Cunego: I can win clean

[Eyjafjallajokull]

Cycling news: "Italian convinced he has a chance as sport becomes cleaner"

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/cunego-back-in-the-hunt-for-the-maglia-rosa

 

[rolfrae]

I wasn't a fan of Cunego when he won the Giro, simply because I was a Gibo fan, but he's one of the few riders I would shout (at the TV) for these days. I believe his protestations about riding clean, and I think his recent years' Giro results prove it. The race is much better, perhaps much cleaner, this year without the likes of DiLuca, Menchov, Ricco, Sella and Contador, and Cunego is reaping the benefits.

 

[issoisso]

I think his fluctuations in performance show he's telling it as it is. I, for one, really do hope he's telling the truth, and I do respect him quite a bit more for this.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Damiano is awesome. The fact that he's gone out and said this is something pretty good in the first place. A top tier pro with an enviable palmarès is coming out and saying that it's getting easier to win clean, and saying that dopers should be banned for life?

This is a good step. Now, what will be interesting to see is what happens to him. Will omertà 'crush you, Little Prince'?

 

[Ferminal]

Alternatively he's come to the conclusion that it's only possible to win a GT with dope, thus has got back on the horse as such.

 

[luckyboy]

I think his fluctuations in performance show he's telling it as it is. I, for one, really do hope he's telling the truth, and I do respect him quite a bit more for this.

Yeah, it'd be nice if he was clean..

 

[forty four]

yeah clean racing would benefit him in particular he has a natural crit much higher than most humans.

 

[TRDean]

Damiano is awesome. The fact that he's gone out and said this is something pretty good in the first place. A top tier pro with an enviable palmarès is coming out and saying that it's getting easier to win clean, and saying that dopers should be banned for life?

This is a good step. Now, what will be interesting to see is what happens to him. Will omertà 'crush you, Little Prince'?

Well said....Damiano is laying it out there for all to see and hear...good for him!

 

[euphrades]

"I've nothing against people coming back, especially if they've been humble like Basso, but it's time to draw a line in the sand. Whoever makes a mistake has to disappear forever. We need to have a strong deterrent, it's time for severity."


I agree with this quote sincerly. Basso, Millar, I all appluad because they have admitted wrong doing and their performances have show that they aren't doping. Vino, i like his style, comments and etc but there is no way he is riding clean.

 

[santacruz]

I love Damiano, he is very outspoken about doping, and that's how you have to be!! you can't be silent and not saying anything like so many pros who act like everything is fine... he has an anti doping tattoo, so I know he's for real!! I can forgive him what he may have done in the past, he did what he felt he had to.. but now is the time to embrace the change. Lifetime ban for the serious A-Hole dopers like Vino.

 

[BroDeal]

Uh-oh. Cunego should expect more snarky twitters from Armstrong in the future.

Cunego is one of my favorite riders, but I don't think he has the consistency in the mountains to win the Giro again, especially this Giro. I would love to be proved wrong.

 

[Vonn Brinkman]

he has an anti doping tattoo, so I know he's for real!!

That does not necessarily mean he's clean. Just because you have a tattoo of your wife's name does not mean you'll always be faithful
However, I also hope he is clean, he is a sympathetic rider

 

[ludwig]

Here we Go Again...

Anybody else ****ed at CN for publishing this crap? This is Velonews-level propagandizing CN.

If anything, stuff like this just makes the anti-doping crowd even more irrational. They become convinced that someone like Cunego is clean and is getting cheated out of wins by his competitors... Nobody knows who is 'dirty' and who is 'clean' so speculation reigns supreme...

This kind of interview is not real people....it's show biz nothing more. Look, if Vino needs dope to finish with the best on the Terminillo then so do Cunego and Basso. There is no difference in the sense that they are all on the program. Yes, all 3 of them dope. Of course they do. There might be some differences in dosage and degree, but ultimately these are all professional riders and all 3 know how to prepare for a Grand Tour.

I can understand people defending Cunego by saying he has to say these things, professionally he has no choice etc. Arguably, a cyclist stating he is clean is no less a part of being a professional cyclist than a boxer trash-talking his opponents.

But to jump on his bandwagon is sheer naivete. Worse, supporting this kind of thing encourages more lies, more deception, more fraud... Is this what you want cycling to be? A circus and a fraud?

I think his fluctuations in performance show he's telling it as it is. I, for one, really do hope he's telling the truth, and I do respect him quite a bit more for this.

Ridiculous. Dude, boxers use EPO for months in preparation for one 30 min bout....why wouldn't Classics riders make use of the same prep? Even though it is repeated here ad nauseum, there remains not a shred of evidence to indicate that Classics riders are any less doped than GT riders. I challenge you to name the Classic that has been won by a clean rider in recent years.

