My biggest problem with Armstrong was the way he tried to destroy people who were just telling what they honesely saw...and his fans were obnoxious and blind. At the same time, I always disliked riders like Voigt because he got to dope. and cover it with saying "Shut up legs," and everyone was just okay with it. Then, Skybots took the mantle. Pog, VIngegaard, and MvdP fans are generally less rabid than those camps, but yes, the racing was a bit better in times of doping past. Pog completely lost me with his Strade win...what he did was impossible by an uninhanced human being. I find myself more and more gravitating to races like Cape Epic and some of the major gravel events...sure, I'm no pollyannaish enough to believe those races are free from doping, but they are more competitive races. And riders like Beers and Swensen seem more plausibly clean.Ironically starting to dislike it more.
With dudes like Froome, it's like at least people knew it was joke, or they'd sooner or later admit it. Or they'd just go to "clentadopucci" ***.
Now there's not even asking questions anyore. Everything is happy, doping happened 20 years ago, all the while the most ridiculous *** is happening in front of our eyes every fuckign day.
I miss the Froome days. Instead of 3km of action for the win in the Froome days, we now get 5 seconds of Pogacar riding away seated with a smile on his face with a 50% chance of the TV directors missing it as well. Race over. Everyone knows it. And people only get excited because they bought into the cult of Pogacar. Or the cult of Vingegaard. Or the cult of MvdP
"He's so nice".
I'd also be nice if I was the biggest doper out there, everyone worshipped me, and I had assurance i wasn't getting busted any time soon.
It's also hard, because I do like Wout, but again, I am not foolish enough to believe that a lot of the things we have seen out if him were not more than the product of just training at altitude. The thing I see in him is the bucking of the current trend of everyone being best friends. Pidcock in there as well, as I think his comments after Strade would have gotten him a ban on this forum for Clinic talk, outside of the Clinic. (side note, not really about this: Strange seeing Iserbyt on the route yesterday, cheering on Wout)
Anyway...I guess my hypocracy is that I still do (and will) get up really early here in CA, to watch any race. I pay Flo, Max, Peacock, and was paying GCN to watch it all...so I am an active part of the problem, as the UCI has an interest in promoting a "clean" sport, so people like me will keep paying for sh!t associated with professional road cycling.
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