JV seems to have forgotten that he did dope, and did lie.
If your career was based on those 2 things, and essentially all your success since has spawned from those, then at least aknowledge that.
When I was about 5 I was rude to my teacher and stuck a tongue out, and **** if I didn't feel guilty about it every single time I saw her from then till I left primary school 5 years later.
JV doesn't seem to have that.
He seems to think anyone who remotely doubts him is in the wrong. As if they have no right to do so.
If you lied and cheated then people have the right to do doubt you. Even if they are all in the wrong and all jerks and all would eat your dog, well
it comes with the territory of having lied and cheated before.
It is every fans individual right to decide if they want to trust JV. And I don't see how anyone can truly be repentant if they consider the people they duped the once to have no right to doubt them the second time.
He's done some things for clean sport, some things to make me believe him, such as coming on here, and allowing Kimmage at the 2010 TDF, and I have defended him, but he doesn't these days even seem to aknowledge his own past these days.
His twitter handle says "I have dedicated my life to anti doping". Really?
If you doped and lied for much of your career, and you now want to help anti doping, then aknowledging that people won't trust you should the starting point. Rule number 1.
As the poem says
"If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too"
That applies doubly so if you lied to them in the first place.
As w-ankmeister cycling blog pointed out in a brilliant article on JV that has unfortunately since been taken down, any honorable action requires a sacrifice. JV doesn't seem to think there is any sacrifice. Or if there is he feels he's paid it, and everyone should welcome him back with open arms.
That's not his decision to make.
In this way he embodies the present attitude of the sport. The belief that doping can be fought without any sacrifice.
Calling Shane Stokes a dunce, using distractions rather than answering actual questions, his hypocrisy regarding ascent times, and worst of all for me keeping absolutely secret Hesjedal's doping history while riding a "clean gt winner" tag on him, then acting not only as if he had done nothing wrong but acting as if the fans should be thankful that Hesjedal confessed - in secret knowing there would be no repercussions
JV instead dismisses anyone who doubts, treats them as the enemy (even if they are in the wrong, you cheated earlier, you deal with it), then continues to behave dishonestly on several occasions such as the above.
If I had doped and cheated earlier I would feel red faced about it for the rest of my life and forever feel like I owe something. Doubly so if I continued to work in cycling.
Luckily for JV, and his general health I suppose, he has a different attitude.
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