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should vino be forgiven ?

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should vino be forgiven ?

  • On the fence

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0
Mar 18, 2009
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L'arriviste said:
I'm in the minority here. I think all of them - no exceptions and provided that the case was properly handled - should be banned for life.

Of course, life bans would never work: all of the other factors (UCI, procedures, teams, omerta, money etc etc etc) are misaligned. Plus ça change and all that.

Doesn't change my vote though, sorry :(

I too agree on life bans!! However, since Vino served his suspension, he is allowed back...

The real problem here is it appears that riders are allowed back...but not to win. But you are right...life bans won't ever be in the cards.
 
TRDean said:
I too agree on life bans!! However, since Vino served his suspension, he is allowed back...

The real problem here is it appears that riders are allowed back...but not to win. But you are right...life bans won't ever be in the cards.

I said it elsewhere but the problem lies with me personally. I'm not big enough to accept the return of Vino with equanimity. I suddenly realised, after feeling that I'd wasted the afternoon watching LBL given the result, that I'd been mentally separating the Italian racing calendar (Vino, Ricco, Scarponi, Basso etc) from the stuff I'd been watching on TV (not to suggest that the guys there were all roses). Vino winning LBL seemed to me like an invasion, whatever people here may say about naiveté.

I've come back after 15 years away from cycling and I've read a lot on this forum and it's been educational. Still, I don't know yet if I can continue watching for the rest of the year!

But the OP wants a vote and mine's the vote of an ignorant idealist ;)
 
Sep 25, 2009
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L'arriviste said:
I said it elsewhere but the problem lies with me personally. I'm not big enough to accept the return of Vino with equanimity. I suddenly realised, after feeling that I'd wasted the afternoon watching LBL given the result, that I'd been mentally separating the Italian racing calendar (Vino, Ricco, Scarponi, Basso etc) from the stuff I'd been watching on TV. Vino winning LBL was like an invasion of my myopic, totally naive headspace.

I've come back after 15 years away from cycling and I've read a lot on this forum and I don't know if I can continue watching for the rest of the year!

But the OP wants a vote and mine's the vote of an ignorant idealist ;)
hey, i appreciate your vote though we obviously differ. i see no problems as you obviously are honest and don't insist on vino kissing your feet before you allow graces being poured out of you.

ps. it's off topic, and worthy of a separate discussion, but think of the real deterrence effects of lengthening punishments. seriously, is there a real, tangible, quantifiable evidence that would justify the cruelty of a life long banishment? i'm not against the escalating principle for the repeaters but if we are to address the problem effectively and efficiently, lengthening punishmment for first-time offenders simply is not effective as a deterrent and the observation is firmly supported by multiple evidence.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
If Vino was seeking forgiveness I think he'd get it. But if Vino is asking the cycling world/fans/tifosi/journalists to applaud his win and accept his proclaimation of 'doing it clean' (this time??), well I think he can expect the cat-calls whenever he wins and he's nobody to blame but himself.

Imagine if Basso (insert doper here) had come back to the peloton a year after his suspension and proceeded to ride at a level equal to, or better than, what he was while he was doping... I'm guessing the reaction would be similar.
 
Jul 14, 2009
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the difference between him winning (and he has) with cat calls and him not winning with cat calls will be the mental energy he has spent dealing with the press. If he thought all he had to was win and everything would be pre drug bust....he needs a different spiritual adviser
 
Apr 26, 2010
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So let me get this straight...

The only reason you all guys you think he should ask for forgiveness (and have it or not have it) because he WON? Would it have been better if he didn't?

Am i the only one seeing that there is something wrong here?
________
Marijuana vaporizers
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
fatandfast said:
the difference between him winning (and he has) with cat calls and him not winning with cat calls will be the mental energy he has spent dealing with the press. If he thought all he had to was win and everything would be pre drug bust....he needs a different spiritual adviser

Exactly.

Vino wants everyone to take him at his word. Not gonna happen.
 
May 13, 2009
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python said:
i’m a bit confused if not disappointed (to be honest) with how vino’s victory at liege was received...i know the history and all that.

but I want to sort it out and make it simple - should vino be forgiven for his past sins ?



(mods. i hope the poll stays out of the clinic because my question is about forgiveness )

I usually don't care about these types of threads but this one sticks out by its over the top wording. By using 'forgive' and 'sin' you make it sound very religious, catholic. It doesn't help, it distracts from the issues, it's unhelpful to frame the issue in this context.

