|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
"It's Not About the Drugs"
It's Not About The Drugs
Recovering from cancer and winning seven Tours de France in a row has made Lance Armstrong a hero for many. Others question whether he's resorted to drugs to get him to the top of his sport. In 1993, Lance Armstrong rode his first Tour de France. Nine days into the race, on the road from Chalons-sur-Marne to Verdun, Armstrong and a small group of riders broke away from the peloton on the short-but-tough climb of the Cote du Douamount, about sixteen kilometers from the stage finish. Attack followed counter-attack, but soon the breakaway group solidified around six riders who, working together, slowly stretched their lead over the peloton. In the sprint for the line, Armstrong got clear by two bike lengths and won the stage. The youngest rider in the 1993 Tour de France, Armstrong had signalled his arrival in the race's history. Twelve years later, he's torn up the Tour's history books, winning the race seven times in a row. After that stage win in 1993, one journalist asked Armstrong the obvious question: "On 21st July 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to land on the moon. How high can this Armstrong go?" Even despite his innate Texan self-confidence, Armstrong didn't answer that question. But in his heart he knew the answer. Certainly he knew how far he wanted to go. A year before, Armstrong had been interviewed by Samuel Abt and the pair had talked about his Tour ambitions: "I know I want to do the Tour de France, I know I want to win the Tour de France," Armstrong told Abt. "I think I can someday get to that level but it's a long way off, a lot of hard work. The desire is there, the ambition is there, the goal is there. It's only a matter of doing the hard work and winning the race. [...] Win the Tour de France and you're a star. I'd like to be a star. I'm sure I'd get sick of all the pressure and all the appearances, but I'd like to try it for a while." Today, Armstrong is a star. Since being forced out of cycling in 1996 and 1997 with testicular cancer, he's put a virtual lock-out the Tour de France, claiming it as his own private domain since 1999. Wherever he goes, he's applauded for what he's done, not just on the bike, but in recovering from testicular cancer and promoting cancer awareness. Appearances follow appearances, interview follows interview. Today, Lance is living the life of a star that he told Abt he wanted to try in 1993. But it's a life that has come with a high price. The failure of his marriage has been blamed on his commitment to the Tour. And his performance in the race is constantly being questioned, the spectre of the sport's long history of drug abuse hanging like a cloud over his achievement. * * * In recent years, the Irish journalist David Walsh has become one of the American Tour de France champion's most outspoken critics. Today Armstrong describes Walsh as "the worst journalist I know." The next time the two talk is likely to be during one of several court cases against Walsh instigated by Armstrong. Twelve years ago though Walsh and Armstrong had a totally different relationship. David Walsh was one of many journalists who covered the 1993 Tour. He wrote a book about it - 'Inside the Tour de France' - in which he interviewed riders and team personnel, telling their story. The book opens with Walsh interviewing Armstrong, Walsh painting a picture of the sort of Tour champion we all want to believe in, one with wings on his ankles and the heart of a lion. "Physically I'm not any more gifted that anybody else," Armstrong explained to Walsh, "but it's just the desire, just this rage. I'm on the bike and I go into a rage, when I just shriek for about five seconds. I shake like mad and my eyes kinda bulge out. [.] That's heart man, that's not physical, that's not legs, that's not lungs. That's heart. That's soul. That's just guts." Today, Walsh paints a totally different picture of Lance Armstrong. In his 2004 book, 'LA Confidential - Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong' (co-authored with Pierre Ballester and still unavailable on English translation because of on-going litigation in France and England), Walsh argues that Armstrong has admitted to having used EPO. The evidence, Walsh admits, is not conclusive. Could Walsh be right? Could Armstrong be just another Tour champion in a long line of Tour champions who has resorted to performance enhancing drugs to get around le grand boucle? Or is Armstrong as clean as he himself contests he is? The fact is, we don't know. That Armstrong's never officially failed a drug test (the saddle cream incident aside) is, unfortunately, meaningless in modern cycling. Up until French police found evidence of EPO usage in David Millar's apartment, he too hadn't failed a drug test, despite being repeatedly subjected to them. Right now, Millar's just over halfway through a two year suspension because of his drug use. The evidence against Armstrong, the evidence that he is himself one of the many cyclists whose performance is pharmaceutically enhanced, is all circumstantial. But, sadly, the evidence trotted out by many who want to believe in a clean Armstrong is equally weak. For then the thought that Armstrong could be perpetrating such a massive sporting fraud is simply too appalling a vista to be considered. And that is enough for them to declare his innocence. There is scientific