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this sport has been crucified by LA !!

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martinvickers

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RobbieCanuck said:
Masserati you fail to understand that the Armstrong case has become the poster child case for all that is wrong with cycling. Sure we know there are a plethora of problems with the UCI, with other prominent riders who doped, with owners who want fame and notoriety and are willing to turn a blind eye, and support staff who facilitate the doping.

But outside of Operacion Puerto, the LA scandal is the prototype doping scheme and the one getting all of the attention. It is the largest fraud in sporting history.

For those reasons and because LA continues to arrogantly prevaricate in being truthful it and because LA was the poster child of cycling, his scandal has brought matters to a head. Cycling is in a huge mess, and has been for some time. It will probably be kicked out of the Olympics (Pat would lose his seat on the IOC and all the perks that go with it, which his a good thing)

But the one thing Shades 1 is correct about is his statement,

"i think what LA has done has damaged this sport beyond repair and it will take a lot of years of totally clean racing before any rider will ever get to win again without being under suspicion."

There are a lot of cyclists who agree with this statement including Wiggins. I think your optimism is not well founded. I suspect it will take at least 10 to 20
years of "squeaky clean" before cycing can ever hope to establish itself as a legitimate sport.

Look up from the cycling. For a moment, follow me, please.

Look at athletics. Big Ben didn't sink it. BALCO and THG didn't sink it. Montgomery and Jones didn't sink it. You think 7 'vacant' tours look bad - try 'vacant' olympic golds.

Hell, GDR turning a woman into a man didn't sink it.

Look at weightlifting. Riddled, top to bottom. and yet, it continues, and the Olympic let it stay. IOC won't kick out cycling; not a chance, no matter what Pound says.

The only people who can save cycling are people who already care about cycling - no white knight is coming. in 98' the sport had an opportunity to change - and it had HV and Armstrong come along and screw it to the wall.

This is another chance - no more than that, no less. And if the highly public and embarrassing nature of LA's fall from grace is what's necessary to save it, so be it.
 
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RobbieCanuck:

Libertine Seguros & plenty of others on here are so convinced of Pro-cyclings invulnerability & resilience that notwithstanding the LA debacle, they believe even if the present TDF winner was stripped of the title for doping tomorrow, the sport would be just fine, a little wobbly, but not really affected too badly.
 
RobbieCanuck said:
I suspect it will take at least 10 to 20
years of "squeaky clean" before cycing can ever hope to establish itself as a legitimate sport.

Legitimate sport.

Now this is the only thing which may be debatable after the LA circus.

Because judging from the turnout at San Luis and TdU it would appear spectators and "fans" couldn't care less about Armstrong. I predict pretty strong support for the sport once we hit the European continent too.

Otherwise I agree with MV, the LA case is an opportunity to fast track the clean up process. If we fail to clean up the sport in a meaningful way this time, we simply need to wait for the next scandal. Wiggins? Bring it on.
 
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RobbieCanuck said:
Masserati you fail to understand that the Armstrong case has become the poster child case for all that is wrong with cycling. Sure we know there are a plethora of problems with the UCI, with other prominent riders who doped, with owners who want fame and notoriety and are willing to turn a blind eye, and support staff who facilitate the doping.

But outside of Operacion Puerto, the LA scandal is the prototype doping scheme and the one getting all of the attention. It is the largest fraud in sporting history.

For those reasons and because LA continues to arrogantly prevaricate in being truthful it and because LA was the poster child of cycling, his scandal has brought matters to a head. Cycling is in a huge mess, and has been for some time. It will probably be kicked out of the Olympics (Pat would lose his seat on the IOC and all the perks that go with it, which his a good thing)

But the one thing Shades 1 is correct about is his statement,

"i think what LA has done has damaged this sport beyond repair and it will take a lot of years of totally clean racing before any rider will ever get to win again without being under suspicion."

There are a lot of cyclists who agree with this statement including Wiggins. I think your optimism is not well founded. I suspect it will take at least 10 to 20
years of "squeaky clean" before cycing can ever hope to establish itself as a legitimate sport.

