Taking away Pantani's 1998 TdF win?

[IndianCyclist]

And Fignon, Anquetil, Kelly, Indurain, the list goes on and on (and on).

You can't just deny that things ever happened.

98% of the riders were doped. The doped riders mostly won against other doped riders barring a few. If eliminated, you probably wont be able to fill even the podium places

 

[42x16ss]

98% of the riders were doped. The doped riders mostly won against other doped riders barring a few. If eliminated, you probably wont be able to fill even the podium places

That's it, we've all been burned more times than we care to admit. We can go back through the annals of the sport and dissect every single winning performance for the last 120+ years, or we can learn from the past, adapt and apply the lessons learned now.

Why waste time and energy scorning and shaming the sports past when there is still plenty to be done here and now, with known/blatant dopers still dominating and running the sport.

 

[rhubroma]

We don't need to figure any deadlines out. We already have them: eight years, as a standard. Personally I don't think Pantani being dead should matter one bit - it's not cycling's job to right the wrongs of the world.

Though it isn't cycling's job to contribute to them either, by further defaming one who it already drove into the grave. Everybody with even a modicum of reason knows the truth about every tour winner in the nineties. Let it stand, because in prodding this one cycling is spiting the dead after it already used and abused Pantani while he was still alive.

Cycling has so many skeletons in its closet that it would be utterly repulsive for the sport, today, in the name of putting its own house in order, to pursue this particular case to this end; especially because it already shares in some of the responsibility for the Pantani debacle and the consequent American's apotheosis. The pecuniary gains cycling got from having Armstrong at the top, but not Pantani, and the means with which it ruthlessly took advantage of LA’s marketing potential, while Pantani slipped down the slope of auto-destruction, means that today the sport should only be ashamed and certainly not contemplating inflicting further damage on the Italian’s already destroyed image.

I'm the last one to advocate hypocrisy, but there is a measure of decency and humility toward the dead (dei morti parola bene) and their family that needs to be respected.

 

[IndianCyclist]

That's it, we've all been burned more times than we care to admit. We can go back through the annals of the sport and dissect every single winning performance for the last 120+ years, or we can learn from the past, adapt and apply the lessons learned now.

Why waste time and energy scorning and shaming the sports past when there is still plenty to be done here and now, with known/blatant dopers still dominating and running the sport.

Perfect.
Concentrate on the present & future rather than dwell on the past as the past cannot be changed.

 

[Alphabet]

Sad that next years Giro is going to have stages dedicated to the doper

Next year's Giro is going to have stages dedicated to a man who was extremely popular among Italian fans and suffered a tragic, untimely death. Quibbling over doping, in the face of something that is so profound, is meaningless. You need to get some perspective- it isn't sad at all that next year's Giro is going to have stages dedicated to 'the doper'. What is sad is that 'the doper' died alone and presumably high, aged just 34, completely alienated from humanity. That's a horrible way to go out, and certainly, cycling bears some (if not most) of the responsibility for his death.

 

[D-Queued]

Next year's Giro is going to have stages dedicated to a man who was extremely popular among Italian fans and suffered a tragic, untimely death. Quibbling over doping, in the face of something that is so profound, is meaningless. You need to get some perspective- it isn't sad at all that next year's Giro is going to have stages dedicated to 'the doper'. What is sad is that 'the doper' died alone and presumably high, aged just 34, completely alienated from humanity. That's a horrible way to go out, and certainly,cycling bears some (if not most) of the responsibility for his death.

So if I am part of cycling, I bear some responsibility for Pantani's drug problems?

#not

That is a truly bizarre rationalization. Can I suggest that you (!) need to get some perspective!

Dave.

 

[Benotti69]

Next year's Giro is going to have stages dedicated to a man who was extremely popular among Italian fans and suffered a tragic, untimely death. Quibbling over doping, in the face of something that is so profound, is meaningless. You need to get some perspective- it isn't sad at all that next year's Giro is going to have stages dedicated to 'the doper'. What is sad is that 'the doper' died alone and presumably high, aged just 34, completely alienated from humanity. That's a horrible way to go out, and certainly, cycling bears some (if not most) of the responsibility for his death.