evidence though, put forward by researchers at the University of Texas (Armstrong's home state), which contests that he is clean and that his performance is down to the fact that he's a genetic freak. Much of that evidence though is, sadly, inconclusive. Take the argument that Armstrong's VO2 Max rate (how much oxygen his body can process) proves his ability is in his genes and not brought about by drugs. Unfortunately for anyone relying on that argument, it has to be remembered that the now disgraced sports doctor Michele Ferrari specialised in increasing his clients' VO2 Max rate. Right up to the day Ferrari was found guilty of sporting fraud by an Italian magistrate in October 2004, Armstrong was his most high profile client and vociferously proclaimed Ferrari's innocence. Much has been made of the revelation earlier this year by Hein Verbruggen, the head of the UCI, that Armstrong donated a substantial sum of cash to the sport to aid anti-doping measures. The money was given after the 1998 Festina scandal. How could a man who has funded anti-doping measures be himself using drugs? It would seem pretty clear-cut - until you start considering some of Armstrong's other actions. Take Armstrong's very public spats with WADA's Dick Pound. Pound is an outspoken critic of the manner in which cycling authorities have handled the drug problem within their sport. Given that French and Italian judicial authorities have done more to clean up the sport than the UCI itself, you would have to admit that Pound has a point. But Armstrong thinks Pound should keep quiet and not publicise the problem. Armstrong is, sadly, a firm believer in the sport's law of omerta, as evidenced by his treatment of Filipo Simeoni and others who have spoken out of their own experiences of drugs in cycling. Greg Lemond best sums up Armstrong's attitude to those who dare to speak openly of the role drugs play in cycling: "The problem with Lance is that you're either a liar or you're out to destroy cycling." The role drugs continue to play in the sport should not be hushed up, hidden from view. It needs to be aired publicly. For too long cyclists and sports riders have obeyed the sport's law of omerta. Despite all the effort that is being put into catching drug cheats and despite all the information available about the dangers associated with these drugs, riders are still doping. Dario Frigo and Evgeni Petrov failed to finish this year's Tour because of their drug use. Petrov was kicked off the race when a blood test suggested he might be using EPO. Frigo left the race after French police found EPO in his wife's car. Jurgen Scholl, the Gerolsteiner squad's soigneur, was sacked just days before the Tour started after a reporter produced an email from him in which he sought information on the effectiveness of various doping products. "What do you recommend when mixing Insulin and HGH?," Scholl had asked in the email, "What are the safe doses for Synachten? How long are you positive with 2.5mg of Androderm?" Riders are inexplicably dying of heart failure. In 2003 alone Denis Zanette (32), Marco Ceriani (16), Fabrice Salanson (23), Marco Rusconi (24), Jose Maria Jimenez (32) and Michel Zanoli (35) all died and their deaths have been linked to a resurgence in the use of EPO and blood doping in the sport. The deaths continue to mount up - only last month Alessio Galletti collapsed and died during a minor Spanish race. In 2000 he had been suspended for four months when EPO and Andriol were found in his fridge. Italian police raided his hotel room during the 2004 Giro d'Italia, on the basis of phone-tapping evidence. "I've bought a full suitcase of stuff from the doctor," the transcript of one phone call read, "there was some left over from before as well ... As long as we can, we use these and then when they're finished, we'll use the others. I've got a ton of stuff, you understand? I have a trolley-full." Does a dirty sport mean that everyone participating in it is dirty? No, it doesn't. Take the case of the French Cofidis rider, David Moncoutie. The peloton is united in its defence of Moncoutie, constantly telling journalists how clean Moncoutie is. Being clean hasn't stopped him from winning stages in the Tour - Mouncoutie won the Bastille Day stages of the Tour both this year and last year. But, perhaps tellingly, Mouncoutie is about the only rider the peloton says this of. Does this mean that everyone else is using drugs? Or that, in the eyes of the peloton, there is at least a cloud of doubt hanging over every other rider? Should any of this matter? Drugs alone will not make you a champion. Arguing that Armstrong's performance is drug enhanced is, ultimately as pointless as the catcalls from the kid in the Emperor's New Clothes story - naked (doped) or not, the Emperor is still the Emperor. And Armstrong still has to put in the training miles, he still has to ride races each year in preparation for the Tour. He may not train as much as other riders and he still has time to be photographed at basketball games eating donuts but he certainly trains smarter than most, paying more attention to minor details. Even if he is, as Walsh argues, a doper like all the rest, does it really matter? If everyone else is doing it - now and throughout the history of the sport - then surely that just means a level playing field for all? None of it should matter. But it does. Drugs have stolen the soul of cycling. Like a cancer, they've