There is no way Cancellera is Clean!

[sniper]

Do you follow other sports?
Do you follow the Bundesliga for example?
What's your take on doping in other sports?
Do you believe they are cleaner or do you believe they are dirty, but since they're not testing as much it just doesn't get out?
Do you get my drift?

I'm all aware that cycling has a doping problem and I agree there's a credibility problem as too much has, and still is, being swept under the carpet - but in my opinion other sports are far worse as they are still deep, deep in denial...

I kinda admire the German media for taking a tough stand on doping in cycling - the sport needs tough love. But it's a bit hypocritical that there's no digging into doping in other sports. Cycling is taking a well deserved blame for letting down their riders and fans - but other sports should be scrutinised as well and to the same level. One can only hope that cycling is the beginning and that we in the coming decades will see a similar dismantling of doping in the likes of football etc.

I do get your drift. Hypocricy is all around, no doubt.
I do question other sports as well, and you're right, the testing system (and thereby also the media, who cannot but follow the threads) is quite focussed on professional cycling, apparently much more than on football or tennis.

On the other hand, I don't think it is naive to believe that football and tennis are cleaner than cycling. The reason is that those are sports where you need a complete controll over your muscles. Though I'm not a specialist, I do have the impression (and remember reading) that most of what the cyclists take (e.g. EPO or Clenbuterol) is not beneficial for the average football player, quite on the contrary, since it interferes with (read: disturbs) muscle-control. But I could be wrong, and there could be other doping out there that still very few know of.
So, admittedly, it's naive to say football and tennis are doping-free. Probably not. But as wrotten as cycling? I doubt. (But if I'm proven wrong in the near future, I'll be the first to admit that indeed I was naive)..

 

[sniper]

Don't get me wrong though, I wouldn't be a member of this forum if I didn't love cycling. I do love it, it's epic. Perhaps one reason why I lost some interest in the last couple of years is because the Dutch were doing so bad (I'm Dutch, but living in Germany). Of course, we have Geesink, so if he continues doing well, my interest will definitely rise. I know: I'm a patriotic hypocrit. But hey...who's not?

 

[scribe]

In my case, it's when people don't just win the big events but absolutely crush top-flite opposition again and again that I suspect something. I don't put too much into guilt by association but, he rode for Fasso, he rode for Riis, hey maybe he only intended to dope!

He is crushing top-flight doped-to-the-gills competition. It's a strange world out there. Wouldn't it be great if we knew they were all clean?

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Re: heroic or not

FWIW:
Pushkin's poetic conversation about what makes a heroalmost ends:

"Leave the hero his heart! For what / will he become without it? /a tyrant… "


but I doubt he was thinking about the likes of LA when he penned that poem:

 

[dolophonic]

Great quote.

 

[Darryl Webster]

“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.”

Arthur Ashe (American social Activist and Tennis Player, the first black winner of a major men's singles championship. 1943-1993)

 

[JA.Tri]

AAshe a hero, if we need to apply labels. Perchance I was reading about him just yesterday .

Many of his thoughts are worthy of our (well at least mine ) attention and action.

As for FC, his achievements are glorious in the making and we do need heroes...we just need to remember that we are all human and subject to having feet of clay!

 

[JPM London]

...On the other hand, I don't think it is naive to believe that football and tennis are cleaner than cycling. The reason is that those are sports where you need a complete controll over your muscles. Though I'm not a specialist, I do have the impression (and remember reading) that most of what the cyclists take (e.g. EPO or Clenbuterol) is not beneficial for the average football player, quite on the contrary, since it interferes with (read: disturbs) muscle-control. But I could be wrong, and there could be other doping out there that still very few know of.
So, admittedly, it's naive to say football and tennis are doping-free. Probably not. But as wrotten as cycling? I doubt. (But if I'm proven wrong in the near future, I'll be the first to admit that indeed I was naive)..

That's at least a very common defence, saying that any specific product wouldn't be beneficial for a certain type of athlete. For example at the moment it's said that CB isn't any good for a pro cyclist. And it's also said the testosterone isn't any help at all. You only have to look a little deeper to find out that it's not always about directly affecting your power in competition, but enabling you to train harder and more often out of competition. And that sometimes some drugs turn out to have beneficial side effects that are not described by general science - why? Because it's not researched. Just because the theory of gravity wasn't formulated before Newton doesn't mean it didn't exist.

If you read this: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=10589 you'll see that EPO is efficient dope for sprinters. Not cycling sprinters but the proper track running sprinters. That's not exactly the type of dope most people would normally associate with short distance track and field.

