Alpe d'Huez said:
Joe Papp, for one, who actually used it as a professional cyclist would disagree with you. Maybe he'll come on here and verify, though I'm guess at this point he'd like to avoid the whole issue.
Just an aside, I'm happy to participate in whatever interesting discussions are going on. My love of cycling is reemerging.
I enjoy watching cycling now, but from Aug. 2006 until April 2009 I wanted nothing to do with it. You have to understand, cycling was my life before, and it was something I’d intended to make a career of from the time I was 14 years old. I was thrilled to be able to compete at the level at which I competed, and devastated when that ended.
But only then did I pass into the phase when I could reflect upon how unethical and corrupt I’d become as an individual doper, and how I so lost my way by involving myself in the doping. And I turned my back on the sport in all forms and all ways. But I could never kill the passion for it that still lives within me. I wish I could have, I really do – because that would have made my life simpler.
But I still love cycling, and about a month ago I started riding my bicycle again. Not because I want to race, but rather, because I simply missed it. Doping and then being caught for it was traumatic, and the most horrible time of my life. Through doping I seriously harmed my post-sport life and it’s like I have a big scar in my soul, and my psyche, and of course in my public reputation. But I still love the sport and have to admit this now. I just can't deny it.
I still dream of being able to carry on with my plan, which was to become manager of an amateur team based in Italy, and then grow it into a professional squad. I don’t know that could happen now --despite my education, my experience in business, everything I learned by dedicating myself to this sport for 20 years -- because of the ethical cloud that hovers over all former dopers except David Millar (and I blame the media in part for this)…but it was always my dream and for three years I’ve lived trying to suppress that dream, and life has been miserable.
The best way I can explain it is to say that I’m very smart, and academically gifted and well-spoken and seemingly could do whatever kind of job I wanted. But since I was a little kid, I loved cycling, and at age 14 was writing sponsorship proposals to companies and doing media relations. I have many interests, but cycling was the only thing that for me had an intrinsic value or worth, and I was content to think of making my living through the sport until I died, even if it meant that I wouldn’t earn as much as a banker or doctor. That’s why I sometimes wish I could have killed off that passion during the dark days from post-Italy to now, because without having known so much love for a sport that could be a profession in many forms, my life now would be simpler, and I could accept the station where I’m at and finish my master’s degree and go work in a bank or something like that.
This might sound funny to you, or maybe it is a bit tragic or even strange…but yes, I still love the sport – but I hate the people who have so corrupted the sport that we as riders became more proficient in inserting needles into our veins than a trained nurse. But that corruption and those people are not cycling – they just exploit cycling and use it as a vehicle to realize their own bad instincts. But the sport itself is beautiful, and one can compete in it without drugs. Obviously it is much harder to do without drugs, and maybe the races need to be shortened to stop people claiming that race length is justification for doping, but there is no reason that cycling should not survive, and thrive.
Very few of the people I knew WANTED to dope. They just accepted that they were part of something larger than them and felt doping was something that they had to do as part of the sport’s participatory requirements. Obviously it isn’t and we all have free will, but when a system is corrupt it is much more difficult to survive as an individual. I hate those few riders though who enjoyed doping and were gleeful about it, and they are the ones who I denounced. The rest I left in peace because they were no better or worse than me and didn’t deserve to be made to suffer just because I was unlucky and caught cheating. But the ones who loved the dope and were sociopaths about it…ugh. Foul.
So, I'll be lurking here as time permits. Please keep the threads interesting! I was disappointed not to get any support for my nomination of Dimitri Konyshev as a "Cool" cyclist, but hey...can't win 'em all.
Ciao,
JP