eaten it up from the inside. They're the one cancer Armstrong thinks no one should talk about. They have transformed riders and they have transformed the Tour. The French philosopher Robert Redeker best sums up the situation the sport finds itself in today: "The athletic type represented by Lance Armstrong - unlike Fausto Coppi or Jean Robic - is coming closer to Lara Croft, the virtually fabricated cyber-heroine." According to Redeker, "Cycling is becoming a video game; the onetime 'prisoners of the road' have become virtual human beings." The riders may have freed themselves from being prisoners of the road, but today they are - to borrow the title of the Philip Gaumont's doping memoir - prisonniers du dopage. In their quest to find the perfect pharmaceutical solution to the inhumanity of the Tour de France, they have transformed themselves into something not entirely human. According to Redeker, "A huge gulf now exists between the race and the racers, who have become virtual figures, transformed into PlayStation characters while the public, the ones at the folding tables and the tents, drinking pastis and fresh rosé du pays, are still real. The type of man once promoted by the race, the people's man, born of hard toil, hardened to suffering and adept at surpassing himself, has been substituted by Robocop on wheels, someone no fan can relate to or identify with." Feargal Mc Kay July 2005 http://www.siglamag.com/features/050...-The-Drugs.php |
Ads |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 14:40:25 GMT, "B. Lafferty" wrote:
"Physically I'm not any more gifted that anybody else," Armstrong explained to Walsh, "but it's just the desire, just this rage. I'm on the bike and I go into a rage, when I just shriek for about five seconds. I shake like mad and my eyes kinda bulge out. [.] That's heart man, that's not physical, that's not legs, that's not lungs. That's heart. That's soul. That's just guts." Pretty cool. Thanks for posting that. Otherwise a pretty tame article. jj |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
The riders may have freed themselves from being prisoners of the road, but
today they are - to borrow the title of the Philip Gaumont's doping memoir - prisonniers du dopage. In their quest to find the perfect pharmaceutical solution to the inhumanity of the Tour de France, they have transformed themselves into something not entirely human. According to Redeker, "A huge gulf now exists between the race and the racers, who have become virtual figures, transformed into PlayStation characters while the public, the ones at the folding tables and the tents, drinking pastis and fresh rosé du pays, are still real. The type of man once promoted by the race, the people's man, born of hard toil, hardened to suffering and adept at surpassing himself, has been substituted by Robocop on wheels, someone no fan can relate to or identify with." Right. We should look back fondly on the good old days. Pot Belge. The choice of "The people's man." A time when riders didn't die in their sleep, but openly, out on the slopes of Ventoux, as a sporting man should. Where do these guys come off, doing this revisionist history garbage? If they want to make a case for drug use in the present peloton, why do they think it enhances their case by contrasting it to a lie? --Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReactionBicycles.com "B. Lafferty" wrote in message ink.net... It's Not About The Drugs Recovering from cancer and winning seven Tours de France in a row has made Lance Armstrong a hero for many. Others question whether he's resorted to drugs to get him to the top of his sport. In 1993, Lance Armstrong rode his first Tour de France. Nine days into the race, on the road from Chalons-sur-Marne to Verdun, Armstrong and a small group of riders broke away from the peloton on the short-but-tough climb of the Cote du Douamount, about sixteen kilometers from the stage finish. Attack followed counter-attack, but soon the breakaway group solidified around six riders who, working together, slowly stretched their lead over the peloton. In the sprint for the line, Armstrong got clear by two bike lengths and won the stage. The youngest rider in the 1993 Tour de France, Armstrong had signalled his arrival in the race's history. Twelve years later, he's torn up the Tour's history books, winning the race seven times in a row. After that stage win in 1993, one journalist asked Armstrong the obvious question: "On 21st July 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to land on the moon. How high can this Armstrong go?" Even despite his innate Texan self-confidence, Armstrong didn't answer that question. But in his heart he knew the answer. Certainly he knew how far he wanted to go. A year before, Armstrong had been interviewed by Samuel Abt and the pair had talked about his Tour ambitions: "I know I want to do the Tour de France, I know I want to win the Tour de France," Armstrong told Abt. "I think I can someday get to that level but it's a long way off, a lot of hard work. The desire is there, the ambition is there, the goal is there. It's only a matter of doing the hard work and winning the race. [...] Win the Tour de France and you're a star. I'd like to be a star. I'm sure I'd get sick of all the pressure and all the appearances, but I'd like to try it for a while." Today, Armstrong is a star. Since being forced out of cycling in 1996 and 1997 with testicular