Robbie, if you can get axel Merckx out of Okanagon Grand Fondo, youth cycling in Canada and Director of Bontrager cycling team... I will to try to get Phil Liggett out of the first grand Fondo in Ontario.

those 2 were/are apart of the on-going lie!
 

Dr. Maserati

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RobbieCanuck said:
Masserati you fail to understand that the Armstrong case has become the poster child case for all that is wrong with cycling. Sure we know there are a plethora of problems with the UCI, with other prominent riders who doped, with owners who want fame and notoriety and are willing to turn a blind eye, and support staff who facilitate the doping.

But outside of Operacion Puerto, the LA scandal is the prototype doping scheme and the one getting all of the attention. It is the largest fraud in sporting history.

For those reasons and because LA continues to arrogantly prevaricate in being truthful it and because LA was the poster child of cycling, his scandal has brought matters to a head. Cycling is in a huge mess, and has been for some time. It will probably be kicked out of the Olympics (Pat would lose his seat on the IOC and all the perks that go with it, which his a good thing)
Um, I agree with all you wrote, so I am not sure how you think I don't understand.
But everything you have highlighted is not new - indeed you call it the posterchild, which again I agree with.

RobbieCanuck said:
But the one thing Shades 1 is correct about is his statement,

"i think what LA has done has damaged this sport beyond repair and it will take a lot of years of totally clean racing before any rider will ever get to win again without being under suspicion."
This highlights that the OP has spent little time considering this - if its beyond then its beyond repair, there can be no if ands or buts.


RobbieCanuck said:
There are a lot of cyclists who agree with this statement including Wiggins. I think your optimism is not well founded. I suspect it will take at least 10 to 20
years of "squeaky clean" before cycing can ever hope to establish itself as a legitimate sport.
Lets look at it this way - if LAs deceit & fraud had not been exposed then the happy circus would continue unchanged with the same rulers waiting on a new golden boy.

Exposing that deceit and corruption is the best thing to happen - even though it is painful.
The quickest way to restore credibility is to remove some from the top of the UCI, separate the testing, and have a proactive anti-doping group.
Because LA has been exposed and the level of corruption is starting to be shown now there is finally support to tackle this scourge.
 

Dr. Maserati

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Grandillusion said:
RobbieCanuck:

Libertine Seguros & plenty of others on here are so convinced of Pro-cyclings invulnerability & resilience that notwithstanding the LA debacle, they believe even if the present TDF winner was stripped of the title for doping tomorrow, the sport would be just fine, a little wobbly, but not really affected too badly.

Nice attempt at misstating what I & LS said - so let me correct you.

The reason why it wont be effected "too badly' is because the Pro side of the sport has been at rock bottom for some time now.
LA is to the outside world the biggest scandal in Pro cycling (maybe even Pro sport) - yet there are 2 races on right now, the Tour will go on and celebrate its 100 edition this year.
 
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Dr. Maserati said:
Nice attempt at misstating what I & LS said - so let me correct you.

The reason why it wont be effected "too badly' is because the Pro side of the sport has been at rock bottom for some time now.
LA is to the outside world the biggest scandal in Pro cycling (maybe even Pro sport) - yet there are 2 races on right now, the Tour will go on and celebrate its 100 edition this year.

I wasn't trying to misstate Dr, and I don't think I did either.

I had a post deleted the other day by Susan which expressed extreme bafflement and bemusement at Ryo Hazuki's response to your post - enthusiastic descriptions of races which I argued (in support of your contention) were the very definition of "rock bottom". I agree with that assessment of yours!

And as I said to Libertine Seguros, there is something going on now, but nobody can be sure they are really races can they? See the latest Blanco revelation from down under?

And it is Affected by the way :)

Cheers.
 
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Dr. Maserati said:
....
The quickest way to restore credibility is to remove some from the top of the UCI, separate the testing, and have a proactive anti-doping group.
Because LA has been exposed and the level of corruption is starting to be shown now there is finally support to tackle this scourge.

Quite right.

I'm not sure if it is within the auspices of the UCIIC to 'clean house' but if it were, and we just stuck with N.Amer for now, that very cleaning (which I support) would clean out a few pro team management levels (BMC-Jim.O, Garmin, Andreu-unfortunately...
 
