Vinokourov 2010

[SpartacusRox]

Shouldn't you be mad at the UCI along with Vino or just UCI alone? Yes, Vino cheated. He served his time as he was supposed to and came back to the sport. Is there some unwritten rule that states that if you come back from suspension that you must ride as a domestique for the rest of your career?
I must have missed that. Should he once again get busted then his career is over. Of course based on the history of the testing we won't know until later in the year if he was in fact riding dirty.

Good post. I get sick of people whining about riders who have come back from suspension. They have done their time so move on.

umm except Ricco of course the snivelling little tosser!

 

[Francois the Postman]

Shouldn't you be mad at the UCI along with Vino or just UCI alone? Yes, Vino cheated. He served his time as he was supposed to and came back to the sport. Is there some unwritten rule that states that if you come back from suspension that you must ride as a domestique for the rest of your career?
I must have missed that. Should he once again get busted then his career is over. Of course based on the history of the testing we won't know until later in the year if he was in fact riding dirty.

Wholly agree. I can totally understand why some want proven cheats to be gone for good, but if the rules say he can come back, he can come back to compete.

Listening around me, here in the UK, it sometimes feels like for some it's more a case of their dopers are not as nice and trustworthy like our dopers. Had Vino been British or American, some (not all) would be humming a very different tune, I suspect.

I am a bit surprised that Vino has come back to the form he has been showing, post-ban. But thinking about it more, if so many people were fiddling with stuff at the time (most dopers were never caught but still riding), and that climate is now changing from macro-fiddling to micro-fiddling, so everyone is again competing on a par playing field again, wouldn't it make sense that the same names are still winning?

Maybe Vino is clean now, but everyone else had to clean up their act a bit too? That he is still winning only highlights how dirty it was, to me. And it means that an awful lot of people never said "sorry". The same people that "we" are happy to see win, for no other reason that they were never caught, not that they were clean.

Personally, to me, the era that was is the era that has been. Happy to see him ride, hope he stays within the (generous) limits set. If he's doing it totally clean, even better. I'm not fussy, as long as its the same rules for everyone, and they are applied consistently.

And I get it when people hate to see the guy ride, let alone win. I just hope that I don't have to hear that every time when he does win. Take Vino out of the equation and you certainly don't have a field with a clean past. But it's easier to accept winners whose past you can't see clearly, I guess, as "more" legit. Especially when they are more "ours" too.

 

[joe_papp]

...I am a bit surprised that Vino has come back to the form he has been showing, post-ban...

I'm so glad Vino succeeded in winning another L-B-L, another TdF stage, Trentino, a Basque Country stage, a Romandie stage, and of course, the mother of 'em all, the one that makes the anti-Vino forces' heads explode, the 2012 Olympic Road Race. Hah!

 

[BroDeal]

ZOMG! Look who crawled out from beneath his rock.

 

[Le breton]

ZOMG! Look who crawled out from beneath his rock.

Wow, what a surprise.

Will he testify for Patrice Ciprelli?