cancer, he's put a virtual lock-out the Tour de France, claiming it as his own private domain since 1999. Wherever he goes, he's applauded for what he's done, not just on the bike, but in recovering from testicular cancer and promoting cancer awareness. Appearances follow appearances, interview follows interview. Today, Lance is living the life of a star that he told Abt he wanted to try in 1993. But it's a life that has come with a high price. The failure of his marriage has been blamed on his commitment to the Tour. And his performance in the race is constantly being questioned, the spectre of the sport's long history of drug abuse hanging like a cloud over his achievement. * * * In recent years, the Irish journalist David Walsh has become one of the American Tour de France champion's most outspoken critics. Today Armstrong describes Walsh as "the worst journalist I know." The next time the two talk is likely to be during one of several court cases against Walsh instigated by Armstrong. Twelve years ago though Walsh and Armstrong had a totally different relationship. David Walsh was one of many journalists who covered the 1993 Tour. He wrote a book about it - 'Inside the Tour de France' - in which he interviewed riders and team personnel, telling their story. The book opens with Walsh interviewing Armstrong, Walsh painting a picture of the sort of Tour champion we all want to believe in, one with wings on his ankles and the heart of a lion. "Physically I'm not any more gifted that anybody else," Armstrong explained to Walsh, "but it's just the desire, just this rage. I'm on the bike and I go into a rage, when I just shriek for about five seconds. I shake like mad and my eyes kinda bulge out. [.] That's heart man, that's not physical, that's not legs, that's not lungs. That's heart. That's soul. That's just guts." Today, Walsh paints a totally different picture of Lance Armstrong. In his 2004 book, 'LA Confidential - Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong' (co-authored with Pierre Ballester and still unavailable on English translation because of on-going litigation in France and England), Walsh argues that Armstrong has admitted to having used EPO. The evidence, Walsh admits, is not conclusive. Could Walsh be right? Could Armstrong be just another Tour champion in a long line of Tour champions who has resorted to performance enhancing drugs to get around le grand boucle? Or is Armstrong as clean as he himself contests he is? The fact is, we don't know. That Armstrong's never officially failed a drug test (the saddle cream incident aside) is, unfortunately, meaningless in modern cycling. Up until French police found evidence of EPO usage in David Millar's apartment, he too hadn't failed a drug test, despite being repeatedly subjected to them. Right now, Millar's just over halfway through a two year suspension because of his drug use. The evidence against Armstrong, the evidence that he is himself one of the many cyclists whose performance is pharmaceutically enhanced, is all circumstantial. But, sadly, the evidence trotted out by many who want to believe in a clean Armstrong is equally weak. For then the thought that Armstrong could be perpetrating such a massive sporting fraud is simply too appalling a vista to be considered. And that is enough for them to declare his innocence. There is scientific evidence though, put forward by researchers at the University of Texas (Armstrong's home state), which contests that he is clean and that his performance is down to the fact that he's a genetic freak. Much of that evidence though is, sadly, inconclusive. Take the argument that Armstrong's VO2 Max rate (how much oxygen his body can process) proves his ability is in his genes and not brought about by drugs. Unfortunately for anyone relying on that argument, it has to be remembered that the now disgraced sports doctor Michele Ferrari specialised in increasing his clients' VO2 Max rate. Right up to the day Ferrari was found guilty of sporting fraud by an Italian magistrate in October 2004, Armstrong was his most high profile client and vociferously proclaimed Ferrari's innocence. Much has been made of the revelation earlier this year by Hein Verbruggen, the head of the UCI, that Armstrong donated a substantial sum of cash to the sport to aid anti-doping measures. The money was given after the 1998 Festina scandal. How could a man who has funded anti-doping measures be himself using drugs? It would seem pretty clear-cut - until you start considering some of Armstrong's other actions. Take Armstrong's very public spats with WADA's Dick Pound. Pound is an outspoken critic of the manner in which cycling authorities have handled the drug problem within their sport. Given that French and Italian judicial authorities have done more to clean up the sport than the UCI itself, you would have to admit that Pound has a point. But Armstrong thinks Pound should keep quiet and not publicise the problem. Armstrong is, sadly, a firm believer in the sport's law of omerta, as evidenced by his treatment of Filipo Simeoni and others who have spoken out of their own experiences of drugs in cycling. Greg Lemond best sums up Armstrong's attitude to those who dare to speak openly of the role drugs play in cycling: "The problem with Lance is that you're either a liar or you're out to destroy cycling." The role drugs continue to play in the sport should not be hushed up, hidden from view. It needs to be