End Professional Cycling

[SundayRider]

Cycling is riddled. riddled with drugs, and frankly corruption. It needs completely cleaned out.

But please, don't kid yourself that Cycling is the worst sport in this regard.

Baseball is just as bad. As, frankly, is athletics.

Weightlifting is far worse.

American football makes cycling doping look amateur, and then throws on extreme concussive injuries on top. Read about Junior Seau, or the recent stuff from Jason Taylor, a legend of the game, and weep.

Bear in mind also that, despite the melodrama, cycling right now is not where it was in the 1995-2005 period. It's not clean yet, of course, but it's at least working on it.

Never before have so many doped riders been willing to spill. It makes cycling look terrible right now. But it's the necessary medicine. You can't treat the wound until you expose it. Better that than continually hiding it

1999-2005 try 1993 till who knows?!

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The vast majority of the people who would be willing to work are corrupt. Anything started now would involved people who have corrupted themselves.
Yeah there are a few good people around but most are just cheats, liars, corrupt individuals who have ruined the sport.
The decade or two was not fixed in stone, maybe a few years. I do not know but cycling must remove itself from the generation that ruined the sport to recover.

And anything started in the future would need to use expertise to get itself off the ground, because after 10-20 years out of the game, the sport would need to be able to rebuild itself, and to be successful at that, having some idea of what was successful in the past would be required. And to do that, who would they have to turn to? The people who were involved previously, who did that work before. And who runs this 'comeback' of the sport? Presumably it would have to be somebody who was involved in the administration of the sport before at at least some level. It won't just spring out of the ground fully formed with a new, uncorrupt version of the UCI, it has to be planned, organised and created, and for that you need money.

Besides, you will not be able to stop bike racing. While you may be able to stop professional bike racing, you'll just get amateur races instead, with more prize money to spread and it'll probably end up being just like the sport was in the Ostbloc back in the days of Ryszard Szurkowski and Sergej Sukhoruchenkov (or maybe even further back, to Jan Veselý and Täve Schur). Pretty sure there was doping going on in those days. I'm sure you'd also see a lot of those "front" jobs spring up too, like you see in wintersports, where the professional biathletes and skiers have 'official' jobs in the Zollverein, or the military, or the police. You see it in women's cycling already, with the many Fiamme Azzurre riders, the team of the Italian prison service. It's why you'll often see Tatiana Guderzo in some odd-seeming uniforms at events. And who will be the first people to make a benefit of these amateur events? The people who were pros before. Just look at "professional" cycling in places like Portugal where there's a small calendar of UCI races and several small amateur events, and the péloton was saturated with ex-Puerto guys riding there because, at least historically, salaries have been better in Portugal than Spain and no top tier teams wanted them. And sure, they may not be able to afford the sophisticated doping regimes they ran as professionals anymore... but then the amateur race organisers may not be able to afford the top level state-of-the-art drugs testing that they ran as professionals either.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

You want to Ban Professional Cycling?

 

[Benotti69]

You want to Ban Professional Cycling?

We have a winner

 

[mewmewmew13]

We have a winner

Yep..the reason for starting this thread in the first place should be obvious...

 

[RobbieCanuck]

Honestly, opinions like this sicken me. Cycling may have some major issues with drugs but stopping a beautiful sport to try to clean it up will simply kill it, or relegate it to the same popularity as Race Across America.

You say it is completely irrelevant what other sports do in comparison to cycling. To the contrary, it is incredibly relevant. We keep pushing cycling as the sacrificial lamb in the fight against doping, yet no other sport has put itself in the situation cycling has ... To most reporters and fans sport is entertainment, they don't care how filthy the athletes are as long as they don't know about it ... Other sports avoid testing and taking down athletes, especially stars, where cycling has killed the reputation of most of its major players from the last 20 years. If you are calling for the death of pro cycling, you should be calling for the death of all professional sports because they all have the same dirty performances.

For some reason I get the feeling that you are one of the people who calls for clean riding and then gets all ****ed off that racing is no longer exciting. If you want clean rides you are going to see efforts that are human, not extra terrestrial. You cannot condemn doping on one hand and complain about physical performance on the other.

The solution to saving Pro Cycling is to continue running races, increase anti doping pressure, educate new riders, and increase punishments (both suspensions and jail time). Your idea is short sighted and biased.

This is one really naive cycling fan wearing bifocals. NO TRUE FAN wants to watch ANY CYCLING RACE these days because there is NO ASSURANCE from the cyclists themselves, teams, owners, the UCI, the IOC, the TDFs or any other organizing body that races are clean. That is the true and realistic state of cycling today and not the myoptic one you portray.

To suggest fans want to watch racing even though it is filthy because it is the so called "beautiful sport" is just plain ignorant. Doping, the Ullrichs. Rasmussens and most of all the Armstrongs of cycling (plus the hundreds of others) have ruined cycling by proving the sport is riddled with cheating. Who in their right mind wants to watch the Tour de France without being cynical it is a fair race.