 

[Wallace]

I love Damiano, he is very outspoken about doping, and that's how you have to be!! you can't be silent and not saying anything like so many pros who act like everything is fine... he has an anti doping tattoo, so I know he's for real!! I can forgive him what he may have done in the past, he did what he felt he had to.. but now is the time to embrace the change. Lifetime ban for the serious A-Hole dopers like Vino.

As much as I like Cunego, and I do, you should remember that was an anti-doping temporary tattoo, which isn't quite the same thing.

 

[ludwig]

Alternatively he's come to the conclusion that it's only possible to win a GT with dope, thus has got back on the horse as such.

Bingo. Notice how he is defending Basso of all people.

Cunego arguing that the Giro must be clean because he is up there is like arguing that the Tour must be clean because Wiggins was up there.

Sorry...ridiculous on its face.

The idea that Cunego and Basso are clean while others in the Giro aren't flies in the face of all available evidence on the effects of oxygen-vector doping.

So naturally the next step is to claim everyone is clean lol! Good business decision for Cunego, who wins plaudits from the media...until he gets busted.

 

[Michielveedeebee]

Ridiculous. Dude, boxers use EPO for months in preparation for one 30 min bout....why wouldn't Classics riders make use of the same prep? Even though it is repeated here ad nauseum, there remains not a shred of evidence to indicate that Classics riders are any less doped than GT riders. I challenge you to name the Classic that has been won by a clean rider in recent years.

Amstel Gold Race - Philippe Gilbert
Paris-Roubaix - FC
Vlaanderen - FC
Milano-San-Remo - OF

Call me naive but I (maybe wrongly) believe in clean cycling. If we as juniors can race 125 km in less than 3 hours why wouldn't the pro's be able to do so for 250km given the fact that they train at least three times as much as we do.

 

[VeloCity]

Bingo. Notice how he is defending Basso of all people.

Cunego arguing that the Giro must be clean because he is up there is like arguing that the Tour must be clean because Wiggins was up there.

Sorry...ridiculous on its face.

The idea that Cunego and Basso are clean while others in the Giro aren't flies in the face of all available evidence on the effects of oxygen-vector doping.

So naturally the next step is to claim everyone is clean lol! Good business decision for Cunego, who wins plaudits from the media...until he gets busted.

Devils advocate would say that, alternatively, Vino and others (but not all) are only up at the Cunego/Evans/Basso level because they - call them the Vino's for convenience - are doping, ie if everyone were clean, the Vino's wouldn't be at the same level as Basso and Cunego and Evans. I think that was Cunego's basic point.

From the fan's perspective, just more reason why doping sucks so badly - it's impossible to tell who's clean and who's doping, and as we know that they're not all clean, easy to assume that they must all then be doping.

For my own part, I tend to believe that Cunego and Basso are both former dopers who have seen the light and are now trying to race clean, but trying to race clean against dopers like Vino, who, without doping, wouldn't be able to hold their wheel. And I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if I am completely wrong about Cunego and Basso and Evans et al. But I don't believe for a moment that Vino is clean.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Bingo. Notice how he is defending Basso of all people.

Cunego arguing that the Giro must be clean because he is up there is like arguing that the Tour must be clean because Wiggins was up there.

Sorry...ridiculous on its face.

The idea that Cunego and Basso are clean while others in the Giro aren't flies in the face of all available evidence on the effects of oxygen-vector doping.

So naturally the next step is to claim everyone is clean lol! Good business decision for Cunego, who wins plaudits from the media...until he gets busted.

Of course, the fact that after generations of living at altitude Cunego already has a sky high hct that he has a certificate for counts for nothing... it's entirely plausible that using natural talent and that natural gift of a high hct value he can get himself into the position he's in, of being competitive-ish. Let's not forget he's lost 3 minutes to Vino and we haven't really hit the major mountains yet, and that the Giro he won had a relatively simple parcours (I mean, Fabian Wegmann won the GPM. I'm a big fan of Wegmann, but he simply should not be winning a Grand Tour KOM), and he's never really duplicated that. And since 2006 he's tailed off in Grand Tour performance.

It's entirely feasible that he's clean and, for unknown reasons, this time around he just feels fresher and more able to compete at this stage in a Grand Tour than he normally does (for example, it was around this time that he started to lose time in the '08 Tour and the '09 Giro) and, with the pressure of being perceived as a GC threat and failing to deliver lifted from him all of a sudden he can relax a bit and this has had a positive effect on his cycling. After all, these are the same excuses we're being asked to buy with Evans' improvements, why should it be any different with Cunego?

