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Is the age of innocence over for good?

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Is the age of innocence over for good?

  • No, sometime down the road, we will again mosty trust in the integrity of cycling.

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Jul 21, 2012
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Alphabet said:
Earlier than that, surely? I would say Festina. A question to older fans: was Festina the first time you recognised something was seriously wrong?

I started watching cycling in 97 or so and my reaction to the Festina affair was that now the sport must be clean since they got rid of all the cheaters. Then i went back to cheering for Pantani :p
 
My first tour as a fan was 1988 when Delgado failed a test the day before I watched him climb the Puy du Dome. Even then I thought that this is crazy. Professional sport is just a variation on pornography. In more religious times both would be outlawed and with good reason.
 
janus1969 said:
What age of innocence? This is a sport that has ALWAYS welcomed substance use (and abuse)....
Good grief. I explained it at least twice.

I repeat:
The "age of innocence" was not a mythical pre-doping era. It was when doping was unsophisticated and under the radar, and we enjoyed bike racing for the racing.

Even if we knew there were some shady substance use... it simply didnt rise above the racing itself for the most part, in the eyes of the fans and the press.
 
Jul 10, 2009
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dgodave said:
Good grief. I explained it at least twice.

I repeat:
The "age of innocence" was not a mythical pre-doping era. It was when doping was unsophisticated and under the radar, and we enjoyed bike racing for the racing.

Even if we knew there were some shady substance use... it simply didnt rise above the racing itself for the most part, in the eyes of the fans and the press.

I get your point...I do...but I'd have to say that Simpson's death was that point...maybe earlier, but as even Simpson's death predates my existence on the earth, it seems like a good, arbitrary event. Death seems a very clear way of breaking innocence, IMO.

I've never harbored illusions about this...the East Germans of the 70s (which only slightly occurred after I existed) took the veil off the eyes of pretty much everyone...if you weren't one of them, I guess that's good?

Heck, the 1984 USA Olympic cycling team used blood doping (albeit legally) and created a storm...we could use that point, I suppose...
 
Sep 8, 2012
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Surely eventually, in the fullness of time, nanobots or some crap will live inside riders 24/7 providing detailed reports of every single function that happens in their bodies. And probably ours too.

Fans then will probably look back to the days of constant controversy and nebulous conspiracy theories with something like nostalgia.

Um, seriously though, I can't see cycling losing its aura of constant suspicion any time soon.
 
janus1969 said:
What age of innocence? This is a sport that has ALWAYS welcomed substance use (and abuse).

I honestly think that we're all naval-gazing and being foolish. What monument on Mt. Ventoux is considered sacrosanct? Could it be Simpson's monument? Isn't that monument an honor to someone who died on the slopes, directly as a result of using substances?!

I'm not pro-doping, but I think it's both self-righteous and self-deceptive to think that we did not know that doping was prevalent in this sport ALWAYS. The Cannibal was sanctioned for doping, for goodness sake...

Oh, and before someone tears into the integrity of cycling, remember that substance use has frequently, or always, been used in professional sports (and amateur feeder programs). Heck, the US even has a perfect-game winner in baseball who admitted to using LSD the day of the event?!

There will be cheats always...and we should root them out to the best of our abilities...let's not presume that this is new...and even if it's more organized, perhaps that's not all bad...having doctors involved will limit future Tommy Simpsons, right?

It's all just part of a hypocritical sponsorship that is "concerned" about sportsmanship and health. The ancient Roman gladiators surely were not held so accountable for the ENTERTAINMENT value they provided!

I say hypocritical, for if anti-doping were seriously enforced, which I'd find praiseworthy, then they'd enforce lifetime bans for the first offence. Though this is a risky business issue, for which they don't exist. To kill or not to kill a market, that's the question? The sponsors make money off this, thus the show must go on.
 
Got a good laugh in the lift this morning as two ladies (who definitely didn't look like cyclists) were talking about Froome's performances so far this tour. They immediately mentioned his ridiculous physique and mentioned the fraud that was Armstrong. I'm guessing that their significant others are recent converts as they weren't too familiar with other riders but the immediate cynicism struck me.

More and more sports fans are starting to get very cynical, with good reason.
 
Jun 16, 2009
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purcell said:
Cycling does not make a larger effort. The people in cycling talk about making the effort more than in other sports, all the while turning a blind eye.

The noise in cycling is greater, the effort, not so much.

