Oh, man – I am so excited. For the past two days I have been rocking some major mind-control powers on dope confessions. I say “maybe Zabel will own up to it” – boom. Zabel owns up to it. I comment it’s time for Bjarne to come clean – boom. Bjarne comes clean. So who’s next up? I say none other than Lance-f***ing-Armstrong.
Come on, Big Tex, step up to the plate. Or do you still claim to have “nothing to confess”, just like everyone else who just came clean used to say? I mean, it’s not like the TdF is gonna revoke any of your titles – Bjarne’s offered to give his back, but check out the rest of the ’96 GC – Jan Ullrich? Richard Virenque? Laurent Dufaux? It’s a rogues’ gallery of doper convicts. All your runners-up, with the exception of Andreas Kloden – whose roller-coaster results arouse plenty of suspicion for me – are neck deep in allegations and convictions as well.
But for those of you who feel this proves the sport is irretrievably immersed in drugs, this year’s Giro is unfolding in a convoluted enough fashion that one could glean some notion of cleanliness from it. The winner of today’s uphill TT was Marzio Bruseghin. Yeah, I was like “Marzio who?”, too. But he’s the Italian TT champ, and has been doing his time as a domestique for long enough to explain his lack of wins. He’s also a survivor of the canned corn-busting breakaway from earlier in the week, which currently puts him in second overall. Not that anyone’s looking like they can crack DiLuca (3rd on the stage, +8 sec) at the moment, but it only takes one bad day to lose the Giro.
A confession would be great, but let’s face it, thats NEVER going to happen. I was one of the few, the proud, the probably duped, who steadfastly clung to the claim that Hamilton didn’t do anything, and now I’m beginning my own serious disbelief in the peloton as a whole. I love cycling, but I’m starting to wonder how much of cycling is becoming like Formula One. The driver is important, but its almost equally a battle of engineers and aerodynamicists. Cyclist are still the driver and the engine, but how much tuning is the engine getting. There is a saying in NASCAR: “If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying.” Is that going to be the sentiment of cycling since 1990? With the treatment of disease becoming more and more chemical (thank God!), pharmaceutical companies will always be generating things that will keep athletes ahead of the controllers, so what do we do?
Root for the laundry.
… not even the riding shorts are clean! much less the riders. as 4 LA … 7 times … gee wonder how
The reason why Armstrong is highly unlikely to ever confess to doping?
He still makes far too much money from his TdF wins, that’s why.
All the current confessors, including Riis, are hardly raking in the kind of cash that LA can command right now via endorsements and public speaking.
Riis is hardly going to fire himself from his own cycling team.
Bill Stapleton has already come out and said that he would offer Zabel a place on the T-Mobile roster should Milram poor cold milk over his contract (see what I did there?!) so Zabel is ok.
The jobs of Brian Holm and Ralf Aldag are apparently safe at T-Mobile.
Looks like Udo Bolts is the only casualty (so far) in all of this and he left his part time role on his own accord anyway (if you believe what you read).
Lance-f***ing-Armstrong because he was always in front?
Kloden for his “roller-coaster results”?
“I am sorry, but since this substance you refer to as ‘pizza’ does not naturally occur in the human body at the 16-cell zygote stage it is considered a banned substance.”
Lance Armstrong because many, many people have leveled allegations against him that are nearly identical to those d’Hondt made against T-Mobile in his book.
Kloden’s results are all over the place. He virtually disappeared after the 2000 Olympics, only to reemerge as a Tour contender in 2004.
Is it, in fact, impossible to prove a negative? The logical conundrum involved makes it difficult to stand behind an unproven accusation of guilt. An innocent athlete would have a great deal of difficulty proving their innocence against unfounded accusation.
Leaving that aside, the frequency with which athletes who have been (plausibly) accused of doping, have subesquently actually been PROVEN to have been doping, leads me to my own rule#1 about dopers.
Rule #1 about dopers: If a guy has been accused of doping, then he’s almost certain to have been doping.
It’s a useful tool for avoiding the crushing disappointment that follows when a personal hero turns out to be a cheater. I’m with Cosmo on Lance. The guy stinks.
Lance! Fess up?! This guy is more a phoney that he’s not telling it, than if he would. Respect to telling the truth.