Vino cheated, he was caught and banned. The full two years, maximum penalty in fact. He was not forgiven anything, and now, he doesn't need forgiving any more, since his punishment has expired. He's allowed to race, and that's the way it is, everybody should accept this. You don't have to like it, but you have to deal with it, because that's how the system is set up. If you prefer a life ban, that's fine, try to convince the UCI, but you can't apply it ex post facto anyway.

Some people will like seeing Vino race (and win), others don't. Some people think he's clean now, others don't. It's a personal choice. What is not needed is some public moronic spectacle of forgiving sins or whatever other stupid way you might want to frame it. If you like this kind of show, you should watch tapes of Tiger Woods press conferences.
 
Mar 11, 2009
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I don't have a problem with him winning. I'm not a huge fan of his these days, so I'm not cheering with glee that he won LBL, but as others have said he has served his suspension and there shouldn't be any more suspicion about his cleanliness than there is about anyone else's.

I'm not asking for him to beg and grovel and wail and gnash his teeth and rend his clothing either, I just feel that the current way that suspensions go down seems to be dominated by omerta. In the current climate of world cycling a two-year suspension is treated pretty much like some sort of injury that isn't your fault. If you get caught doping, you protest innocence, demand a B-sample test, and then appeal to the CAS. Once that fails, you spend two years on solo training rides and then come right back into the top level of the sport without ever even having to acknowledge that you did anything wrong at all.
 

Dr. Maserati

BANNED
Jun 19, 2009
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L'arriviste said:
I said it elsewhere but the problem lies with me personally. I'm not big enough to accept the return of Vino with equanimity. I suddenly realised, after feeling that I'd wasted the afternoon watching LBL given the result, that I'd been mentally separating the Italian racing calendar (Vino, Ricco, Scarponi, Basso etc) from the stuff I'd been watching on TV (not to suggest that the guys there were all roses). Vino winning LBL seemed to me like an invasion, whatever people here may say about naiveté.

I've come back after 15 years away from cycling and I've read a lot on this forum and it's been educational. Still, I don't know yet if I can continue watching for the rest of the year!

But the OP wants a vote and mine's the vote of an ignorant idealist ;)

Ha - had to laugh at your excellent post, because I had the exact opposite happen to me!

I had watched 'Giro del Dopo' last week and even had a feeling Vino might win LBL and when he did I felt just like you did......

But then i read some posts here on Sunday and realized that Vino's win was a more accurate reflection on how the sport really is rather then having some guy on the podium and him being heralded as a 'clean' winner.
 
python said:
seriously, is there a real, tangible, quantifiable evidence that would justify the cruelty of a life long banishment?

No, python, there isn't and knowing what I've read from you over time, I know you know it too :)

All I can say is I've learned from some of the frighteningly knowledgeable users of this forum that it takes hard work and long preparation to dope well.

In another life, I worked in a criminal law practice and I worked with people who were not dissimilar to some of our friends in lycra. They lived comfortably enough with an inner truth inside a hard shell. They were folks who knew the angles that helped them get on. Didn't matter that it hurt someone.

Now depending on the facts, to get manslaughter instead of murder (another sort of lifetime ban) you need to show that something happened that broke the link between you and total responsibility for your crime. This is called a novus actus interveniens and the bar is set pretty damned high. So a guy who beat somebody and ran away laughing - only for the victim to come around dazed, stagger and fall off a cliff, then die of exposure hours later at the bottom - could still be responsible for murder.

Now turn from that edifying image to cycling. Ignorance in the face of evil doctors was once able to break the chain of responsibility. Or a lack of schooling in basic biology. Then it was contaminated supplements and, ooh, those pesky cortisone creams.

All of these for me are just weak excuses for those who have knowingly harmed their society. When you show off in front of a public that has increasingly few other things in life to enjoy, when you have kids growing up looking to you for examples, when you have the reputations of real-world companies on your jersey to uphold. When, like Vino and many others, you have a family to support and instead you've booked a seat on the express to Fignonville.

No, I'm sorry, I think these people know exactly what they're doing. The intent to harm is there. The society of cycling could and probably should be better than real society because it is theoretically simpler. When I'm watching it with my cheese-on-sticks and a glass of Westmalle Triple, I'm as simple as that and I won't apologise for it. I'm just a small-hearted, small-headed oaf whose Sunday entertainment was spoiled because, for me anyway, a known cheater won. Otherwise I could have suspended disbelief like a movie and I'd spark open another bottle with a smile.
 
Oct 6, 2009
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I'm giving Vino the benefit of the doubt on being as clean as the rest of the peloton. When you consider that Vino's plan is to manage the Astana team after he retires, and continue to develop young Kazakh talent, be a mentor in cycling, etc - when you look at all that and then consider that if he pops positive again he will banned for life by the UCI, there is a lot of incentive for Vino not to dope this time around. Unlike somebody like Tyler Hamilton, Vino has a lot more to lose by a second positive. He has a lot of people employed in that team, riders, staff, mechanics, etc who could be out of a job if he went pos and the sponsor pulled out at the end of the year.

