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Joe Papp Interview

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the short short short version

131313 said:
You're kidding me, right?

"an American sprinter, on a Swiss team, who's the same age as me (sic) in the Tour of Ireland around 2001"

really??

alpe has an obvious soft spot for papp. papp's record seems to just get uglier and uglier tho.

what we know FOR CERTAIN: he built a modest career on doping. heavily doped he still wasn't good enough and resorted to selling drugs to support a more comfortable lifestyle. failed a test late in his career and tried to make a name for himself by speaking out against drugs except for one little detail, he forgot to stop selling them. got caught by the feds, got convicted, and now is just waiting for sentencing b/c the feds are stalling until they're sure they don't need any more info from joe (my guess is they don't want to give up the leverage they have over joe until some other dominoes have fallen)

what else we know: i find his posts occasionally insightful but he has a tendency to be a little too crude for my tastes.

what we think we know: he may or may not have a tendency to abuse women. it seems isolated but i haven't researched this so who knows?

what else we think we know: he may have called out a clean guy by mistake. ironically, that experience is his whole justification for using dope to begin with and it appears there's no better than a 50/50 shot ES used PEDs. :eek:

straydog said:
Joe is an active voice of this debate, and in my opinion a valued one. Whether you like him or not, whether you believe him or not. So let's hope people at least listen to his voice (and others) rather than try and drown it out by brainless and oh so brave name calling.

notice the absence of "name-calling" in the above post. about as objective as it'll get. you're welcome. :rolleyes:
 
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lean said:
alpe has an obvious soft spot for papp. papp's record seems to just get uglier and uglier tho.

what we know FOR CERTAIN: he built a modest career on doping. heavily doped he still wasn't good enough and resorted to selling drugs to support a more comfortable lifestyle.....

.... about as objective as it'll get. you're welcome. :rolleyes:

Really? you know his reasons and his lifestyle circumstances for certain?

Please provide a link.

objective?...or subjective?

Do yourself a favour....research this a bit more thoroughly before you let us all know what we are "certain" about....you know what? You might learn something.
 
straydog said:
Really? you know his reasons and his lifestyle circumstances for certain?

Please provide a link.

objective?...or subjective?

Do yourself a favour....research this a bit more thoroughly before you let us all know what we are "certain" about....you know what? You might learn something.

seriously? why else do people sell drugs if not to make extra money? the items listed as "certain" are things JP has admitted to or been convicted of. if they in any way surprise you i think the research needs to be done on your side of the fence.
 
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lean said:
seriously? why else do people sell drugs if not to make extra money? the items listed as "certain" are things JP has admitted to or been convicted of. if they in any way surprise you i think the research needs to be done on your side of the fence.

Really? Joe admitted he was running Eposino to improve his lifestyle? As I said before....please provide a link to his admission...educate me.
 
straydog said:
Really? Joe admitted he was running Eposino to improve his lifestyle? As I said before....please provide a link to his admission...educate me.

ooooooookaaaaaay:confused: i'm not going to dig up old links/threads etc b/c you're too lazy to do it yourself. and let's be honest you're only cherry picking my posts based upon inconsequential word choices anyway. for now let's pretend we live in your bizarro world where people sell drugs for the fun of it. does it make a difference?

the point of the thread and the take home message is JP called out ES. not by name but let's say he left good directions on where to find the guy. it looks like he may have done so prematurely and may owe him an apology. at the very least it looks sloppy. a few people have weighed in that there's a better than average chance ES was clean. JP emphasized that the experience of ES's group blowing past him profoundly influenced his decisions and subsequent justifications about drug use in sport. i find it VERY interesting and maybe even tragically humorous that ES might have been clean the entire time. in reality it might be one hel1 of a cautionary tale and there may be a positive lesson to aspiring riders in there if you're willing to look for it. do you have anything to add to that?
 
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lean said:
ooooooookaaaaaay:confused: i'm not going to dig up old links/threads etc b/c you're too lazy to do it yourself. and let's be honest you're only cherry picking my posts based upon inconsequential word choices anyway. for now let's pretend we live in your bizarro world where people sell drugs for the fun of it. does it make a difference?

the point of the thread and the take home message is JP called out ES. not by name but let's say he left good directions on where to find the guy. it looks like he may have done so prematurely and may owe him an apology. at the very least it looks sloppy. a few people have weighed in that there's a better than average chance ES was clean. JP emphasized that the experience of ES's group blowing past him profoundly influenced his decisions and susequent justifications about drug use in sport. i find it VERY interesting and maybe even a tragically humorous that ES might have been clean the entire time. in reality it might be one hel1 of a cautionary tale and there may be a positive lesson to aspiring riders in there if you're willing to look for it. do you have anything to add to that?

The first part of your post I do have something to add yes....people sell drugs for all kinds of reasons other than greed or fun....if you can't understand or imagine that, then I feel most of this will be wasted on you. And honestly, I think deep down you can, you just don't want to admit you were wrong. Hey, I dig that. It's hard. And incidentally I have no need to dig up links on Joe's past. I consider myself plenty informed. You may not. and that is your perogative.

