Teddy Boom said:
brownbobby said:
Blanco said:
The guy is talking *** left and right, and he takes every opportunity to talk bad about UCI, WADA, whoever he thinks is responsible for his downfall, and generally about cycling.
Maybe, sometimes. But use your own filter to separate what he says from what he did, the vendetta and self justification. He still has stuff worth hearing occasionally, for me anyway. In this piece his views on how cycling fuels its own problems resonates with me.
It really comes down to how you feel about doping in sport. If you actually want it eliminated, well cycling is about the only sport that even cares to try. If you think doping control is just about harm reduction, and you just want a big healthy sports-marketing machine, then Lance is dead on the money. We're in the Clinic here, and we all know you can't have it both ways.
Exactly my point.
But for me, the notion of clean sport has become pure fantasy. I’m resigned to history repeating itself, maybe I’m a pessimist. The question is what is cycling. Is it sport? Is it entertainment? If it’s the former, then doping will be the death of cycling, however very few sports remain pure sports. If it’s the latter, or more realistically a combination of the two, then we don’t need to mourn for the death of our beloved sport just yet.
Doping isn’t the only problem. Our reaction to the doping keeps that problem constant. Like a constant vicious circle. Self fulfilling prophecy.
Take football/soccer in the UK. One of the biggest stars in the game at the time, ex England Captain and stalwart of the biggest club team in the world was handed a lengthy ban for missing a drugs test. It was a bit of a story at the time, but soon faded away. Very little focus and interrogation of the issues surrounding the missed test ever saw the light of day. Why? Because drugs in football are not the main story. He served his ban, picked up where he left off, hero status not even slightly dented.
I dare say this pattern repeats itself across all popular national sports.
When presented with the facts, most sane people will acknowledge that most of the major sports in the world, the ones that demand superhuman abilities to compete at the top level, are fuelled by doping. It’s obvious. But people don’t care, or perhaps more to the point they choose not to think about it. They don’t want to see how the show was made, they just want to enjoy the show.
The sponsors, big name sponsors like Nike, Adidas, continue to queue up to pay our heroes to be seen in their product. They don’t care about their morals. They care about how often their faces are going to appear on the TV.
And that’s the difference with cycling. Doping is the main story. Not because it’s any more or less prevalent than other sports, but because we, the fans, every bit as much as the actors (teams/cyclists) keep it that way.
Nothing demonstrated this better than Operacion Puerto. One by one, most/all of the cyclists were hunted down. Exposed. Shamed. But what about the others. Rumours of world famous soccer players, tennis players at the very highest level. But never pursued. Nobody cares. It was all about those dirty cyclists. Don’t blame the media, they will only ever follow public opinion, public interest. That’s how they continue to be relevant.
See we’re different. Cycling is different. We’re obsessed with what goes on behind the scenes. That’s every bit as much a part of the show as what goes on out on the road.
But here’s my view…..It’s not such a bad thing. The whole LA story and eventual scandal bought lots of new people to the sport. Most of them stayed. Sky, with the classic good versus bad story bought new people to the sport. I think most of them will stick around to see the next instalment. Yeah, we see lots of comments like ‘im done with cycling’, ‘I can’t trust it anymore, I’m not interested’. These commenters, so disinterested, they keep subscribing to the news, keep registering on forums, keep reading the articles, just so they can tell everyone how much they hate cycling and how disinterested they are in it all. But they’re still here, they just don’t want to admit it.
Do any of you really see a scenario in ten, twenty years time where there’s a real belief in cycling as a clean sport?
Don’t try to change what can’t be changed. Influence what can be influenced, and embrace what you’re left with.
I don’t believe that for cycling redemption lies in cleaning up the sport. Even if it was ever possible to convince people that this had happened, does this see a sudden flock of new fans? I don’t think so. The problem for cycling is in its business model, not its image. Any business needs consumption to survive, consumption needs interest in the product. Like it or not, doping drives interest in cycling.
We made it so. By making doping the main topic, not just the sub plot we made it so. By refusing to believe in miracles, by questioning every performance that is exceptional. With good reason. Our non-cycling friends, they all think cycling is a dirty sport and everyone cheats. I wonder where they get that impression from? It doesn’t mean they won’t be interested if the entertainment on offer is good enough.
Look to other sports, the adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity rings true. The challenge for cycling is to turn interest into consumption.
See, good stories never start with the good guys prevailing and then continue with them living happily ever after. That’s how the story ends, that’s when people lose interest, when the credits roll. We don’t want the story to end, we want another chapter to be written to hold our interest. The Lance chapter was fascinating whilst it lasted, then we started another; a new set of good guys here to save the sport until they were flushed out, that chapter is ending, we can all see the end is nigh. But we need a new chapter, we need a new set of characters.
Good versus bad. The oldest story ever told. The basis of most every good story ever told. Cycling needs its bad guys, needs its drama and suspense like every other story. We just don’t like to admit it. Chris Froome may be done. Sky may be done. But there’s another chapter to be written. There’s a queue of people waiting to play the next set of villains. Without them the story ends, or at least it gets a hell of a lot less interesting….
I know I arouse suspicion in this forum, some struggle to believe that you can stay neutral on a thing like Sky. But for me it’s a bit like any bad guy in the movies. You know he’s the bad guy eventually, you know he’s got to get his comeuppance eventually and you’ll probably cheer when it happens, but it doesn’t stop you enjoying and appreciating the part he plays, the drama he brings to the show while it lasts…
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