To say "cycling may have some major issues with drugs" is the understatement of the year and demonstrates that you just don't get it Cycling is in a huge mess because it has a stupendous problem with drugs. It permeates all of cycling culture. Cycling is sick, sick, sick and there is no hope for the sport for at least 10 to 20 years

It will and should get kicked out of the Olympics. As long as the Pat McQuaids of the world are in charge of cycling it will be on life support.

I have cancelled my reservations to the 2013 TDF because I will not waste my money watching a fraudulent sport, permeated with liars, cheats, perjurors and false pretenders. Sponsors are leaving the stinking mess like proverbial rats. What credible company would want to have anything to do with pro cycling.

What happens in other sports is truly irrelevant. Only an apologist for drug cheating would resort to pointing fingers at other sports. Clean up your own backyard first. Pointing fingers at others is a useless diversion tactic.

Will I continue to ride my bike. Hell yes because it truly is an etherial feeling to challenge my body hearing the silent hum of a well tuned machine. But watching pro racing is for dummies.

 

[arjanh]

Sport, any sport will not be completely clean.
However cycling has gone beyond being the odd cheat, it has corrupted its core. There is nothing worth saving. The sport is riddled with dopers who have succumbed once or many times and cannot be trusted not to succumb again. It needs a new generation of administrators, team managers and cyclists who are separated from what has happened. To continue with what is cycling today is to continue with the failures of the past and any attempt to purge the past is doomed to failures..

What was that quote from the Vietnam War? "We had to destroy the village in order to keep it free"? Sure, you can rebuild the village, but no one that either lived there or visited it will ever come back to it...

 

[MarkvW]

This is one really naive cycling fan wearing bifocals. NO TRUE FAN wants to watch ANY CYCLING RACE these days because there is NO ASSURANCE from the cyclists themselves, teams, owners, the UCI, the IOC, the TDFs or any other organizing body that races are clean. That is the true and realistic state of cycling today and not the myoptic one you portray.

To suggest fans want to watch racing even though it is filthy because it is the so called "beautiful sport" is just plain ignorant. Doping, the Ullrichs. Rasmussens and most of all the Armstrongs of cycling (plus the hundreds of others) have ruined cycling by proving the sport is riddled with cheating. Who in their right mind wants to watch the Tour de France without being cynical it is a fair race.

To say "cycling may have some major issues with drugs" is the understatement of the year and demonstrates that you just don't get it Cycling is in a huge mess because it has a stupendous problem with drugs. It permeates all of cycling culture. Cycling is sick, sick, sick and there is no hope for the sport for at least 10 to 20 years

It will and should get kicked out of the Olympics. As long as the Pat McQuaids of the world are in charge of cycling it will be on life support.

I have cancelled my reservations to the 2013 TDF because I will not waste my money watching a fraudulent sport, filled with liars, cheats and false pretenders. Sponsors are leaving the stinking mess like proverbial rats. What credible company would want to have anything to do with pro cycling.

What happens in other sports is truly irrelevant. Only an apologist for drug cheating would resort to pointing fingers at other sports. Clean up your own backyard first. Pointing fingers at others is a useless diversion tactic.

Will I continue to ride my bike. Hell yes because it truly is an etherial feeling to challenge my body hearing the silent hum of a well tuned machine. But watching pro racing is for dummies.

Dude, you're going to get scorned by the other hypocrites here, but not by me! Thanks for the fine and honest post.

 

[Mad Elephant Man]

Yep..the reason for starting this thread in the first place should be obvious...

Tell me why I started this thread. I would be interested to know why I started this thread.

Perhaps you would also like to remember that I posted on velorooms as Dr. Horrible.

 

[MarkvW]

Yes because professional cyclists are the only ones who breach the rules which govern them.

The lowest common denominator is the best denominator!

 

[Caruut]

I have cancelled my reservations to the 2013 TDF because I will not waste my money watching a fraudulent sport, permeated with liars, cheats, perjurors and false pretenders. Sponsors are leaving the stinking mess like proverbial rats. What credible company would want to have anything to do with pro cycling.

I call BS. No-one with this attitude towards the sport would have had reservations in the first place.

 

[peterst6906]

I call BS. No-one with this attitude towards the sport would have had reservations in the first place.

+1

10chars

 

[Mad Elephant Man]

You want to Ban Professional Cycling?

I am not BPC, your cleverness is just wrong. My background is known to some and hopefully someone will tell you I am not BPC. I do not have time explain it now because I have to go to work. Hopefully when I get back you would have seen fit to delete your false allegation, but if not I will explain then.
I have grown more frustrated with cycling over the last year and this thread is the end result of that frustration

 

[TheBean]

I am rarely sarcastic, but just can't help it in this regard...

