Dr. Maserati said:
I always liked
this one, from Conconi no less.
What this article outlines, corresponds exactly with the picture I was given of the sport in Italy by dozens of knowledgeable and experienced people, as well as teammates who doped, back in 95-96 and then again when I resumed the cycling scene here in 2000-2001 .
I remember how my views rapidly changed along with my perceptions, in light of all the available information. One simply had to open their eyes to know what was going on. This is why by about 2001 I realized Lance was as dirty as they get, even if already before there was an unavoidable suspicion. Then after reading about his arrogance among former teammates, Mafioso brazenness in rigorously supporting omertà from the top in the protagonist's role, to say nothing of the millions he earned, the Lance persona simply became appalling. All of this while enjoying the accolades of stardom and fawning worship among the US fanfare: by naive people who in reality knew nothing about how the game is played and who willingly chose to believe in the fairytale they wanted to see rather than facts because it was more congenial to their patriotic sentiments and to do otherwise would have been too upsetting; with a ridiculously accomplice press more ecstatic about building up another "American Hero," than exposing the lies behind the appealing set-piece through sound journalism. In fact he shamelessly played right up to the naiveté and ingenuousness of his fellow Americans and it was just disgusting to watch from Italy of course, right down to the hypocritical facade that has always been his cancer foundation! Finally at the sight of the Simeoni affair and the insolence with which he has always maintained his innocence, armed with money, the best lawyers money can buy and even a certain political support - as we can see from the dropped Fed case against him - that has always permitted him to evade justice (and, in fact, he may yet prevail, but only for these same nefarious and corrupting reasons), the only thing one wanted to see was him getting exposed and for the truth to come out. Finally he was not even beyond successfully bribing the UCI to cover up his doping positive at the 2001 Tour de Suisse, which means for all the economic and business reasons (after all Lance did bring with his celebritydom the colossal US market into the cycling business) he became the Untouchable in a business without ethical purchase. Moreover he became the sport's moral turpitude personified; while all around him, one after another, his major rivals during his Tour streak, as well as a number of former teammates, had either tested positive, or else were implicated in doping practices by the famous medical investigations. But not Lance. The invincible one. Lance was clean and whipping the best in the world on "hard work" and "dedication" alone, and of course the shear willpower that only someone of his nationality could produce: like all those unwatchable propagandistic Hollywood blockbusters, in which the American hero overcomes impossible odds to save his family, his country and finally the entire world from bellicose aliens, Jack the Ripper, oil-greedy terrorists, deadly species ending diseases, meteorite inflicted Armageddon, the bogyman, the global invasion of Chinese kung-fu films, etc. It was the perfect script for a patriotic and traumatized after 9-11 US people, who thus just gobbled it up wholesale; without a wink of critical approach or thought in the nation's press for years.
As per Bruyneel, the sport has needed to be rid of him and his kind for decades now.
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