Was cycling cleaner from 06-08 than 09-10?

[auscyclefan94]

Was cycling cleaner in the period when LA was out of the sport and has it gone backwards once he came in OR is it gradually progressing to clean the sport up?

Yes the UCI have suspended quite a few heavy hitters this and last year but they seemed to catch riders more "freely" than they use to.

ALSO

Once the cancer of bruyneel, LA and his Postal friends are out of the sport, will this help cycling recover or is the hole dug too deep to get out of?

 

[blackcat]

cant answer it

who cares, still a cesspool

 

[auscyclefan94]

cant answer it

who cares, still a cesspool

make an educated guess. it is a speculating thread about doping.

 

[blackcat]

no ckeaner then nor now. Folks will blame StrongArm for the wrong reason. Aint StrongArm's fault Wigans primes himself for the big program in 2009, and Cav's mandible and skull plates expanding.

Cycling is what it is.

 

[L'arriviste]

It's generational, I would say, for want of a better sweeping generalisation. You could peg a generation to a particular pharmaceutical choice or, perhaps more naively, to a change of collective philosophy. In any case, I think the LA1.0 endgame was certainly "the end of an era" but not the doping era.

Personally, I don't think his return has actually changed anything intrinsic. The LA2.0 epilogue seems to me to have been conceived as a money-spinning last hurrah that, given the situation currently in play, may well be more interesting than the actual story, now that it's starting to unravel.

 

[Elverde]

Why are you people so obsessed with doping?
Cycle racing has always involved doping, live with it or leave it.

 

[turtlesoup]

Why are you people so obsessed with doping?
Cycle racing has always involved doping, live with it or leave it.

because its fun to talk about and speculate on. Id like to think its cleaner now because up and coming riders havent had the chance to be taught the ropes by guys like lance. Although the bust wed blows that theory out of the water. More than likely as dirty riders like riis become managers doping will be even more impossible to detect and therefore appear cleaner.

 

[spanky wanderlust]

with basso winning the tour, vino at liege...

the words "business as usual" come to mind.

it all depends on what you mean by cleaner. are transfusions "cleaner" than epo? is microdosing better than full treatments?

at least they have eliminated homologous transfusions. now riders are forced to use their own blood.

hgh is still undetectable. they only test for exogenous testosterone if levels are suspicious.

 

[marinoni]

I don't think it was cleaner but at the time I was certainly more optimistic. The Tour organizers seemed serious about fighting doping. More riders were coming out against it. There was a sense around the 08 season that things might finally be turning a corner. The events of the last 2yrs have put an end to my optimism as well as my respect for a once-great sport.

 

[luckyboy]

 

[Inner Peace]

Lance retired July 2005.

2005 Vuelta: Heras EPO
2006 Tour: Landis Testosterone
2007 Tour: Vino/Kash Blood
2008 Tour: Ricco/Kohl etc EPO cera

These are pretty big POSITIVES between Lance eras. Does that mean more or less doping? Nope. Just means that these guys went a little bit too far.

Throw in non-positives but actually doped Valverde, Basso (Puerto 2006) and others, and Rasmussen (2007) and you realise they are up to their old tricks again.

Now Lance comes back in 2009 and races through 2010. We haven't seen any "huge" positives or busts (I don't think the GiroBio bust is huge in terms of rider quality, but huge as in, OMG they start young)...

I think the Passport, retrospective testing and new types of tests (EPO CERA/HGH?) are all curbing the extent of doping. But once a doper, always a doper, just doin it on a slightly less level (Frei - microdosing example) than as blatant as 2006-08...

Now point discussing pre-July 2005. Enough positives and admissions to cover us.

HOWEVER, I still believe that a clean rider can top 10 in a grand tour and I am willing to believe that a clean rider may have won the Giro this year. I am happy to be proven wrong that 5.6wkg on the Zoncolan is clean, however...

So, summary: Yes doping is just as bad, but the assumption of 'unable to finish in the top 10 clean' as was the case in the late 90s/early 2000s, I think, no longer exists.

 

[bommels]

Of course it gets cleaner all the time. If your transfusion kit or blood bags are not clean you'll be in big trouble!

 

[buckwheat]

Why are you people so obsessed with doping?
Cycle racing has always involved doping, live with it or leave it.

America; love it or leave it!


The reactionaries are always good for some comic relief.