aired publicly. For too long cyclists and sports riders have obeyed the sport's law of omerta. Despite all the effort that is being put into catching drug cheats and despite all the information available about the dangers associated with these drugs, riders are still doping. Dario Frigo and Evgeni Petrov failed to finish this year's Tour because of their drug use. Petrov was kicked off the race when a blood test suggested he might be using EPO. Frigo left the race after French police found EPO in his wife's car. Jurgen Scholl, the Gerolsteiner squad's soigneur, was sacked just days before the Tour started after a reporter produced an email from him in which he sought information on the effectiveness of various doping products. "What do you recommend when mixing Insulin and HGH?," Scholl had asked in the email, "What are the safe doses for Synachten? How long are you positive with 2.5mg of Androderm?" Riders are inexplicably dying of heart failure. In 2003 alone Denis Zanette (32), Marco Ceriani (16), Fabrice Salanson (23), Marco Rusconi (24), Jose Maria Jimenez (32) and Michel Zanoli (35) all died and their deaths have been linked to a resurgence in the use of EPO and blood doping in the sport. The deaths continue to mount up - only last month Alessio Galletti collapsed and died during a minor Spanish race. In 2000 he had been suspended for four months when EPO and Andriol were found in his fridge. Italian police raided his hotel room during the 2004 Giro d'Italia, on the basis of phone-tapping evidence. "I've bought a full suitcase of stuff from the doctor," the transcript of one phone call read, "there was some left over from before as well ... As long as we can, we use these and then when they're finished, we'll use the others. I've got a ton of stuff, you understand? I have a trolley-full." Does a dirty sport mean that everyone participating in it is dirty? No, it doesn't. Take the case of the French Cofidis rider, David Moncoutie. The peloton is united in its defence of Moncoutie, constantly telling journalists how clean Moncoutie is. Being clean hasn't stopped him from winning stages in the Tour - Mouncoutie won the Bastille Day stages of the Tour both this year and last year. But, perhaps tellingly, Mouncoutie is about the only rider the peloton says this of. Does this mean that everyone else is using drugs? Or that, in the eyes of the peloton, there is at least a cloud of doubt hanging over every other rider? Should any of this matter? Drugs alone will not make you a champion. Arguing that Armstrong's performance is drug enhanced is, ultimately as pointless as the catcalls from the kid in the Emperor's New Clothes story - naked (doped) or not, the Emperor is still the Emperor. And Armstrong still has to put in the training miles, he still has to ride races each year in preparation for the Tour. He may not train as much as other riders and he still has time to be photographed at basketball games eating donuts but he certainly trains smarter than most, paying more attention to minor details. Even if he is, as Walsh argues, a doper like all the rest, does it really matter? If everyone else is doing it - now and throughout the history of the sport - then surely that just means a level playing field for all? None of it should matter. But it does. Drugs have stolen the soul of cycling. Like a cancer, they've eaten it up from the inside. They're the one cancer Armstrong thinks no one should talk about. They have transformed riders and they have transformed the Tour. The French philosopher Robert Redeker best sums up the situation the sport finds itself in today: "The athletic type represented by Lance Armstrong - unlike Fausto Coppi or Jean Robic - is coming closer to Lara Croft, the virtually fabricated cyber-heroine." According to Redeker, "Cycling is becoming a video game; the onetime 'prisoners of the road' have become virtual human beings." The riders may have freed themselves from being prisoners of the road, but today they are - to borrow the title of the Philip Gaumont's doping memoir - prisonniers du dopage. In their quest to find the perfect pharmaceutical solution to the inhumanity of the Tour de France, they have transformed themselves into something not entirely human. According to Redeker, "A huge gulf now exists between the race and the racers, who have become virtual figures, transformed into PlayStation characters while the public, the ones at the folding tables and the tents, drinking pastis and fresh rosé du pays, are still real. The type of man once promoted by the race, the people's man, born of hard toil, hardened to suffering and adept at surpassing himself, has been substituted by Robocop on wheels, someone no fan can relate to or identify with." Feargal Mc Kay July 2005 http://www.siglamag.com/features/050...-The-Drugs.php |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
Where do these guys come off, doing this revisionist history garbage? If they want to make a case for drug use in the present peloton, why do they think it enhances their case by contrasting it to a lie? It's just generally true that it's difficult to see the past clearly when you're sitting way up on a moral high-horse. I can think of lots of examples. |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
"Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote in message m... The riders may have freed themselves from being prisoners of the road, but today they are - to borrow the title of the Philip Gaumont's doping memoir - prisonniers du dopage. In their quest to find the perfect pharmaceutical solution to the inhumanity of the Tour de France, they have transformed themselves into something not entirely human. According to Redeker, "A huge gulf now exists between the race and the racers, who have become virtual figures, transformed into PlayStation characters while the public, the ones at the folding tables and the tents, drinking pastis and fresh rosé du pays, are still real. The type of man once promoted by the race, the people's man, born of hard toil, hardened to suffering and adept at surpassing himself, has been substituted by Robocop on wheels, someone no fan can relate to or identify with." Right. We should look back fondly on the good old days. Pot Belge. The choice of "The people's man." A time when riders didn't die in their sleep, but openly, out on the slopes of Ventoux, as a sporting man should. Where do these guys come off, doing this revisionist history garbage? If they want to make a case for drug use in the present peloton, why do they think it enhances their case by contrasting it to a lie? Was it really a lie back then? Top riders, including Coppi and Anquetil, acknowledged using drugs. As Dino Buzzati noted in his articles for Corriere della Sera while following the 1949 Giro, the drugs used were primarily to ease pain and allow riders (most often the Gregari) to simply finish. Benjo has pointed out here that the history of anti-doping is primarily derived not from Euro attitudes tpward doping but US attitudes as linked to the Olympics. That has given ride to the lie in the post-Simpson period. I think the author's point is a valid one. The drug use today has turned the sport into a surrealistic landscape of high tech performance in which the human dimension has been subsumed by performance levels that are not believable absent the acknowledgment of the present level of performance enhancing sophistication. It is completely unlike the period prior to the 1990s and certainly unlike the period in which Tom Simpson died and prior to that. Rather than riders acknowledging drug use to survive the pain as in the past, today's riders constantly deny that they (the Emperors) have no clothes. |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Interesting. Couple things. 1: it's "la grande boucle" feminine,
not "le grand boucle"... 2: The tour is what separated the Armstrongs? He was dedicated to the tour... was she as dedicated to him? Was she as faithful to him and he was to the Tour?! The goodo ld days of Pot Belge...? What's so OLD about those days?! |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 14:40:25 GMT, "B. Lafferty" wrote:
Drugs alone will not make you a champion. Arguing that Armstrong's performance is drug enhanced is, ultimately as pointless as the catcalls from the kid in the Emperor's New Clothes story Excellent point! Thanks for sharing that. Dave Clary/Corpus Christi, Tx Home: http://davidclary.com |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Was it really a lie back then? Top riders, including Coppi and Anquetil,
acknowledged using drugs. As Dino Buzzati noted in his articles for Corriere della Sera while following the 1949 Giro, the drugs used were primarily to ease pain and allow riders (most often the Gregari) to simply finish. Benjo has pointed out here that the history of anti-doping is primarily derived not from Euro attitudes tpward doping but US attitudes as linked to the Olympics. That has given ride to the lie in the post-Simpson period. I think it was an even bigger lie back then. The rationalization that you took drugs to help you recover or get through the pain, as if somehow that wasn't something that would improve your chances of winning. Cycling was then, as it is now, a team sport. If the Gregari dropped out, they'd be of no help to their team's leader. Call it what you will, but it's still all about winning. The notion that you took drugs for "recovery" continued for some time; frankly, when EPO and HGH came along, at least people were willing to admit the reasons they took it had nothing to do with recovery and everything to do with being competitive and winning. And thus at least a tacit admission that taking such drugs is, in fact, cheating... something entirely different from the rationaization that it's all about recovery or pain control, just so you can survive. But what this thread really begs for is a history of drug controls in sports. Frankly, I have no idea what was legal and what wasn't back in the 40s and 50s, and I think that has a fair amount of relevance when we're contrasting now vs then. --Mike Jacoubowsky Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReaction.com Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA "B. Lafferty" wrote in message nk.net... "Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote in message m... The riders may have freed themselves from being prisoners of the road, but today they are - to borrow the title of the Philip Gaumont's doping memoir - prisonniers du dopage. In their quest to find the perfect pharmaceutical solution to the inhumanity of the Tour de France, they have transformed themselves into something not entirely human. According to Redeker, "A huge gulf now exists between the race and the racers, who have become virtual figures, transformed into PlayStation characters while the public, the ones at the folding tables