I think it a stretch to believe that football over the course of the late 80s and throughout the nineties (wow, check that time frame. Reminds you of something, doesn't it?) was able to change in speed alone because of better boots and balls - and considering the number of games increased severely over the same period of time it literally screams foul play.

You can always argue that the players (at least in the UK) in the 80s were more hung up on getting to the pub after "work" and that more than one didn't exactly look fit back then, but it's not like the current stars are living a live forsaking all pleasure, is it?

I don't have any links handy, maybe someone else does?, but there was quite an uproar some years back when videos of some Series A players - hooked up to drips and stuff - hit the public fora.

I don't for a second believe EPO wouldn't help a footballer - agreed it won't make him a technically better player, but if he's the only breathing after 89 minutes he's the one who can score the all important last minute goal... It's not like the EPO will make him so stiff he moves like a zombie, but I think he'd find it infinitely easier to do 60 games and endless training with that little extra help. That in addition to hormones etc that would be directly beneficial.

But, like in cycling, they're not all doing it, currently though I fear more are in football et al...

Good luck with the Dutch riders! You deserve a break for a time...

 

[Escarabajo]

Cancellara clean? LMAO. I bet he's been on a program for years. Maybe even before his Fassa Bortolo days.

+1.

IMHO. Ther is no way that this guy is clean. Not even his bike is clean.

 

[mountaindew]

Well for starters, stop making these clowns into your "heroes". They do nothing heroic, they ride bikes for your entertainment. At the end of a race if you can answer "yes" when asked if you were entertained for X hours while you watched they did their job.

Why people make athletes into heroes is beyond me.

exactamundo.

 

[buckwheat]

Situtation in Germany is quite different though. Many people here have lost their appetite for professional cycling, including me. Not that I think they're all criminals, I don't. Just that, don't know, I just lost interest intuitively due to the doping scam, and with me many others here in Germany. Also, many newspapers and TV-stations have stopped covering cycling races. So in the end, the doping definitely damages the sport, in spite of people like you who don't really care. Don't get me wrong, I fully respect that, and also in Germany there are of course still plenty of people crazy about (professional) cycling.

Situation in America. We are no longer part of the reality based world. Be afraid, very afraid.....

Good post btw.

 

[The Hitch]

Well for starters, stop making these clowns into your "heroes". They do nothing heroic, they ride bikes for your entertainment. At the end of a race if you can answer "yes" when asked if you were entertained for X hours while you watched they did their job.

Why people make athletes into heroes is beyond me.

Totaly agree.

I'm a huge fan... but recognized that I was having the same emotional reaction to watching him win that I was having when Lance was working his "magic."

Yeah, his victories are a thing of beauty, but so was watching Pantani, Vandenbroucke, Armstrong and Contador.

I'm tired of false heroes.

Mechanical doping is BS, but...

Can't help but feel he's on a program?

Why?

He's spot on, on target when it matters and spot off otherwise?

Peaking with that precision is suspect?

Plus, purely speculative... he left the Vuelta, unexpectedly. Went Home, for family... showed up in Australia and won his fourth? Conjugal visit? ...or a charm of another sort... the vampire's kiss?

I think Cancellara dopes (because its just too difficult to be at the top of a sport without doping, too big a edge it gives)

One point id like to make regarding Canc is the way he gets dropped in a ttt in quatar then a few weeks later crushes RVV and PR. Kind of like teammate Andy Schleck. It just seems strange to me when there is such a huge difference in cyclists between a peak and non peak form. For the world tt champ to get dropped in a ttt. Now thats special. Like Schleck getting dropped by sprinters in the TOC.

 

[bridgeman]

Totaly agree.



I think Cancellara dopes (because its just too difficult to be at the top of a sport without doping, too big a edge it gives)

One point id like to make regarding Canc is the way he gets dropped in a ttt in quatar then a few weeks later crushes RVV and PR. Kind of like teammate Andy Schleck. It just seems strange to me when there is such a huge difference in cyclists between a peak and non peak form. For the world tt champ to get dropped in a ttt. Now thats special. Like Schleck getting dropped by sprinters in the TOC.

Not defending him but, could be a personal thing. Some, when they know they won't be at their best, will try less than others.

 

[roundabout]

Cancellara won in Oman 1 week later. He was 2nd in the TT there. Hardly out of form unless he had a blood bag flown in in the interim.

 

[The Hitch]

To the hero discussion.

