Nothing Changes

I became interested in the sport of cycle racing in the early 1950s.

It was common knowledge that the top European professional cyclists competing in the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia took dope.

Amphetamines to be precise. How did I know this? I was only 16 years old at the time.

It was not reported in the Cycling Press, there were no stories about doping in newspapers. It was obviously just passed on down from the top echelons of the sport by word of mouth.

It was never considered “Cheating.” After all if the entire TDF peloton was using dope, the playing field was level. These riders rode over the same mountain ranges they do today, when the roads were often no better than dirt tracks. Stages were often in excess of 250 kilometers, 156 miles, as a 16 year old I figured dope was necessary.

So if a 16 year old knew about it, then obviously the UCI knew of it, and also the cycling press. But none of them did an expose of the situation. Not until British cyclist Tom Simpson died on Mt. Vontoux during the 1967 Tour de France.

He died of heat exhaustion, but had pushed his body beyond its limits with the aid of amphetamines. The world's press was all over the story, and then the Cycling Press and the UCI acted in shock and horror, as if not knowing that this practice was going on right under their noses.

Doping in cycling has probably been in existence since the beginnings of the sport. Certainly since the start of professional cycling where there was money to be made, and promoters calling for faster and longer races. And if it was in cycling it was obviously there in other professional sports.

I am sure by now everyone in the cycling community has seen the Tyler Hamilton interview on 60 Minutes. If you haven’t seen it here is a short version. After watching it I feel like a fool, I really thought the sport was changing and they were at last getting a handle on the dope situation.

Now I find the only thing that has changed over the years is that is that drugs have become more sophisticated, and less easy to detect. And instead of being an open secret amongst the cycling community, as it was prior to the 1960s, it is now an open secret only among the professional cyclists themselves.

So here we are today 44 years after Tom Simpson’s death; the UCI still looks the other way, and wishes the whole doping thing (In particular the media talking about it.) would just go away. Should we really expect any different? The man at the top of the UCI is an ex-professional cyclist, am I to assume he never took dope during his career? 

Tyler Hamilton’s claim that Lance Armstrong’s positive test in the 2001 Tour of Switzerland was “made to go away,” by the UCI, has a ring of truth to it. Because Alberto Contador’s clenbuteral positive was at first kept quiet by the UCI.

The UCI knew of it within days of the test in July 2010, but failed to make it public until September 2010, when the story was leaked by the testing lab. Had the story not been exposed, would Contador’s positive been made to go away also?

I still don’t see doping a cheating. It appears all top professionals are doing it so they compete on more or less equal terms. The only ones being cheated are the fans being led to believe the sport is clean.

However, doping is bad because young athletes see the pros do it and think it is okay to use that stuff, and it is not, especially using it unsupervised. There are some dangerous consequences.

The only way to stop drug use in professional sport is to make shame and the consequences of being caught not worth the risk of doing it.

                        

Contador's "Get out of ban free card."

I am no fan of Floyd Landis but.... he has a right to be ticked off right now.

Last November Landis was interviewed on German television and said that the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) is corrupt and protects certain riders.

Now the UCI on February 7th sent Landis a letter giving him 15 days to retract his statement or be sued in a Swiss court. Floyd shot back an email that pretty much said, “I’m broke, so go ahead and sue good luck.”

What is the UCI thinking with the timing of this threat of a law suit? The handling of the Contador affair screams hypocrisy. Landis was found to have doped in the 2006 Tour de France, and was immediately stripped of his Tour win and barred from competition for two years.

Contador on the other hand was found to have Clenbuterol in his system within days of the Tour de France finish in July 2010, but the UCI kept it quiet until the end of September. Then they only said something because details had been leaked to the press.

Next the UCI pussy-foots around for months and finally handed the case over to the Spanish Cycling Federation, who initially gave Contador a one year ban. Alberto got off light when you consider most other athletes get two years.

Now in an unprecedented move a week later the Spanish Federation reverses its finding, and now says Contador is innocent. This came soon after the Spanish Prime Minister no less, stated that Contador had broken no Spanish law.

Floyd Landis broke no US law, but the American President or other top ranking US politician didn’t get involved in his case. The World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) has set a zero tolerance for clenbuterol in an athlete’s body, no matter how the substance got there. Its presence warrants a sanction; otherwise why have this rule.

Other athletes have already been sanctioned because of clenbuterol use; you can’t pick and choose who gets banned and who doesn’t. This is not criminal law of “Innocent until proven guilty” no one is being executed or sent to prison. These are rules of a sport that all the players agree to abide by.

The UCI has to step in now and ban Contador for the full two years and strip him of his TDF win. If they don’t they lose all credibility, and Floyd Landis is right; there is one rule for the super stars, and another for the rest.

The UCI needs to either strictly enforce its own rules on doping or get out of dope testing altogether and abide by whatever the WADA decides. The later might be the better choice because the UCI has a conflict of interest between promoting the sport of cycling, and enforcing the rules.

Right now they are failing miserably on both counts, and they are killing the sport they claim to love and uphold. If Contador rides in this year’s Tour de France I for one will not feel inclined to watch it.

Here are more reactions to the Contador non sanction case.

                         

Sponsors or Groupies?

The Wall Street Journal in an article just published makes a big issue of the fact that wealthy backers who financed Lance Armstrong’s seven Tour de France wins, failed to make money.

Financial backers of any sport are usually nothing more than wealthy groupies of that particular sport; there is nothing wrong with that.

These are usually smart businessmen who did not make their money by acting irrationally or by making stupid decisions.

They have a passion for a sport, be it cycling, sailing, auto racing, whatever. If they put money into their choice of sport, it is by way of a membership to an exclusive club, where they get to rub shoulders with the heroes of that sport.