and the tents, drinking pastis and fresh rosé du pays, are still real. The type of man once promoted by the race, the people's man, born of hard toil, hardened to suffering and adept at surpassing himself, has been substituted by Robocop on wheels, someone no fan can relate to or identify with." Right. We should look back fondly on the good old days. Pot Belge. The choice of "The people's man." A time when riders didn't die in their sleep, but openly, out on the slopes of Ventoux, as a sporting man should. Where do these guys come off, doing this revisionist history garbage? If they want to make a case for drug use in the present peloton, why do they think it enhances their case by contrasting it to a lie? Was it really a lie back then? Top riders, including Coppi and Anquetil, acknowledged using drugs. As Dino Buzzati noted in his articles for Corriere della Sera while following the 1949 Giro, the drugs used were primarily to ease pain and allow riders (most often the Gregari) to simply finish. Benjo has pointed out here that the history of anti-doping is primarily derived not from Euro attitudes tpward doping but US attitudes as linked to the Olympics. That has given ride to the lie in the post-Simpson period. I think the author's point is a valid one. The drug use today has turned the sport into a surrealistic landscape of high tech performance in which the human dimension has been subsumed by performance levels that are not believable absent the acknowledgment of the present level of performance enhancing sophistication. It is completely unlike the period prior to the 1990s and certainly unlike the period in which Tom Simpson died and prior to that. Rather than riders acknowledging drug use to survive the pain as in the past, today's riders constantly deny that they (the Emperors) have no clothes. |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
"Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote in message ... Was it really a lie back then? Top riders, including Coppi and Anquetil, acknowledged using drugs. As Dino Buzzati noted in his articles for Corriere della Sera while following the 1949 Giro, the drugs used were primarily to ease pain and allow riders (most often the Gregari) to simply finish. Benjo has pointed out here that the history of anti-doping is primarily derived not from Euro attitudes tpward doping but US attitudes as linked to the Olympics. That has given ride to the lie in the post-Simpson period. I think it was an even bigger lie back then. The rationalization that you took drugs to help you recover or get through the pain, as if somehow that wasn't something that would improve your chances of winning. Cycling was then, as it is now, a team sport. If the Gregari dropped out, they'd be of no help to their team's leader. Call it what you will, but it's still all about winning. The notion that you took drugs for "recovery" continued for some time; frankly, when EPO and HGH came along, at least people were willing to admit the reasons they took it had nothing to do with recovery and everything to do with being competitive and winning. And thus at least a tacit admission that taking such drugs is, in fact, cheating... something entirely different from the rationaization that it's all about recovery or pain control, just so you can survive. But what this thread really begs for is a history of drug controls in sports. Frankly, I have no idea what was legal and what wasn't back in the 40s and 50s, and I think that has a fair amount of relevance when we're contrasting now vs then. Here are some old posts from Benjo. 1. Small history of doping: 1897. The Welsh rider Linton, co-winner of Bordeaux-Paris dies not long after the race. Cause of death: probably doping. At that time riders took cafeine, derivatives of strychnine, cocaine and arsenic, and above all alcohol. For a race like Bordeaux-Paris: one bottle of cognac and some glasses white wine, port, and champagne. 1924: Albert Londres interviews the Pelisssier brothers after they have quitted the Tour. They show him a battery of little bottles, pills and tables: "We ride on dynamite" 1938: The Belgian Felicien Vervaecke is a surprisingly strong adversary of the young Bartali. One of the first times a rider is using amphitamine, invented in 1930. 1942: Coppi takes seven tablets amphitamine and breaks the hour record. 1948: Gino Bartali wins the Tour de France. Almost certainly the last Tour winner who was really clean. 1955: Tour de France: the Mont Ventoux. The French rider Jean Mallejac in coma and almost dies. Ex-winner Ferdi Kuebler is zigzagging and super climber Charley Gaul has a terrible beakdown: the have the same soigneur. 1964: Danish rider Jensen dies during the road race at the Olympic Games. 1965: The first doping tests. 1966: The first doping tests in the Tour de France. Anquetil leads a strike. But there is one strikebreaker: Tommy Simpson. 1967: Tommy Simpson dies at the Mont Ventoux. Cause: amphitamine and alcohol. 1969: In the Giro Eddy Merckx takes doping for the time trial. His doctor assures him he has nothing to fear: after one hour after he has taken it he won't test positive, and because the follwoing day is a rest day, next day there will be no traces in his urine. Wrong. He is caught anyway. He proclaims crying his innocence, says he has been cheated (he is, by his doctor). Even the Belgian king expresses his concerns. Merckx' suspension is lifted, so he can ride and win the Tour de France. 