We NEED cycling to keep these heinous criminals off the street! With the GPS transponders on their bicycles, we know exactly where these guys are. Imagine the downfall of society if they were running loose in society, rather than riding their bikes all day and using doping products to recover! Pandemonium would ensue.

So, let's all take a break to appraciate our sport as one that is helping keep bad people pre-occupied with the relatively meaningless endeavor of riding a bike.

 

[ultimobici]

This is one really naive cycling fan wearing bifocals. NO TRUE FAN wants to watch ANY CYCLING RACE these days because there is NO ASSURANCE from the cyclists themselves, teams, owners, the UCI, the IOC, the TDFs or any other organizing body that races are clean. That is the true and realistic state of cycling today and not the myoptic one you portray.

So you're going to tar every man, woman & child that races with the same brush? Way to go!

I have cancelled my reservations to the 2013 TDF because I will not waste my money watching a fraudulent sport, permeated with liars, cheats, perjurors and false pretenders. Sponsors are leaving the stinking mess like proverbial rats. What credible company would want to have anything to do with pro cycling.

What happens in other sports is truly irrelevant. Only an apologist for drug cheating would resort to pointing fingers at other sports. Clean up your own backyard first. Pointing fingers at others is a useless diversion tactic.

I agree that just pointing fingers at other sports alone is diversionary. However if you apply your logic, you're never going to watch any sport at all. No ice hockey, no lacrosse, no football, no soccer, no golf, no whatever. Because the only difference between every sport is the amount of money available to keep scandal away. Cycling has a problem with cheating, but its lack of real financial clout means it cannot keep a lid on it or manage the narrative. By contrast, athletics has a shed load of cash at its disposal so your countryman pi$$ing on the rules in 88 and countless other positives from nations all over the world it still carries on. Operation Puerto seems to have been all about cycling, yet there were supposedly 200 clients, of whom less than a quarter were cyclists. That begs the question who the hell were the others? Real Madrid & Barcelona were mentioned.

Sure cycling must get its house in order, but the sport and its fans have every right to demand that every other sport is held to the same standard.

 

[skidmark]

This is one really naive cycling fan wearing bifocals. NO TRUE FAN wants to watch ANY CYCLING RACE these days because there is NO ASSURANCE from the cyclists themselves, teams, owners, the UCI, the IOC, the TDFs or any other organizing body that races are clean. That is the true and realistic state of cycling today and not the myoptic one you portray.

To suggest fans want to watch racing even though it is filthy because it is the so called "beautiful sport" is just plain ignorant. Doping, the Ullrichs. Rasmussens and most of all the Armstrongs of cycling (plus the hundreds of others) have ruined cycling by proving the sport is riddled with cheating. Who in their right mind wants to watch the Tour de France without being cynical it is a fair race.

To say "cycling may have some major issues with drugs" is the understatement of the year and demonstrates that you just don't get it Cycling is in a huge mess because it has a stupendous problem with drugs. It permeates all of cycling culture. Cycling is sick, sick, sick and there is no hope for the sport for at least 10 to 20 years

It will and should get kicked out of the Olympics. As long as the Pat McQuaids of the world are in charge of cycling it will be on life support.

I have cancelled my reservations to the 2013 TDF because I will not waste my money watching a fraudulent sport, permeated with liars, cheats, perjurors and false pretenders. Sponsors are leaving the stinking mess like proverbial rats. What credible company would want to have anything to do with pro cycling.

What happens in other sports is truly irrelevant. Only an apologist for drug cheating would resort to pointing fingers at other sports. Clean up your own backyard first. Pointing fingers at others is a useless diversion tactic.

Will I continue to ride my bike. Hell yes because it truly is an etherial feeling to challenge my body hearing the silent hum of a well tuned machine. But watching pro racing is for dummies.

I appreciate your ire at the state of the sport; I certainly identify with it myself. But I find it presumptuous to speak on behalf of 'true' fans and what they want. I don't see it as incongruous to appreciate a good bike race while also knowing (vaguely) what goes on behind the scenes - in fact, I find it more honest than the relationship between most sports fans that I know and the sport that they love.

Can I ask when you 'cancelled your reservations' (actually, can I also ask what that means?) for the 2013 TdF? Because if your answer is anytime after 2006, or actually even 1999, I would question how much of a 'true' cycling fan you have been, watching races all this time either without knowing what's been going on, or being okay with it.

 

[ultimobici]

Can I ask when you 'cancelled your reservations' (actually, can I also ask what that means?) for the 2013 TdF? Because if your answer is anytime after 2006, or actually even 1999, I would question how much of a 'true' cycling fan you have been, watching races all this time either without knowing what's been going on, or being okay with it.