The second part of your post....no I don't have much to add...perfectly valid view point....although honestly, I am slightly peturbed that if ES was innocent you would be tragically amused. Maybe I am being picky, but I don't think word choice should ever be inconsequential. Words are after all how we communicate what we mean. But as I said, in general I think the second part of your post is a valid input, just as I think the first part of mine is.

Peace
 

flicker

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Without knowing Papp but knowing human nature I think Papp sold EPO to stay in the game.

By that I mean, competitve cycling, keeping the doping connections he had previously and of course what all humans need and crave attention.

I have absolutley no doubt that Papp is muy intelegente, however he has a bit of a complex like Tyler Hamilton.

He is way into the competiton and adoration much to his detriment. Money is secondary.
 

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straydog said:
honestly you could just have stopped there flick

You know that the doping is a game and a lifestyle. Papp is no different his behavior is human. The reason we are on the clinic is because we would like to end doping, I speak for myself. I do not have to walk in Papps shoes to understand his behavior. He has a website because he wants attention, nothing wrong with that. As I have said before there are dopers who have been busted who are sorry, sorry to have been busted. That doesn't mean they want to leave that lifestyle.

If you listen to Papps' interview he said he doped consistently for four years. Do you think that ends when a person is busted. Check the prison recivitism for drug crimes....
 
flicker said:
Without knowing Papp but knowing human nature I think Papp sold EPO to stay in the game.

By that I mean, competitve cycling, keeping the doping connections he had previously and of course what all humans need and crave attention.

I have absolutley no doubt that Papp is muy intelegente, however he has a bit of a complex like Tyler Hamilton.

He is way into the competiton and adoration much to his detriment. Money is secondary.

haha, for the first time ever flicker makes a solid point. i didn't care to make the distinction earlier and it's really just a chicken vs egg situation, IOW money vs "staying in the game". it seems he likely didn't make enough money from low level contracts and placings and i'd guess that the cost of PEDs was spiraling out of control by this time. he soon realized the only way he could avoid walking away from racing was to go from buyer to seller. this isn't a wild guess either, papp says in the linked video he was almost addicted to the thrill of competition and was completely impractical about it. he had an education by that time and there was no need to put all of his eggs in the cycling basket but he couldn't resist. he even gives some strange explanations as to why, ie cycling was an escape, a form of coping, etc. i'm not sure if i believe him but that's as far as i want to dig into his psyche or to take this discussion.
 
Race Radio said:
I know Joe from the forum and from e-mails. He seems like a nice guy who, understandably, has had a lot of time for introspection and reflection. He is in a very challenging position and has dealt with it as well as possible. I see little value in attacking a guy who is trying hard to clean up a very messed up life.

I have not talked with Eric for years, maybe 10. I used to ride with him and others quite a bit. I can say that the guy trains very hard. 30 hour weeks were not unusual. 7 hours in the pouring rain were not unusual. The guy really put the time in and laid it all out for the sport. He raced for one of the top amateur teams in France, if not THE top. Vendee U. I gave up on the sport before I went through the stuff Eric went through.

I might be wrong but I think he was living in Doug's garage, then with his brother in the desert. While it is possible that he doped I really don't know how he would afford it. If I was Eric, and I trained insanely hard, lived in crap places in France, traveled all around the US in a van chasing primes, achieved success through hard work, and did not dope I would be ****ed at the insinuation. I likely would have have been much less understanding with my response.

It is perfectly possible that the improvement that Joe saw from Eric's junior years to his Pro years came from a needle. It is also likely that this "Sudden" Improvement came from a ridiculous amount of work, a few years racing at a very high level, and the need to earn a very meager living.

The "nice guy" defense, lots of nice guys dope but very few nice guys get involved in using and distributing. Another guy who possibly fits that description is the target of the feds by the moment, although I don't think he falls into the nice guy category like JP.

To your comment on cleaning up his life, he's just trying to stay relevant, he's ~174 names away from obscurity.

I don't know Joe either but I have heard him portrayed in a similar light by others so I would guess Eric isn't far off target, probably something there.
 
Look, all I can say is that I had a face to face discussion with the guy, on camera, and off, and presented it as I saw it. I lead him with zero questions, and didn't trick him into answering anything he didn't want, nor did I feel like I tossed him softballs. My voice is only heard once in the entire interview, a reaction to what he said.

I'll let Joe and Erik hash out whatever their perceptions are on their own, and speak for themselves on the issue.
 
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straydog said:
and here comes the first bedsit hitman...do you know what I conclude stupid is?

Anonymously spewing hate and gossip at someone brave enough to put their head above the parapet in a public forum....without noticing that it seems kind of cowardly...and er....stupid.

Well done for coming first in that race though.

by reading the link from the original Papp interview you will see that he lost his battle with a girl beat down that got him a broken nose. If you are going to pick on somebody way smaller than you at least you should not get smacked silly. girl 1 Papp 0. I hardly would call ESPN and the Pittsburg Police bedsit anything and the cops are far from cowards.
 
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Having only watched half the video, all I can say is...WTF?? RR, I hope you charged him big psychiatrist $$, b/c that interview seemed like a session b/w Tony Soprano and Dr. Melfi. You should have interviewed him lying down on the couch.