1975 and 1977: Bernard Thevenet wins the Tour. Some years later he admits he took cortisone. 1977: The Belgian doctor Debackere finds a way to detect the popular doping Stimul and tries it in the Tour de Belgique. All the riders tested are positive. 1988: Pedro Delgado wins the TDF. He has used a masking drug which is on the list of the OC but not of the UCI. 1988-1990: 18 Belgian and Dutch riders die of heart attacks. The first experiments with EPO? 1989: The whole PDM team has to leave the Tour, having used contaminated intrapelid, a drug masking the use of testeron. 1989: The miracolous resurrexion of Greg Lemond. He suffered from anemia, but claimed to have been cured by an iron injection. Not many people believe him. The rumour says he used blood-doping. Or was it EPO? 1990: The talented Gilles Delion wins the Tour of Lomardy, but has to stop professional racing a few years later: he is really clean and can't compete anymore now that all the strong riders are taking EPO, steroids, etc. 1998: The soigneur Willy Voet is arrested, and his team Festina is expelled from the Tour de France. Benjo Maso 2. The first serious attempts to ban drugs in sport were made after the Olympic Games of Helsinki 1952. The reason was simple: the Soviet-Union won so many golds that the West-Europeans and Americans were convinced that the Russians must have been much farther in using drugs than any other country. For that reason they insisted on introducing taking tests. Not because they cared for the health of athletes, but only because they were convinced they couldn't win as long as the Russians had something they didn't. The first test were very simple. The most effective was the sex-test, which led to the downfall of some succesfull athletes like the Rumanian high jumper Yolanda Balas, the Russian discus thrower Tamara Press and others. But drug-test became more and more complicated and the list of forbidden products became longer and longer. It included even some products of which nobody knew if they were really performance-enhancing, but just in case they were, it was considered safer to put them of the list as well. In other words: to a certain extent the list was completely arbitrary. Drug tests started in the Tour in 1966. The day after, the peloton went on strike. The initiator was Jacques Anquetil. he said: "I agree with drug tests, but only for novices and amateurs. Pro's have enough experience to know what is best for them and must be allowed to take their own responsabilities." Wise words, but after Simson' death in 1967 they didn't stand a ghost of a chance to be accepted. What's mo for the general public the use of drugs had become more and more a moral issue. Not for the riders: they never use words like "cheat'', etc. Of course, it would be wonderful if drugs didn't exist. The chances to win should be equal for every athlete, and if some of them have found powerful strong performance -product, their rivals can have an insurmountable disavantage. On the other hand, that's a fact of life. Gaston Reiff inveted interval training and beat Zatopek. Lemond was clever enough to use thriatlon handlebars and beat Fignon. Of course, that's not just the same as the case of EPO for instance. They are so expensive that only the richest riders and teams can afford them, which isn't right. If there were simple effective methods to make the use of such products impossible, splendid. But meanwhile the "fight'' against doping is causing more damage than the drugs themselves. Not only because some tests (like EPO) are a pure scandal, but also because it's destroying the sport in general. Winning a race has become suspect, having a bad day even more. As far as I see it there is only one solution: legalizing drugs to a certain amount, Anquetil-wise. It's a illusion that the "fight against doping" can ever be won. As a doping expert was saying a few weeks go: in the 90's the gap between the cops and the robbers was narrowing, but right now it's widening again. Draconian legislation won't help any more than in the "war against drugs'' in general. It will only stimulate the already existing links with criminal organisations. The main impediment for legalizing drugs: the fact that is has become a moral issue. Much more in the United States than in Europe mayby, but I'm afraid that thanks to the trials which are going on and all the publicity around the gap is closing. I can't say I'm very happy about it. Benjo Maso |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
if you take EPO and HGH (to use your examples) durring training, and
are "clean" durring competition; ie: if/when tested you return a -ve result.... are you cheating? What really constitutes cheating. If you take medication for a cold (the same stuff any non-athlete can get over the counter in a pharmacy) durring competition you are "cheating"... is this right? Is there not a much bigger and more in depth issue here than right/wrong, clean/cheat... it's a far more complicated world out there than you realize... |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Drugs are Cool. | crit PRO | Racing | 23 | March 22nd 05 02:50 AM |
Decanio Sounding Coherent | B Lafferty | Racing | 93 | February 3rd 05 10:32 PM |
Bettini on drugs? | Gary | Racing | 74 | August 19th 04 01:44 AM |
Doping or not? Read this: | never_doped | Racing | 0 | August 4th 03 01:46 AM |
BBC: Drugs In Sport | B. Lafferty | Racing | 0 | July 28th 03 04:19 PM |