Is Pantani not to blame for his choices? I think he is.

Others were offered the same as Pantani and refused it, others moderated their doping. Pantani got greedy and went OTT.

 

[IndianCyclist]

So if I am part of cycling, I bear some responsibility for Pantani's drug problems?

#not

That is a truly bizarre rationalization. Can I suggest that you (!) need to get some perspective!

Dave.

I think he means cycling Administration which did nothing to deter doping and the riders themselves competed between themselves to win at all costs.

 

[ChrisE]

Though it isn't cycling's job to contribute to them either, by further defaming one who it already drove into the grave. Everybody with even a modicum of reason knows the truth about every tour winner in the nineties. Let it stand, because in prodding this one cycling is spiting the dead after it already used and abused Pantani while he was still alive.

Cycling has so many skeletons in its closet that it would be utterly repulsive for the sport, today, in the name of putting its own house in order, to pursue this particular case to this end; especially because it already shares in some of the responsibility for the Pantani debacle and the consequent American's apotheosis. The pecuniary gains cycling got from having Armstrong at the top, but not Pantani, and the means with which it ruthlessly took advantage of LA’s marketing potential, while Pantani slipped down the slope of auto-destruction, means that today the sport should only be ashamed and certainly not contemplating inflicting further damage on the Italian’s already destroyed image.

I'm the last one to advocate hypocrisy, but there is a measure of decency and humility toward the dead (dei morti parola bene) and their family that needs to be respected.

Leave it to Rhubarb to whip out the victim card. Yes, Pantani was "used and abused"....I mean those mean people just made him put PED's in his system and OD, or choose to go into cycling altogether.

The good thing is some entity the GIRO is righting the wrong of the individual's choices, err I mean victimhood, by naming a bunch of MTF's for him. So at least we have that right, rhubarb?

 

[rhubroma]

Leave it to Rhubarb to whip out the victim card. Yes, Pantani was "used and abused"....I mean those mean people just made him put PED's in his system and OD, or choose to go into cycling altogether.

The good thing is some entity the GIRO is righting the wrong of the individual's choices, err I mean victimhood, by naming a bunch of MTF's for him. So at least we have that right, rhubarb?

Pantani was a victim, first and foremost, of his own self, though the system then dominant in the cycling regime (which I doubt has changed very much to this day) used and abused the Italian in the most callous and hypocritical of ways.

Personally I find it therefore a bit repugnant that that same system wants today, years after Pantani's involuntary suicide, to inflict further punishment. The Giro, on the other hand, isn’t doing cycling a service by dedicating the race to Pantani next year. So once again Pantani is being used and abused in the most appalling of ways and I have to take in this drivel of your post. Talk about ***.

The whole affair is rather sordid. I say let the dead rest in peace.

 

[42x16ss]

Pantani was a victim, first and foremost, of his own self, though the system then dominant in the cycling regime (which I doubt has changed very much to this day) used and abused the Italian in the most callous and hypocritical of ways.

Personally I find it therefore a bit repugnant that that same system wants today, years after Pantani's involuntary suicide, to inflict further punishment. The Giro, on the other hand, isn’t doing cycling a service by dedicating the race to Pantani next year. So once again Pantani is being used and abused in the most appalling of ways and I have to take in this drivel of your post. Talk about ***.

The whole affair is rather sordid. I say let the dead rest in peace.

Bingo. Pantani, (like VDB) was placed on a pinnacle with cycling's administration knowing full well how he got there and what his competitors were also doing. Then they dragged his name through the mud, again knowing full well that he was doing nothing that his competitors wasn't. Now the same administrations are dedicating races to his honour.

If they want us to believe that cycling is truly turning a corner stop dedicating races and stages to their memories while looking to see if it's possible to strip their wins from the record books. Look back at riders such as Pantani, VDB and Jimenez as reminders of why doping needs to be truly stopped, don't let them be forgotten by stripping their results and don't place them on pedestals by dedicating everything possible to their memories.

Let them serve as a warning and rest in peace.

 

[Benotti69]

Pantani was a victim, first and foremost, of his own self, though the system then dominant in the cycling regime (which I doubt has changed very much to this day) used and abused the Italian in the most callous and hypocritical of ways.

