag, a regular feature of VeloNews.com? Here's how:
● Keep it short. And remember that we reserve the right to edit for grammar, length and clarity.
● Include your full name, hometown and state or nation.
● Send it to webletters@insideinc.com.
Our silly and trivial polls
re: Reader Poll
Editor,
As much as I hate to admit it, from time to time I like to read and answer your silly straw polls about trivial cycling questions.
Your latest on what to do with first time doping offenders has me a little puzzled. How can the overwhelming majority want to hand out life time bans on first time offenders ... Come on, these are young kids put under incredible pressure by parents, coaches, spongers and fans. Doping is cheating and cheating is wrong but a two year ban is enough to mark a rider and ruin their career.
Let's face it, without cycling these guys are hammering nails or washing dishes somewhere. Just look at Bernard Kohl's statement about why he doped, maybe that's the answer to the problem.
Colin Turner,
Homer Glen, Illinois
Hamilton cover: thumbs down
Editor,
Sorry I just can't look at his face anymore, the latest issue stays face down until I'm finished reading it!
He lied to us then tried the "innocent good clean American boy" ploy and got caught red-handed! To admit you cheated,apologize and move on is one thing, to lie and find every excuse in the book to get off is another. I have no respect for athletes like him and Filip Meirhaeghe. Thanks for letting me vent!
Kenneth Pierce,
U.S. Army, Stuttgart,GE
Germany's Catch 22
re: German TV cancels Tour broadcast
Editor,
So the German media and organizers canceled broadcasting the Tour de France and cancel their own Tour because cycling is fighting the drug users.
But sports that do nothing about catching drug cheats will now get that much more coverage. Great logic the Germans are showing.
Steve Gerard,
Wall, New Jersey
More on the German reaction
Editor,
Can someone please explain the hyperventilating of (hopefully just some) Germans in regard to cycling? I'm baffled by their strident overreactions. Voluntarily pulling a major German race because a few guys cheated in France? Huh?
Thom Falter,
Westby, Wisconsin
More
Editor,
Wow, talk about raining on ones parade: The combined decisions of the German Cycling Federation and organizers of the Tour of Stuttgart to cancel the 2009 Tour of Germany and 2009 Tour of Stuttgart has me a little vexed.
It's not just that I won't be able to walk out my front door and take in top tiered racing next year, it's their lack of commitment to a sport that is at least trying to clean up its act that astounds me.
Through the 90's and early 2000's they seemed to have no problem sponsoring races when EPO was more prevalent than ganga at a Dead concert.
And let's be honest ... we all knew what was going on then (even I didn't need Festina to highlight the malady cycling was in). But now, when sponsors, organizers and ... oh my word, even the riders are starting to take a stand, they go and completely jump ship on the sport. Now ... when it honestly appears fewer riders are juice'n and the archaic tests are actually working ... when the sport attempts to drag its tarnished little arse back over the balcony into the realm of respectability they go and stomp on its fingers that are so precariously clutching that damn railing.
Going along for the ride are two German media juggernauts, ARD and ZDF. Both are dropping coverage of 2009's Tour de France in protest to cycling's plight. What I find perplexing here is their blind tolerance to the illness of other sports they cover (not to mention the NFL'ish size of their former women's olympic teams).
I wonder if they would ever wield that tremendous influence on FIFA (soccer's governing body) to implement the same level of testing as you see in today's peloton. Do you think, if, during the next World Cup you had three or four players test positive, they'd pull the coverage plug on that? Yeah right ... you'd probably have better luck convincing Greg LeMond to be Lance's soigneur this season ...
Danke,
Dan Flood,
Ramstein Air Base, Germany
Cycling's image problem
Editor,
Everyone agrees that professional cycling has a major drug problem. However, what professional cycling really has is a major image problem with drug use.
NFL football players are much bigger, stronger, and faster then they were 30 years ago. Although a small part of this increase is due to better training and conditioning, most of it is due to performance enhancing drugs. And yet the only a small part of the media coverage of the NFL is drug related. In cycling most of the mainstream media coverage is drug related.
The NFL suspends a player for only four games (four weeks) for first time drug usage and one year for a second offense.
Professional cycling should solve it drug problem the same way. Professional cycling should institute much shorter penalties with no appeal process.
