Benotti69 said:
i think Roche Jnr eyes were very much open as a junior growing up and racing in France and having a father who was named in an Italian court as a client of Conconi. Whereas Kimmage raced in in Ireland as a junior. A massive difference.
We agree [hence a pre-emptive: granted, a different scale].
Kimmage had not secured himself a new role, he had no formal training to be a writer or journalist and has a qualification in a trade(plumber) and in the 80's Ireland that was no guarantee of a job
I didn't say job, I said role. He stopped being a cyclist and became something else. The key point is that he stepped up to the plate after changing roles. If you want to nit-pick about securing, you can have that one.
I think there is a massive difference between what was being taken then and what is being used now.
We totally agree.
Also there is now a great opportunity for riders to change the omerta. we all know about it, it written about daily in the papers, they are shooting their lively hoods in the foot if they continue on the route they are going, so why not demand that they take their sport in their own hands and demand it be cleaned up?
This is where facts become speculation though. We assume it will play out that way. You won't be able to guarantee that to the mugger who steps up to the plate. It is likely/possible/one-way-it-could-go. There are alternative outcomes still in play.
Still, we assess the potential the same way, I think. I have made this point very, at length, as usual, on many occasions. I think, now more than ever, a small group of individuals can make a change.
But at a cost to themselves even if they get their way. Still. Not to mention what would happen if it backfires.
I think at the time he was advised by season journalists, but if you think about, he could have named lots of people, but maybe he wanted to give them the opportunity to say it has to stop. the book was written the riders could have said, now people think we dope lets prove we dont.
Or he could only name the people he knew well, possibly cared about in one-way-or-another, but realising full well he would be unable to make it stick to folk he suspected to be equally guilty, but who he couldn't prove anything against.
I think not naming the close ones was an internal compromise, wanting to tell the story, but not wanting to drag the select few, who he had complex relations with, down with him, guaranteed. Life ain't black and white. people have conflicting loyalties, interests and motivations all over the place.
Kimmage will know why he didn't, at the time. But in the end, he didn't and he could have. I am sure he was asked. If he wants to be his own judge what is apt, fair and effective, and what isn't, others can be their own too.
Not so much an argument against Kimmage, but mostly against those that say that because Kimmage did [x] then, riders now should do [x] too. Kimmage never did [x]
whilst being the rider.
I dont think wasp is an apt analogy.
I care about what I write, but not that much. Just ignore the words and try to hear what I am saying. A wasp is a small thing that be a annoyance to something well above its size, and will persist until it gets its way (the big thing moves out of the way). Or it is a small thing that can deliver a big sting. Both appear to apply to Kimmage to me.
I dont see it as Kimmage and Roche are similar. kimmage was a domestique who refused to dope(in 1987 when he used amphetamines three times in one month for three criteriums. ). Roche is a team leader who has had some very goood results in GTs. He is also using a McQuaid as his agent.
I will leave it totally in the middle who uses what to what extent. I have opinions, but I don't know, and I certainly have no proof.
For me the similarity is this: they were/are both cyclists, picked the profession to make a living to the best of their ability. Both operate in the environment they found when they arrived at the scene. They are different playgrounds, for sure. In the end, both are people, humans
who make decisions that make most sense seen from the situation you are in, not based on outsiders reading of it.
As far as I can tell both are driven mostly by the desire to make a living in cycling. I can prove little about the other calls they make, getting there, and whilst being there, beyond what is in the public domain, I do make guesstimations.
But, whichever way you flip it, Roche is still on the merry-go-round. Kimmage opened the book "on his own" after he quit (in disgust and/or disappointed).
I leave it aside what Roche internal motivation or attitude towards dope in the sport is. Roche, right now, is sitting in a much tougher spot to operate from, then Kimmage had when he opened the book.
I am not talking about how the rest of the world will react. It is what happens on the inside, once a rider swims against a stream, that affects all riders who have to make that call, as direct as it comes.
I bet that most riders in the peleton are pragmatists. Some natural cheats too. But most: not good, not bad. Just getting on with being a cyclist, earning a living, taking care of their own family.
Kimmage was was not given a chance to expand his thoughts in the interview. He was asked about Contador and he also took the opportunity to called out a rider whom he probably knows a lot more about them we do.
I know. I have no problem with Kimmage saying good riddance to anyone, informed or not. What I have a problem with is people on the outside telling what
other people on the inside
should do, when we are still talking about people making a living for them and their families. It is easy to be a sofa general and move pawns across a board when it ain't your family's next meal or kid's education or whatever, that is at stake.
Should and could. Big difference.
I keep saying, I applaud those that swim against the stream. BUT I don't condemn those that don't. what I do I condemn: those that condemn those that don't, from their comfortable and pain-less "if they don't they are the problem" spots.
I think we are forgetting Kimmage's view is that the sport has to be cleaned up starting with the riders demanding it, demanding the uci get its act together etc....
I never lost sight of that. Who did?
I am the same. Why are riders still silent? I also think it speaks volumes about something. But, at the same time, I believe it isn't for me to decide what they should do instead, or worse,
blame them for not doing so.
I just have some reservations about the way some people seized upon Kimmage as a way to target riders, without accepting that it ain't black and white, and that Kimmage is no black and white guy either. Certainly not then, as a rider.
To be honest, right now, I think (the vast majority of) individual riders still can't force the issue. The bigger the group, the bigger the chance, sure. But we hope to much, I fear, if we think enough riders
really care that much.
That might change when their job is becoming more tricky to perform or when the outside leans in a bit tougher. When their income is put under pressure. I can't see where the critical mass would come from, right now. Which leaves individuals with less options than you'd wish they had.
For me it still has to start with a genuine crack in the system, first. Still. Even after "all this".
There was a time when I thought, surely this must change, riders won't accept it. something is too obviously wrong and heading in one direction only.
In the early 80s. I have had plenty of "surely now" moments too.
Contador guilty? Unless something else happens, this will not bring anything down. "We" didn't really care about Contador to start with.
We'll need to see genuine proof that it isn't a string of cheaters, initiatives by individuals or small groups that try to defraud the lot, but that it is pretty much unavoidable. Corruption that spans the system. Not the just riders bit.
Once again I have a glimmer of hope. Maybe, for the first time, someone has the ability and authority, to expose crucial bits of the puzzle. I hope it puts proof on the table that undermines the UCI, or at least a UCI circle. Proof that testing is laughably ad-hoc and inadequate. Even if it probably will only be a sideshow and circumstantial to the actual case the Feds are hoping to prosecute. Hopefully it will show more than "just what they are after". If that doesn't happen.....I don't even wanna consider that.
If it happens, that's the crack that few individuals could seize upon, and what would finally allow them to kick well above their weight.
Interesting times ahead, I guess.
You do get that what I write is less about Kimmage, and more about the riders currently riding, like Roche? I have nothing against Kimmage, I think he has a bit-role to play too, if he wants it. And at least he has a role opportunity, I don't.