Joe Lindsey's has some good insights in his blog titled "After the Fire."
http://bicycling.com/blogs/boulderreport/2012/10/12/after-the-fire/
…."I am ambivalent toward their statements. What, other than the laudable example of racing clean himself, did George Hincapie do to clean up the sport after 2006? That’s a good story and I would like to hear it..."
…."If we don’t examine the USADA report and apply its lessons to the whole of pro cycling, then we will get the kind of sport we deserve. And in 10 or 20 years, we’ll wring our hands over another damning report and wonder what could’ve been different.
We are better than this..."
…."There is the cliche that the sport is bigger than any one man. The USADA report made clear that the problem wasn’t, however, just one man, but many. And still, the sport is bigger than all of them..."
Some of my own thoughts; I would like to state that the intimidation dealt out by Lance Armstrong is disturbing. His anger at betrayal is understandable. While out and out aggression may have its place under the fair rules of sport and in the turning of the cranks, it is never acceptable anywhere or anytime outside of the rules of sport.
That said, I am also ambivalent about people waging a campaign that protects a gaggle of the guilty and isolates one man as a specific target as does the de facto "plea bargain." It also smacks more of personal aggression and is nothing but false piety spark by what? Personal dislike and jealousy? At someone amassing a fortune out of tainted success, but a success that many on USPS where equally guilty in playing a part of? Why wait ten years to step forward and blow the whistle?
Was Programme here before and up to 1996? Why stop the questioning at what only incriminates Armstrong, Bruyneel and Europe?
VeloNews today has called Spain the "Center of the Underworld" in headline over another USADA report story.
http://velonews.competitor.com/2012...f-operations-in-armstrongs-doping-ring_261622
I never new PEDS were exclusive to Europe. The whole truth and nothing but the truth? I doubt it, but it's nice to keep things offshore like all our economic woes all originate in Europe over worries about Greece and again Spain.
This looks more and more like personal vendetta or payback sparked and jealousy much less than a true quest to clean up the sport. And now write it off as a European problem and forget all about that plea deal. Just tie up the loose ends...
It is the unfortunate nature sport and particularly cycling that a supper star can arise form the efforts of those who are paid far less and gain little for their endeavor. The magnitude of that sets in over time. Armstrong seems to have been unable to understand that it alienated him further and further from his former teammates and co-conspirators as the UCI tried to reign control back in by not granting the favor he obtained.
Coming back into the sport was the undoing and showed that he had lost touch with the reality of the changing tides around him.
But Armstrong is one among a cast characters who knew exactly what it was they were doing, and I am not surprise Armstrong and maybe Floyd Landis will or have paid the heaviest price in the end.
Take that as a class statement form this side of the Alantic.
I hope Joe Lindsey is right about finding closure and rebirth, but things will get out of hand if the finger pointing continues. I doubt Spring will ever look the same again for a long time.
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