Personally I'm glad Vino is back and winning again. It's far preferable to having his life fall apart like Floyd's did.

Question: is there really that much difference between Vino and the hugely-beloved Jens Voigt? Really? I guess it depends on your opinion of the integrity of the UCI and WADA, and whether you think there are ever political motives behind doping positives (so-called "protected" teams or riders).

Obviously I voted yes on the poll, but I don't think "forgiven" is the correct term for the poll. Not sure exactly how to phrase it myself either.
 
May 13, 2009
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Jamsque said:
without ever even having to acknowledge that you did anything wrong at all.

Because you don't have to. So why should you? It's not part of the punishment. What you want to see is what? A press conference with Vino in tears about his past sins, begging for forgiveness? You just wrote in the exact same paragraph that you don't want that? So what is it?

The omerta is a problem. You can only solve it one way:
1) Dole out higher penalties for dopers who don't give information than for those who do talk.
2) Make sure the peloton accepts those riders back.
The first is simple, the second requires cooperation of the DSs riders and teams. There's the problem. Ask Jaksche. Ask Simeoni.

Then there's the case of riders which aren't accepted back no matter what. Riders like Rasmussen. You should ask why can Vino/Ricco/Basso etc. come back and the Chicken can't? Is it fair? No, of course not. Why can F. Schleck, or Kloden get away with all the incriminating evidence, and why does the PitiValv case drag so much? Is that fair? There's so much going on between the race organizers, the UCI, the national organizations, the teams, the riders etc. than meets the eye. The system is utterly corrupt. That's where you have to start to make cycling fair and eventually clean it up. A public spectacle of Vino in tears about his past infractions is not going to factor in. If that's what you want, though, you should start watching the golf channel.
 
Sep 25, 2009
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Cobblestones said:
I usually don't care about these types of threads but this one sticks out by its over the top wording. By using 'forgive' and 'sin' you make it sound very religious, catholic. It doesn't help, it distracts from the issues, it's unhelpful to frame the issue in this context.

Vino cheated, he was caught and banned. The full two years, maximum penalty in fact. He was not forgiven anything, and now, he doesn't need forgiving any more, since his punishment has expired. He's allowed to race, and that's the way it is, everybody should accept this. You don't have to like it, but you have to deal with it, because that's how the system is set up. If you prefer a life ban, that's fine, try to convince the UCI, but you can't apply it ex post facto anyway.

Some people will like seeing Vino race (and win), others don't. Some people think he's clean now, others don't. It's a personal choice. What is not needed is some public moronic spectacle of forgiving sins or whatever other stupid way you might want to frame it. If you like this kind of show, you should watch tapes of Tiger Woods press conferences.
im neither religious nor catholic. but what i dont need is to be told how to express myself in a post and how to frame a question. if you dont like it, you can take a walk and go pound some sand.

what i find moronic and strange is your instructions on how *everybody should* think.
 
L'arriviste said:
No, python, there isn't and knowing what I've read from you over time, I know you know it too :)

All I can say is I've learned from some of the frighteningly knowledgeable users of this forum that it takes hard work and long preparation to dope well.

In another life, I worked in a criminal law practice and I worked with people who were not dissimilar to some of our friends in lycra. They lived comfortably enough with an inner truth inside a hard shell. They were folks who knew the angles that helped them get on. Didn't matter that it hurt someone.

Now depending on the facts, to get manslaughter instead of murder (another sort of lifetime ban) you need to show that something happened that broke the link between you and total responsibility for your crime. This is called a novus actus interveniens and the bar is set pretty damned high. So a guy who beat somebody and ran away laughing - only for the victim to come around dazed, stagger and fall off a cliff, then die of exposure hours later at the bottom - could still be responsible for murder.

Now turn from that edifying image to cycling. Ignorance in the face of evil doctors was once able to break the chain of responsibility. Or a lack of schooling in basic biology. Then it was contaminated supplements and, ooh, those pesky cortisone creams.

All of these for me are just weak excuses for those who have knowingly harmed their society. When you show off in front of a public that has increasingly few other things in life to enjoy, when you have kids growing up looking to you for examples, when you have the reputations of real-world companies on your jersey to uphold. When, like Vino and many others, you have a family to support and instead you've booked a seat on the express to Fignonville.