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Dazed and Confused said:
But have you just recently started to question results?

Look, I'm just an interested observer who had a peripheral "romantic" interest in the sport.... loved the stories of suffering & pain etc. It's just an amazingly interesting story & I'm as entitled as anyone else to chip in, I really don't mean to be an annoying git, although I obviously sense I am being :)
 
The end of kayfabe didn't kill wrestling, because people still watched it for entertainment.

As long as cycling continues to be entertaining (which has been becoming less and less the case thanks to negative racing and poor course design admittedly), there will be at least some people who will suspend disbelief to watch it.

The sport's had a big boom period over the last 15 years, and broken into a lot of new markets. If it loses those markets, it will still be able to survive, just on a lower level. The real threat is the UCI pricing sponsors in places like France out of the market in favour of big moneyspinning corporate teams in new markets, because they're the ones who are most likely to pull out when the scandals happen. Who are the sport's longest-running sponsors? Lampre, Lotto, FDJ, Cofidis, Euskaltel. Sponsors in the old cycling markets, the ones that will likely withstand any tumult.

If Wiggins tested positive the sport would not continue on the same level. British cycling would probably be decimated. But a British guy who only became good 3 years ago on the road, riding for a team that has only been around 3 years, testing positive is not going to erase 100 years of love for the sport in Belgium, France or Italy.
 
Grandillusion said:
Look, I'm just an interested observer who had a peripheral "romantic" interest in the sport.... loved the stories of suffering & pain etc. It's just an amazingly interesting story & I'm as entitled as anyone else to chip in, I really don't mean to be an annoying git, although I obviously sense I am being :)

Not annoying and your view is welcome (at least from my side). I would argue that most core fans have questioned results for quite a few years. As for TdU performances, well they all looked pretty natural.
 
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Dazed and Confused said:
Not annoying and your view is welcome (at least from my side). I would argue that most core fans have questioned results for quite a few years. As for TdU performances, well they all looked pretty natural.

Cheers - yep I know most serious cycling fans (as opposed to fanbois) are frustrated, wary and disappointed these days. I feel for them, it must be so deeply annoying.

Great to hear the TDU is looking good - not meaning to be disparaging referencing today's news.
 
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Libertine Seguros said:
The end of kayfabe didn't kill wrestling, because people still watched it for entertainment.

As long as cycling continues to be entertaining (which has been becoming less and less the case thanks to negative racing and poor course design admittedly), there will be at least some people who will suspend disbelief to watch it.

The sport's had a big boom period over the last 15 years, and broken into a lot of new markets. If it loses those markets, it will still be able to survive, just on a lower level. The real threat is the UCI pricing sponsors in places like France out of the market in favour of big moneyspinning corporate teams in new markets, because they're the ones who are most likely to pull out when the scandals happen. Who are the sport's longest-running sponsors? Lampre, Lotto, FDJ, Cofidis, Euskaltel. Sponsors in the old cycling markets, the ones that will likely withstand any tumult.

If Wiggins tested positive the sport would not continue on the same level. British cycling would probably be decimated. But a British guy who only became good 3 years ago on the road, riding for a team that has only been around 3 years, testing positive is not going to erase 100 years of love for the sport in Belgium, France or Italy.

I know we've been over this already LS, but I still can't help but feel that you're missing the point. It's the (hypothetical) fact that it's the TdF winner being stripped...again... months after this horrifically damaging scandal. Not the fact that it's Wiggins, a Brit, or Sky. That's irrelevant. It's the TdF winner!

Still can't help feeling you're wildly underestimating the potential damage. Anyway, vaguely off-topic really so I'll drop it.
 
Grandillusion said:
I know we've been over this already LS, but I still can't help but feel that you're missing the point. It's the (hypothetical) fact that it's the TdF winner being stripped...again... months after this horrifically damaging scandal. Not the fact that it's Wiggins, a Brit, or Sky. That's irrelevant. It's the TdF winner!

Still can't help feeling you're wildly underestimating the potential damage. Anyway, vaguely off-topic really so I'll drop it.

Just recently:

Puerto scandal stops two TdF GC favorites just before race start in 2006 (Ullrich and Basso). The following year Rasmussen gets yanked from the TdF wearing yellow deep in the race.