Look at the Floyd Landis debacle. His drug use was widely reported in the mainstream news at his first positive test, his second positive test, his suspension hearing, and both of his appeals.
Imagine this improved scenario. Floyd Landis tests positive and is banned from competition for the remainder of the season. He claims his innocence, but is permitted no appeal. He vows to clear his name by his performance. The following year he shows up at the Tour de France, subjected to special, more rigorous testing and vowing to win.
The tour is exciting. The drug problem is covered in the media only once. And the image of cycling is much improved over the current condition.
Jim Johnson
Lexington, Kentucky
Armstrong comeback
Editor,
Is it so hard to believe that maybe, just maybe Lance is a little bored and only wants to race again. Hell, I'm 60 and miss the action, even if only on a local level. It's a hoot.
Can't Lance feel the same way? He is, after all, a human being, despite what some would say.
Dennis Noward,
Toledo, Ohio
The 2008 Tour
Editor,
It's a good thing that Amaury Sport kept Astana out of the clean Tour of 2008 so there would be no doping. How many years will it take them to get the final results from this year?
Maybe they should have spent more effort in other areas instead of working so hard to keep Johan and Contador out of France.
Jerry Kelly,
Birmingham, Alabama
Another suggestion
Editor,
Maybe it's time that cycling took a cue from the bodybuilding arena. After all, there are bodybuilding competitions ... and then there are "natural" bodybuilding competitions.
Maybe the cycling world needs two different competition tracks so that the dopers and the clean guys can sort it out amongst themselves so that we the loyal fans don't have to suffer the angst, the agita, and the annoyance when yet another guy we cheered for bites doping dust.
Elaine Kaufmann,
Las Cruces, New Mexico
Someone got a bad muffin
Editor,
It just hit me as I was reading your web site; all of the following could be in TDF 2009: Lance, Floyd, Levi, Ivan, Alberto, Vino (I am shaking my head as I typed that.) I can’t forget Carlos, the current winner.
Now Christian may have a chance as all the above will watching each other, well maybe except Vino, who will attack in the first kilo and try to go the entire race as a solo breakaway.
Maybe they will all be on the same team. Johan will not have to worry too much.
With Vino off the front and Levi on his wheel for support, Alberto will be pissed that he is not the leader 'cause Lance has that title, Ivan is just as happy as Floyd to be racing again that they miss the spilt and finish in the rear.
Now with all this happening, Thomas Voekler will retake the yellow jersey and finish first on the Alpe and once again disappoint the French for giving up the jersey on the Champs to Cadel. But Cadel is too upset to realize he might win, Tyler takes the win in Paris and Prudhomme declares a mis-race and they have start all over again.
But TDF #2 will be raced entirely in Kazakhstan just to keep the Astana owners happy.
Oh, I am sorry I think I just had a bad dream, or did I ?
John Craig
San Ysidro, California
Nationalistic bias
Editor,
I've been following a number of recent reports that might arguably suggest cycling's efforts to curb doping in professional cycling are being hampered by nationalistic biases.
For example, the Spanish authorities are closing the books on Operation Puerto even though there is concrete evidence (in the form of banked blood) that could implicate many of the top pros in the sport.
Is there a nationalistic fear/bias that a number of top Spanish stars will be implicated in the affair if ever fully investigated?
Now, the Giro organizers are refusing to retest any samples from the '08 edition, claiming that there is "nothing suspect" even though the performances of riders such as Ricco and Peipoli at the 2008 event (along with the retroactive positives from the 2008 TDF) suggest otherwise.
Is there a nationalistic fear/bias that many top Italians will be implicated in doping practices is the samples are retroactively tested using the test that is sensitive for CERA?
And then there is Rudolf Scharping, head of the German Cycling Federation, criticizing an entire generation of pros as being part of doping generation, even after doping scandals involving top German pros continue to persist in the sport.
Is there a nationalistic resentment/bias/venting directed towards non German cyclists after the doping scandals involving Ulrich, Sinkiwietz and Schumacher?
The central issue surrounding doping is the issue of fairness. People want fairness in the sport of pro cycling, and fairness means that everyone conforms to the same rules and regulations and practices. Even to a naive reader like myself, the recent actions of many national cycling federations and authorities seems to contradict my notion of fairness.
Graham Garber,
West Hartford, Connecticut