How can anyone possibly make money from sponsoring a cycling team, unless it is a company producing and selling a product, or a service? The only benefit from sponsorship is the brand recognition that it may bring if your team is successful.

If you have no product or service to sell, it is impossible make money. Initially this group of wealthy backers had no product or service. After the team was established they were able to talk the US Postal Service into coming on board.

I could never understand the logic behind the US Postal Services involvement. Had it been UPS or FedEx I could have seen that, but the Postal Service? Whether Lance Armstrong wins or loses, has no bearing on whether or not, I mail someone a letter. And if I mail a letter, who else will I use but the Postal Service?

Now the fact that the US Postal Service was a sponsor has come back to bite the whole team and everyone involved with it.

Why? Because the US Postal Service is Uncle Sam, and you don’t fuck with Uncle Sam.

Had the sponsors been UPS or FedEx for example, I doubt there would be a Federal Investigation going on right now into allegations of doping. Unlike baseball, these alleged offences took place on foreign soil. Does the US have jurisdiction?

The people who put money into “Tailwind Sports,” the original backer of Lance Armstrong’s team, are probably wishing they were never involved.

They try to distance themselves by saying, “We are also a victim, we lost money too;” when I’m sure they knew going in they could never make a profit. As for the Wall Street Journal they just keep rehashing this old story over and over; it fills space, and sells papers.

I for one will not speculate on the outcome, I will just wait and see. Feel free to weigh in with your take on this whole mess

                          

Will I get fooled again?

One of the greatest comments on the political process in my view is Pete Townsend’s lyrics to “Won’t get fooled again.”

I’ll Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
And I'll get on my knees and pray...
We don't get fooled again

In many ways the whole Contador/Did he, didn’t he dope scandal reminds me of the lead up to an election, with the pundits speculating the outcome.

Often, when an election comes down to a choice of two people I am left to wonder, “Is this the only choices I have? Is this the best you can offer me?” The choice between a Dick Head and a Doofus.

If Contador is found guilty, his Tour de France win was a sham, he won by cheating. If he is found not guilty, I will wonder, is it a cover up? This is the choices I have; neither is good. There are no winners in this whole bloody mess, and the biggest loser is the sport of cycling.

So with apologies to Pete Townsend:

I’ll get on my bike and ride
While the powers that be decide
Then I’ll get on my knees and cry
Did I get fooled again?

                         

Monday morning talk around the Coppi machine

My post on Fausto Coppi last Thursday brought the following comment:

“Coppi was a legend but before making an idol out of him, we have to remember he himself admitted several times that "you don’t win a bike race on mineral water alone"

Interpretations are open but doping was quite rampant.

To read the rich cycling culture from the pages of history is great but it’s not possible to look up to these people anymore, at least for me.”

It was not my intention to bring up the dope issue; I didn’t mention it in any of the pieces I have written about cyclists from the 1940s and 1950s. I felt I covered the topic pretty well in my Historical Perspective on Dope. However, since it was brought up I will touch on the subject again.

European professional cyclists taking amphetamines was an open secret in the 1950s. I knew it as a teenage kid in England, and if I knew, the governing body of cycle racing (the UCI) knew and so did the cycling press. Everyone turned a blind eye, and did or said nothing.

Like your mother always said, “It’s only fun ’til someone gets hurt.” That’s how it was with the doping issue, nobody cared until Tom Simpson died. Then the cycling press who for years had kept quiet, were among the first to cry out for the UCI to do something.

What is, and what is not acceptable in our society changes constantly; smoking is a good example. Fifty or sixty years ago, drunk driving was not the serious issue it is today; people tended to look the other way if someone a little tipsy got behind the wheel. One can hardly go back and criticize a person who did that back then. It doesn’t make it right that society accepted it, but that was then, and this is now.

Think of recreational drug use in the 1960s and 1970s. It was illegal but accepted, not necessarily by all of society, but certainly accepted among pier groups of like-minded people. Dope taking by professional cyclists was much like that; accepted as the norm by the pros and fans of cycling alike.

Street drugs today have become nasty, dangerous stuff; crack cocaine, and methamphetamines; drugs used in the 1960s were mild by comparison. Dope in sport too has escalated. It used to be stimulants only, like amphetamines, now it’s blood doping, steroids, and other body altering chemistry.

A person wouldn’t necessarily denounce their parent or grandparent because they did drugs in the 1960s. It is wrong, in my opinion, to go back and condemn great riders like Fausto Coppi and the others from that era because they took amphetamines. It doesn’t make it right by today’s standards, but it was open and accepted at that time.

If Fausto Coppi on dope rode away from the rest and finished minutes ahead of the others, I can guarantee those chasing him were on the same dope. The playing field was level. Today doping is banned so to do so is cheating; in the 1940s and 1950s the taking of amphetamines was an open secret, so by not taking them a professional rider was cheating himself.

When Fausto Coppi made the statement, “You don’t win a bike race on mineral water alone.” He was being honest, but in doing so, he discredited himself and other riders of that era. They are now judged by today’s standards, and the present anti-doping mindset.

Amphetamines or not, these were tough, hard men. Take a look at the above picture and consider this: These cyclists rode as much as 170 miles a day, on dirt or gravel roads sometimes over three mountain passes. They did this on bikes weighing 25 or 26 lbs, carrying some of their own food, water, tools, and spare tires. I am not advocating the use of stimulants, but it could be argued such a feat was not possible on just mineral water.

I neither condone nor judge the riders of the 1940s and 1950s era, and I don’t pretend that doping didn’t take place. Having said that, they were the heroes of my youth, and they still have my admiration today. Maybe a person has to be of my generation to understand that.