Pretty resilient business, just check ASO's numbers.
 
Grandillusion said:
I know we've been over this already LS, but I still can't help but feel that you're missing the point. It's the (hypothetical) fact that it's the TdF winner being stripped...again... months after this horrifically damaging scandal. Not the fact that it's Wiggins, a Brit, or Sky. That's irrelevant. It's the TdF winner!

Still can't help feeling you're wildly underestimating the potential damage. Anyway, vaguely off-topic really so I'll drop it.

I think you're overselling how all-pervading the Tour de France is in Belgium or Italy, and how weak the position of the Tour de France is within France itself.
 
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Dazed and Confused said:
Just recently:

Puerto scandal stops two TdF GC favorites just before race start in 2006 (Ullrich and Basso). The following year Rasmussen gets yanked from the TdF wearing yellow deep in the race.

Pretty resilient business, just check ASO's numbers.

Yep I don't doubt its resilience D&C, but I do question the limits of that resilience. I know it's a silly hypothetical argument, but my point is a simple one - that the scale of this LA scandal is so monumental in comparison to anything before, that a TdF winner being stripped again now would be way way more damaging than any of the historic scandals you and LS etc have referenced. Hypothetical and unlikely to be tested so we'll never know :)

I'll check as you advised, cheers.
 

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Libertine Seguros said:
I think you're overselling how all-pervading the Tour de France is in Belgium or Italy, and how weak the position of the Tour de France is within France itself.

Wow, that's what I would loved to have written, but I would have broken the Internet expressing it.

@ Grandillusion, I actually appreciate your thoughts and views, please keep at it.
I quite simply don't agree that Wiggins getting popped would be any catastrophe except in Britain. Not diminishing it, but a lot of the enthusiasm in UK at the moment is based on Wiggins, not the sport. Which has been a key problem with the Pro side, they (media, admin, fans) build up the athlete, not the sport.
 
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Dr. Maserati said:
Wow, that's what I would loved to have written, but I would have broken the Internet expressing it.

@ Grandillusion, I actually appreciate your thoughts and views, please keep at it.
I quite simply don't agree that Wiggins getting popped would be any catastrophe except in Britain. Not diminishing it, but a lot of the enthusiasm in UK at the moment is based on Wiggins, not the sport. Which has been a key problem with the Pro side, they (media, admin, fans) build up the athlete, not the sport.

Cheers Dr. OK, I bow to your, LS's & D&C's greater knowledge. Now I want to know what Brailsford was thinking in his anti-T&R statements yesterday -oops wrong thread :)
 
Quit being so naive!!!!!

Dazed and Confused said:
Legitimate sport.

Now this is the only thing which may be debatable after the LA circus.

Because judging from the turnout at San Luis and TdU it would appear spectators and "fans" couldn't care less about Armstrong. I predict pretty strong support for the sport once we hit the European continent too.

Otherwise I agree with MV, the LA case is an opportunity to fast track the clean up process. If we fail to clean up the sport in a meaningful way this time, we simply need to wait for the next scandal. Wiggins? Bring it on.

I was perhaps overstating that cycling is not a legitimate sport, but what concerns me is the sense that everyone wants to sweep the largest fraud in sporting history under the rug and "move on" Well unless the riders, their teams and the administrators of the sport come out publicly and strongly prove to the fans the sport is clean, there will forever linger in the minds of cycling fans, who are some of the most cynical fans in sport, that the sport is dirty. And who wants to watch a dirty race?

The Armstrong scandal has had a massive effect on cycling. Armstrong continues to prevaricate and lie. Why would a fan believe any cyclist? Today's riders do not seem to understand the effect the scandal has had on their reputation. For guys like A. Schleck to say words to the effect "Well I did not ride with him, therefore what he did doesn't matter to me or afffect me" is absurdly naive.

Tell me Andy what is your training program? What supplements do you take? Are you being transparent with the fans and the sport? Did you ever use EPO? Today's and tommorrow's peleton are going to have to answer these questions for years to come until they can prove they are squeaky clean. That is how profoundly the LA affair will affect the sport!!!!!!

Please take Butch's comments to heart!
 

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