There were never any reservations. A true diehard fan wouldn't need a third party to arrange things for them. They'd have enough nous to understand the sport as well as fix a trip to Europe.

 

[Fatclimber]

I am rarely sarcastic, but just can't help it in this regard...

We NEED cycling to keep these heinous criminals off the street! With the GPS transponders on their bicycles, we know exactly where these guys are. Imagine the downfall of society if they were running loose in society, rather than riding their bikes all day and using doping products to recover! Pandemonium would ensue.

So, let's all take a break to appraciate our sport as one that is helping keep bad people pre-occupied with the relatively meaningless endeavor of riding a bike.

I was going to take a less extreme approach and suggest that we need to keep professional cycling around to keep the dopers consolidated and out of the amateur pool so the rest of us don't have to race against them. But as has been shown in the "latest masters fatty doper" thread, they are already amongst us other fatty masters racers.


MEM,

Your frustration is not out of line. If I recall correctly, German media quit broadcasting the TDF because they were more interested in fair competition than "a display of pharmaceuticals." Maybe you need to change your outlook on sports. Here's a good article from last summer's Olympics:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/s...ir-history-of-doping.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

“When I watch a Spielberg movie or a Lucas movie, maybe afterward I might be interested in how a special effect was done,” Yesalis said. “But I really don’t care during the movie.

“I just watch. Do I get emotionally involved in it? No, I do not. Absolutely do not.”


Pure sport with fair play would be great, but you're just not going to get it with so much money and conflict of interest involved. Not in any professional sport. If you're looking for some sort of moral/ethical hero to cheer for, why look in a physical arena?

 

[TubularBills]

Taking your ball and going home is not an option.

Doping is rampant in all sports.

Cycling is arguably the only sport where the fans, factions in the media, government entities et. al. are doing anything about it... if we were to stop we would lose the very public reveal and dialogue that cycling has pioneered.

We need to set the standard.

Stay Calm and Hold Fast.

~ Sir Clean Sport

 

[Angliru]

Stop all sport then.

At every level? Amateur, under 23, junior, recreational?

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

I am not BPC, your cleverness is just wrong. My background is known to some and hopefully someone will tell you I am not BPC. I do not have time explain it now because I have to go to work. Hopefully when I get back you would have seen fit to delete your false allegation, but if not I will explain then.

Odd for someone who only signed up less that 6 months ago to have such knowledge of someone who has been banned for such a long time.

The lady protest too much.

 

[ramjambunath]

I will await the independent confirmation that you aren't BPC. Odd for someone who only signed up less that 6 months ago to have such knowledge of someone who has been banned for such a long time.

The lady protest too much.

You protest much about doping... hence you're a doper?

He's definitely not BPC. I don't know who BPC is and CGAF, but Elephant man had an earlier ID here from 2009/10 maybe and he deleted it. And he's no Armstrong supporter either.

 

[blackcat]

I will await the independent confirmation that you aren't BPC. Odd for someone who only signed up less that 6 months ago to have such knowledge of someone who has been banned for such a long time.

The lady protest too much.

arbiter, polish,bpc, had a type of schema when he had a few words, verb - noun - adverb, or something like that, and haiku syllables.

obviously polish and arbiter were handles that were exceptions to the rule, but they quickly manifested the true owner.

mad elephant man, fits with the appellations BPC has give himself.

 

[la_bicicleta]

I think Mad Elephant Man is onto something in here, in the sense that professional cycling could use a break, nothing would happen if these doped to the gills asshatz stopped pedaling their bikes for a year or two..... once the money stops rolling to ASO and all the big players, bike sponsors etc... maybe they'll get serious about fixing the circus that cycling is.

They could burn the UCI to the ground, rearrange it so that doping is handled by an independent organization. The 'poor helpless' riders could get organized and get a union that properly represents their interest, throw a bone to women cycling there while they're at it.

If the GT races are just too damn hard to compete paniagua, then change the damn format, bit shorter stages, two weeks instead of three, whatever it takes.

If in the end they decide no one really cares about a cleaner sport, then they might as well make a DOPERS league and run their superhuman races, I'd love to see who's going to sponsor them, hell make a Le Mans type series with multiple categories, clean and doped at the same time for all I care.... that would make for a good show huh.

A 100% dope free peloton is a pipe dream, but I'd like to see a sport where doping is the exception and not the friggen rule like now a days. I'm just tired of all the hypocrisy surrounding cycling when it comes to the use of PED and the corruption in the UCI. This goes to almost any other sports out there as well.

So F'em all, take a time out and fix their damn mess.... yeah a pipe dream as well.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

Professional Cycling has proven itself to be totally dope ridden and corrupt.

Professional Cycling should stop, there should be no more races.

Perhaps in a decade or two it should come back.

Until then no more races.

Why put the death sentence on pro cycling when that sport is the only one looking earnestly, outside of the UCI, to clean up the sport?