A hero is a doctor who saves lives, a careworker who gives the elderly someone to talk to, a soldier who jumps on a grenade saving the lives of his friends.

An athlete, who does what he does for purely his own self, does not qualify. No athletes qualify.

Besides at the top level of all sports you need to be what they call "competitive". The world view that your own victory is the most important thing in the world.

Its not so much your own victory as the defeat of others. For any athlete, to truly be happy they need someone else to experience defeat. The more bitter their defeat the more sweet the feeling. Ever been around athletes? Even at a junior level every athlete needs this.

Without this you just wouldnt be able to practise sport day after day after day. Without this you wouldnt be able to get up in the morning and hours in the gim followed by hours of endurance training. You wouldnt risk the injuries, hurt the body. And of course, without this world view that victory is the most important thing, you wouldnt take the risks with the Performance drugs.

There is nothing heroic in this world view though, and all athletes have it.

 

[Escarabajo]

...

One point id like to make regarding Canc is the way he gets dropped in a ttt in quatar then a few weeks later crushes RVV and PR. Kind of like teammate Andy Schleck. It just seems strange to me when there is such a huge difference in cyclists between a peak and non peak form. For the world tt champ to get dropped in a ttt. Now thats special. Like Schleck getting dropped by sprinters in the TOC.

Hitch, I think you hit the nail with Cance and Schleck in my criteria book. These are some of reasons why I have them as dopers.

 

[erader]

Wasn't his nickname Mr 60%? No one could catch Riis that year.. Mig never had a chance

i dunno ullrich was hella strong that year too. mig was past his prime and didn't have the conditioning of previous years and retired later that year after his team tried to force him to ride the vuelta (as i recall).

riis was awesome that year but he didn't come out of nowhere.

erader

 

[Anonymous]

...people think Cancellera is a doper...I'm crestfallen. I am not sure how I'll recover from hearing such a patently obvious thing.

 

[hector5950]

Don't listen to hector.


I hope one day you'll get it, you don't know how much you are missing.

What exactly do these guys do that his heroic? Do they run into burning building to save lives? Nope. Do they drop into a firefight to try and save the lives of their buddies knowing that they will most likely be killed? Nope. Do they head for every third-world dump when there is a natural disaster to try and help strangers cope? Nope.

Cyclists are entertainers. Period. There's nothing wrong with being an entertainer, but trying to make them into something bigger and more important than that is stupid.

 

[Derukeman]

Cyclists aren't even entertainers anymore....they've become a tainted freak show and a laughing stock in sporting circles. It's just a matter of time before sponsors will stop putting money into the sport and it will eat itself to death. Who in their right mind wants their product associated with a bunch of dopers? If Contador is allowed to walk the world of cycling and it's so called war on doping will be set back years and puts itself in jeopardy of survival.

 

[The Hitch]

Cyclists aren't even entertainers anymore....they've become a tainted freak show and a laughing stock in sporting circles.

Because other athletes dont dope

I see the logic. If you dont get caught you dont dope, and if your organizing body can make sure you only get tested once or twice a year, than that just means your a very clean athlete who will never test positive

 

[Altitude]

Cyclists aren't even entertainers anymore....they've become a tainted freak show and a laughing stock in sporting circles. It's just a matter of time before sponsors will stop putting money into the sport and it will eat itself to death. Who in their right mind wants their product associated with a bunch of dopers? If Contador is allowed to walk the world of cycling and it's so called war on doping will be set back years and puts itself in jeopardy of survival.

Why are you on a cycling forum?

 

[Chuffy]

Why are you on a cycling forum?

Beat me to it. Why bother posting?

 

[whocares]

I'm a huge fan... but recognized that I was having the same emotional reaction to watching him win that I was having when Lance was working his "magic."

Yeah, his victories are a thing of beauty, but so was watching Pantani, Vandenbroucke, Armstrong and Contador.

I'm tired of false heroes.

Mechanical doping is BS, but...

Can't help but feel he's on a program?

Why?

He's spot on, on target when it matters and spot off otherwise?

Peaking with that precision is suspect?

Plus, purely speculative... he left the Vuelta, unexpectedly. Went Home, for family... showed up in Australia and won his fourth? Conjugal visit? ...or a charm of another sort... the vampire's kiss?

FYI...there is no way that any of the top riders are clean. Trust logic over emotion and you will come to this conclusion.

 

[Chuffy]

FYI...there is no way that any of the top riders are clean. Trust logic over emotion and you will come to this conclusion.

Yup, simply assume that they're all doping and you need never think again!