Two choice portions:

"I doped b/c it allowed me to escape the horror of being sexually molested by a teammate." ....Huh? Dude, we really don't need to hear about your homo-erotic encounters. But if you showered w/ a buddy and then later felt conflicted about it, PLEAse dont call it 'molestation', and try to pin you doping decision on it. And how could continuing racing (probably on same team or at least in same peloton w/ said buddy) be a way to cope. Me thinks this "assocation" w/ the idea of molestation has something to do w/ Papp's Walter-Mitty connection w/ Lemond, who Joe is pround to let us know he is "close" with. Dream on, pal.

"By the time I got caught, I was looking for a way out". Yeah right. You just achieved your biggest victory to date, but you were looking for a way OUT. So then of course you became a dealer to the domestic peloton. No better way to get out...

Maybe I'll try to digest the rest of the video at some point, but watching the 1st half felt like eavesdropping on a self-aggrandizing solo lovefest b/w Mr. Papp and Mr. Papp's perception of Mr. Papp. Dude could barely stop his lips long enough to take a sip of water. BTW Joe, the University of Picksburgh does not exactly have a world-class history department, but thanks for sharing.
 
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NashbarShorts said:
Having only watched half the video, all I can say is...WTF?? RR, I hope you charged him big psychiatrist $$, b/c that interview seemed like a session b/w Tony Soprano and Dr. Melfi. You should have interviewed him lying down on the couch.

?

I did not do the interview, Alp did.
 
One of the biggest fools on a bike I've ever raced against...Eric Saunders. Loud mouthed, arrogant, a-wipe. Like another poster said, he loved to tell everyone how much they sucked. Watching him and his team fail race after race (outside of CA) was fun to be a part of.

Sundt was another one...Papp too, though I support what he's doing, if only b/c I hate doping d-bags and those who defend them.
 
A

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I regretfully read this entire thread. By the end, I had to check to make sure I didn't just read a thread on a sewing circle forum. Put the handbags down racer Rick's, your lipstick needs retouching...:rolleyes:
 
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for the record... tim johnson who is known as the nicest guy in bike racing said i was "one of his favorite people"... sorry to have rubbed you the wrong way all those years...
 
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erik saunders said:
for the record... tim johnson who is known as the nicest guy in bike racing said i was "one of his favorite people"...

frankly, I never really trust people who are smiling all of the time. Now I trust him even less...
 
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i am just saying that papp is lame to say with certainty that i was doping and that it pushed him over to the dark side. he could have said that he was frustrated that people he had raced against in juniors were progressing faster than him, or that he was frustrated that he wasnt as strong as some people... its better to say "i felt that i was not good enough, people that i didnt respect were better than me, my ego would not allow this.. so i took drugs".. but i dont think even that wouldnt be true... i think its just a story to tell a story... in the end none of any of his great stories make any sense to me...

on other more personal thing said about me:

i was not very career minded with cycling... my gig was just to rock out and have fun... so the person who said i was not willing to do the needles or the politics was right... after 2 years in france, i singed up to a team that didnt happen, then i figured the life wasnt for me and i quit...

i raced after that because i didint have anything better to do... not because i had any real goals... in fact, after i was in europe in didnt even train very much... those 30hr weeks and 7hr rain ride (one time) were when i would be preparing the season in france... i actually got worse and worse every year...

so whoever talked about sleeping in the garage and being in a van got it a little wrong ... that stuff wasnt a hard time... that stuff was the fun part!... so for me, i got what i wanted out of cycling, i am not feeling like i was robbed of opportunity because of dopers, nor was i out to win anything as a judge of my success- although i did win NRC races a few times...

my thing on the papp interview is that i found it to be disingenuous... so nothing against the film maker... nothing personal against joe in any other way... joe's doping never hurt my experience in the sport... i just have some trouble with his frequently disingenuous and misleading storytelling...

like i said i was just living the life and having fun...

and you know for chuck coyle... i dont care!... chuck is a great guy and he's always treated me like a friend... i have always said that doping doesnt mean you kick puppies or are some kind of ***... and also i said doping doesnt bother me... its more the BS around it... the politics, the two facededness of it from the UCI and others on it...
 
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i know who you are 131313...

old man...

is this like RBR all over again or what?

where is your boy waddel?

my goal was only to talk more **** than him... i tried to go head to head to take his **** talking crown... i dont think i succeeded...
 
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Erik Saunders - "for the record... tim johnson who is known as the nicest guy in bike racing said i was "one of his favorite people""


Oh yah, my next door neighbor from grade school said........

Keep talking Erik. This forum needs more entertainment.
 
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erik saunders said:
where is your boy waddel?

mathis-brothers.gif
 
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erik saunders said:
old man...

is this like RBR all over again or what?

At least I'm not a Pro Master yet. Why just the other day I was thinking "you know, the world really needs a black Thurlow Rogers. Like Dave Osborne, but good!". Best of luck with that...

Funny that the guy who hates you mentioned Sundt, who has easily eclipsed you in the sh!t-talking department. Dude has a Pro Tour mouth. If also talking helped with forward propulsion, he'd actually be fast...
 

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