I disagree. Cycling does catch the top athletes, whether you like it or not. I know there has been many cover ups, but cycling has taken down the top athletes from drug tests. Most other sports can not say the same.
 
auscyclefan94 said:
I disagree. Cycling does catch the top athletes, whether you like it or not. I know there has been many cover ups, but cycling has taken down the top athletes from drug tests. Most other sports can not say the same.
Lance Armstrong, the '98 Festina TdF squad and the guys caught by Operacion Puerto are just a few who might disagree with you there.
 
Dec 23, 2012
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auscyclefan94 said:
I disagree. Cycling does catch the top athletes, whether you like it or not. I know there has been many cover ups, but cycling has taken down the top athletes from drug tests. Most other sports can not say the same.

You could also say that if it hadn't been for the estate, government intervention Festina and Operacion Puerto would have not happened, Contador's clanbuterol case almost didn't make it to light, and lets not even talk about the Armstrong ordeal . If it was for the UCI and ASO they would sweep everything under the rug.

I'm not so sure you can state that it was "cycling" itself that has gone to such great efforts to police itself and get rid of doping.
 
Mar 13, 2009
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I think the cat could be put back in the bag. Make sports doping criminal, life time bans, increase bio passport testing such that the gains are too small to bother with, also add new tests to the biopassport as they become available, retroactive testing that still lands you in jail along with paying back ill gotten gains.

Thank you to everyone who will now tell me how expensive this will be and how difficult politically.
 
Alphabet said:
Earlier than that, surely? I would say Festina. A question to older fans: was Festina the first time you recognised something was seriously wrong?

I think upto Festina & Puerto signaled some reformation among the riders & rekindled hope in the fans but LA affair shows it was not so and the riders became even more sophisticated in doping. That is why the disillusionment
 
Jan 23, 2013
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dgodave said:
The "age of innocence" was not a mythical pre-doping era. It was when doping was unsophisticated and under the radar, and we enjoyed bike racing for the racing.

In that case, I would say the age of innocence died when the very first cyclist ****ed into a cup for the purose of doping controlthe very first time.

Otherwise, your explanation answers your own question - in a way.

The age of innocence died the first time a team hired a doctor to monitor and administer doping for the team's riders -thus making doping sophisticated and strtuctured into a program.
 
TheBean said:
In that case, I would say the age of innocence died when the very first cyclist ****ed into a cup for the purose of doping controlthe very first time.

I guess than it was on July 29th, 1966... Quote and source below;)

On 29 July testing began at the Tour de France. Raymond Poulidor was the first rider to be tested in the Tour at the end of a stage to Bordeaux. He said "I was strolling down the corridor in ordinary clothes when I came across two guys who asked if I was a rider. They made me go into a room, I ****ed into some bottles and they closed them without sealing them. Then they took my name, my date of birth, without asking for anything to check my identity. I could have been anyone, and they could have done anything they liked with the bottles."[42] Next morning, on the way to the Pyrenees the riders climbed off, began walking and shouting protests.

List of doping cases in cycling
 
Jun 16, 2009
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42x16ss said:
Lance Armstrong, the '98 Festina TdF squad and the guys caught by Operacion Puerto are just a few who might disagree with you there.

Those cases did still require action from cycling's governing bodies or connected doping bodies. Again, most other sports do not have that sort of record of catching the big names, except maybe Athletics.
 
Mar 26, 2009
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dgodave said:
Pretty much.

I wonder if "pure performance" sports can survive at all with any credibility. Cycling. Track. Nordic skiing. Etc. They are doomed, as I see it. Perhaps along with football (both kinds), and others. The rewards for cheating are too great, and the methods are always a few years ahead of detection. AND the public is catching on.

I'm trying to get excited about darts.

Sorry. Beta-blockers.
 
Mar 26, 2009
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For me it is a series of low peaks and deep troughs, resulting in a steady decline in faith in sports. Froome and the recent Track and Field busts have me in a "trough of disillusionment". Armstrong getting caught had been a moderate peak.
 
auscyclefan94 said:
Those cases did still require action from cycling's governing bodies or connected doping bodies. Again, most other sports do not have that sort of record of catching the big names, except maybe Athletics.
They acted because the results of various Police raids and/or Independant ADA's (in Armstrong's case) could no longer be ignored.

Remember Hein's "Never, ever, ever" speech?

Reactive responses to save credibility =/= proactively catching dopers. You've been following the sport more than long enough to have picked up on this :confused:
 

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