Because Cunego has a natural sky-high crit, him saying that it's clean enough for him to compete is not him saying that the sport is clean. After all, if the sport was clean he'd have quite some advantage. It is saying that steps have been taken, and so now it's potentially possible for a rider with an elevated hct such as himself to be competitive clean. For those riders with normal hct levels, you may have to wait a bit longer though.

 

[Bernardus]

Paris-Roubaix - FC
Vlaanderen - FC

Is FC some kind of code word?
France '96-Cecchini or something like that?

 

[Michielveedeebee]

Is FC some kind of code word?
France '96-Cecchini or something like that?

hehe no it's Fabian Cancellara just as LA is Lance Armstrong and AC is Alberto Contador

 

[Von Mises]

Anybody else ****ed at CN for publishing this crap? This is Velonews-level propagandizing CN.

If anything, stuff like this just makes the anti-doping crowd even more irrational. They become convinced that someone like Cunego is clean and is getting cheated out of wins by his competitors... Nobody knows who is 'dirty' and who is 'clean' so speculation reigns supreme...

This kind of interview is not real people....it's show biz nothing more. Look, if Vino needs dope to finish with the best on the Terminillo then so do Cunego and Basso. There is no difference in the sense that they are all on the program. Yes, all 3 of them dope. Of course they do. There might be some differences in dosage and degree, but ultimately these are all professional riders and all 3 know how to prepare for a Grand Tour.

I can understand people defending Cunego by saying he has to say these things, professionally he has no choice etc. Arguably, a cyclist stating he is clean is no less a part of being a professional cyclist than a boxer trash-talking his opponents.

But to jump on his bandwagon is sheer naivete. Worse, supporting this kind of thing encourages more lies, more deception, more fraud... Is this what you want cycling to be? A circus and a fraud?



Ridiculous. Dude, boxers use EPO for months in preparation for one 30 min bout....why wouldn't Classics riders make use of the same prep? Even though it is repeated here ad nauseum, there remains not a shred of evidence to indicate that Classics riders are any less doped than GT riders. I challenge you to name the Classic that has been won by a clean rider in recent years.

Why do you think that position "they are all doped" are more objective than some other position? Or more neutral?

 

[dickwrench]

Why does Cunego get a by for saying Basso is humble after his "I was only intending to dope" when he got caught in Puerto after destroying everybody in the Giro the earlier month? That is stupid and he has never backed off from that.

I like this ludwig guy because he tells it like it is though I take issue with all of them dope. Not all top riders have been caught like Basso, Vino and Rico. Cunego has never been caught but he is on lampre and won the giro in 2004 when everybody was doping in the giro. The AFL cracked down on doping in France so you had to dope to win the giro or vuelta back then.

 

[ludwig]

Devils advocate would say that, alternatively, Vino and others (but not all) are only up at the Cunego/Evans/Basso level because they - call them the Vino's for convenience - are doping, ie if everyone were clean, the Vino's wouldn't be at the same level as Basso and Cunego and Evans. I think that was Cunego's basic point.

....

For my own part, I tend to believe that Cunego and Basso are both former dopers who have seen the light and are now trying to race clean, but trying to race clean against dopers like Vino, who, without doping, wouldn't be able to hold their wheel. And I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if I am completely wrong about Cunego and Basso and Evans et al. But I don't believe for a moment that Vino is clean.

Where this line of thinking falls apart is in the notion that Cunego would have such a sunny attitude about getting cheated.

Besides, what reason is there to assume Cunego and Basso are more naturally talented than Vino?

There's also an oversight. The above speculation assumes that PED benefits are extremely minor, and only give that "extra edge". But this isn't the testimony of whistleblowers....they point to a decisive edge that can't be done without. They point to widespread doping, not just a few bad apples.

Sigh, I suppose the sport needs to send its young lambs to PR slaughterhouse like this to stay commercially viable, but it's a shame to see it up close.

 

[ludwig]

Why do you think that position "they are all doped" are more objective than some other position? Or more neutral?

It's more consistent with the facts on the ground. The nature of the sport. The nature of oxygen-vector drugs and doping. As well as the testimony of the whistleblowers. The persistence of those who have facilitated and been instrumental in doping scandals at the top levels of the sport. It's more consistent with omerta, and the attitude of the peloton towards known dopers.

 

[dickwrench]

It's more consistent with the facts on the ground. The nature of the sport. The nature of oxygen-vector drugs and doping. As well as the testimony of the whistleblowers. The persistence of those who have facilitated and been instrumental in doping scandals at the top levels of the sport. It's more consistent with omerta, and the attitude of the peloton towards known dopers.

RIght on brother. I have a hard time lumping Lance in with all of this pesimistic talk but you gotta believe in something. He has never tested positive unlike all the others and that is good enough for me for now.