Personally I find it therefore a bit repugnant that that same system wants today, years after Pantani's involuntary suicide, to inflict further punishment. The Giro, on the other hand, isn’t doing cycling a service by dedicating the race to Pantani next year. So once again Pantani is being used and abused in the most appalling of ways and I have to take in this drivel of your post. Talk about ***.

The whole affair is rather sordid. I say let the dead rest in peace.

Yes let the dead rest in peace but to ressurect a rider who made some very bad choices in his life to a hero is wrong.

 

[darwin553]

Yes let the dead rest in peace but to ressurect a rider who made some very bad choices in his life to a hero is wrong.

I can't agree more. His life shouldn't be celebrated like what will happen at next year's giro.

 

[ChrisE]

Pantani was a victim, first and foremost, of his own self, though the system then dominant in the cycling regime (which I doubt has changed very much to this day) used and abused the Italian in the most callous and hypocritical of ways.

Personally I find it therefore a bit repugnant that that same system wants today, years after Pantani's involuntary suicide, to inflict further punishment.
The Giro, on the other hand, isn’t doing cycling a service by dedicating the
race to Pantani next year. So once again Pantani is being used and abused in the most appalling of ways and I have to take in this drivel of your post. Talk about ***.

The whole affair is rather sordid. I say let the dead rest in peace.

You called me ***. Nice, that's the old rhubarb I miss.

What 'system' is inflicting further punishment? This is just a thread on a cycling forum....is there a formal movement to remove his name from the record books?

Instead of all this static and noise you tend to post, why don't you just cut to the chase. Explain what you mean by this:

...though the system then dominant in the cycling regime (which I doubt has changed very much to this day) used and abused the Italian in the most callous and hypocritical of ways.

Then we can go from there with perhaps some constructive banter, ok?

 

[rhubroma]

You called me ***. Nice, that's the old rhubarb I miss.

What 'system' is inflicting further punishment? This is just a thread on a cycling forum....is there a formal movement to remove his name from the record books?

Instead of all this static and noise you tend to post, why don't you just cut to the chase. Explain what you mean by this:



Then we can go from there with perhaps some constructive banter, ok?

This thread began in response to the French revelations, during the Tour if my memory serves me correctly, regarding the retested 98 Tour blood samples, which found Pantani to have been positive among many others tested. The question came up at the time whether or not to remove the Italian's victory, which to many smacked of a vendetta against one who is already in the grave. Now because of the way in which Pantani's troubled life ended and the dramatic relationship he had with the sport, they could not help but wondering why it was necessary for the French to retest that particular Tour, when everybody already knew all the facts about how cycling was played in those years.

Initially the UCI contemplated redacting the results of that Tour, but then thought better of it having realized that many fans are still compelled by the legend of Pantani, and secondly because the Italian's mom threatened a tell all indictment against the governing body of cycling to the press if her son was stripped of his Tour. Who knows what she was on about? Many though suspected, here at least, that there was some malevolence within the cycling hierarchy behind the Italian's demise. Many feel that having lost his "protector" due to his death (whose name frankly I don't recall at the moment), Pantani's disgrace at the Giro was a foregone conclusion: that of a champion cycling wanted to replace. We all know who the replacement was.

Whatever the case, given the omertà, the corruption, the complicity and the ruthless means by which cycling capitalized on the next rising star, while the fallen Pantani slipped further down the slope of auto-destruction, means that digging up the old dirt of one who is already six feet underground in the interest of setting cycling’s own house in order today appears totally insensitive and hypocritical. Though everyone has his own conscience to follow, while I say, again, let the dead rest in peace.

 

[Taxus4a]

I think Pantani, who was my idol as for a lot of people, was a big doper, he increase a lot with EPo his performance, more than others, he got controls at 41,5 and at 56 in just two months. But anyway he was more than a doper.

It was fair that Tour for him? I dont think so. Considering dopers and the few no dopers, maybe someone deserves more than him.

But all that has no sense. He won that Tour, in that era, with that controls, and we could choose put without winner all that Tours, or let him go putting an asterisk in all that Tours with the evidence of most people doped, and doped with Epo and transfusions, among other things, not a soft doping