No, I'm sorry, I think these people know exactly what they're doing. The intent to harm is there. The society of cycling could and probably should be better than real society because it is theoretically simpler. When I'm watching it with my cheese-on-sticks and a glass of Westmalle Triple, I'm as simple as that and I won't apologise for it. I'm just a small-hearted, small-headed oaf whose Sunday entertainment was spoiled because, for me anyway, a known cheater won. Otherwise I could have suspended disbelief like a movie and I'd spark open another bottle with a smile.

good point, well presented.

for me, if you cheat you should be cast from the sport and spat upon...
unfortunately, we have a peleton that welcomes you back with open arms while spitting on the likes of Simeoni and others that speak out honestly...
 
Archibald said:
for me, if you cheat you should be cast from the sport and spat upon...
unfortunately, we have a peleton that welcomes you back with open arms while spitting on the likes of Simeoni and others that speak out honestly...

Totally, and I think python perhaps could (should?) see Cobblestone's previous comment in this way: if we insist on some sort of forgiveness, would it then become a game of "how good is my forgiveness"? Because we all know who would play that one well... For me, ugly as it may seem, to remove the oxygen of publicity via a lifetime ban would be an option.

But I want to say more broadly here that I also recognise that the sort of absolutism I've been talking about above has a lot in common with some of the world's less savoury governing regimes. So for me, it's a heart versus head thing. I know what I'd like to do with folks like Vino, but I also know that it isn't really practical. Again, it doesn't change my vote, which is from the heart. :p
 
Mar 13, 2009
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Taylor Phinney doesn't forgive him, so his win must be illegitimate, thus making him unforgivable

:rolleyes:
 
L'arriviste said:
I said it elsewhere but the problem lies with me personally. I'm not big enough to accept the return of Vino with equanimity. I suddenly realised, after feeling that I'd wasted the afternoon watching LBL given the result, that I'd been mentally separating the Italian racing calendar (Vino, Ricco, Scarponi, Basso etc) from the stuff I'd been watching on TV (not to suggest that the guys there were all roses). Vino winning LBL seemed to me like an invasion, whatever people here may say about naiveté.

I've come back after 15 years away from cycling and I've read a lot on this forum and it's been educational. Still, I don't know yet if I can continue watching for the rest of the year!

But the OP wants a vote and mine's the vote of an ignorant idealist ;)

What would life bans achieve though?

Vino, Ricco, Scarponi etc wouldn't be racing, but known dopers like Valverde, Armstrong would be. How is cycling richer for that?

Greater sentencing is not an effective measure of prevention - be it for doping, or criminal activities.
 
Ferminal said:
What would life bans achieve though?

Vino, Ricco, Scarponi etc wouldn't be racing, but known dopers like Valverde, Armstrong would be. How is cycling richer for that?

Greater sentencing is not an effective measure of prevention - be it for doping, or criminal activities.

You're absolutely right. :) Which is why I acknowledged earlier that it couldn't actually work. All the other factors, as several other folks have also said (with different votes), would have to be in place and that isn't happening.
 
Mar 18, 2009
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Exactly Ferminal - but this really doesn't seem to be about repentance and forgiveness but simply that Vino is an easy scapegoat. There's more than a little racism in the twittings of mini Phinney and his ilk. I suspect someone like Sean Kelly doesn't witter on about such things - as an old pro he knows the score.
 
L'arriviste said:
You're absolutely right. :) Which is why I acknowledged earlier that it couldn't actually work. All the other factors, as several other folks have also said (with different votes), would have to be in place and that isn't happening.

Sorry, didn't put your posts together.
 
The last thing I want to say for now - and I am surprised at my loquacity on this subject because I usually have nothing useful to add to Clinic debates - is that, despite all my negative feelings towards Vino at LBL, I kind of admire him.

This is something I touched on yesterday elsewhere, but it's along the lines of God loves a b*****d. I find the man oddly sympathetic. He's both a Karamazov brother and a Machiavellian prince, a kind of rascally individual who can sidestep all arguments about sin and redemption (sorry for the religious tones but that's the Western cultural heritage like it or not) because he does not appear to believe in them.

So in his unwillingness to engage in futile gestures, he operates outside of the mainstream moral bubble and seems instead to be totally immune to the very notion of sin. I can't help but admire that, despite myself.
 

flicker

BANNED
Aug 17, 2009
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Vino is an interesting character. He needs to do his job and quit the speeches.

He put his foot so far into his mouth......

Come on man you have been tied to an IV blood bag for years.

Still I got a thing for blond haired, blue eyed asiatics. The guy is so cool yet....

I guess if he stays in the biological passport and doesn't Pos he is as OK as the next rider.

When does Jan come out of deep freeze?