What do dopers think of the public?

[ThisFrenchGuy]

I was thinking about Armstrong (yeah...) and while I loathed the guy almost from day one -and not necessarily for good reasons- there's one thing I think he was very impressive at: His 2005 "farewell" speech to the Tour. You know, "being sorry for the people that doesn't believe in those riders, who can't dream big" delivered in the mightiest texan stoneness (not a word, I know) possible.
It would have been a moving speech to herald a clean era, if he was not a doper.

We had a lot of accounts trying to paint what it is like inside the peloton, the little society the riders form and how doping is an ever-present, almost tribal law within the elite of the sports. We have had several possible explanations on how the riders justify to themselves the cheating.

We also do know that with it comes naturally a double-play with regards to the audience, and that the above mentioned speech was one of the many examples of something meant purely for the "outsiders" consumption.

But I do not remember any extensive commentary, beyond the necessary hypocrisy, on how doping riders perceives of the public in all this.

Because with the level of awareness about doping in cycling today, the riders know that we know, and yet... here we are. It's hard not to come to the conclusion that we are being played as caves or pigeons (suckers to be conned, in short), which is a little bit insulting.

Then again maybe we are, after all there's still many to follow cycling today and still some to be shocked when rider X or Y is exposed, no matter how suspicious his performances seemed.

Or is it that they believe it is all a show and that in the end we'll turn a blind eye provided we are entertained? I think that's the vibe I got from quotes of the past, before real anti-doping rules.

But there's probably more to it: as Bassons said, Virenque doped because he craved the love of the public. Which when you think of it is disturbing, since that love is born out of cheating us in the first place. But at least this one I can understand, who wouldn't want to be loved?

I actually have a genuine interest in that. Has this been discussed at length by (a) rider(s)?

 

[the big ring]

Clinic posters are a special case.

Think Emperor's new clothes.

Just my opinion.

 

[ThisFrenchGuy]

Clinic posters are a special case.
Think Emperor's new clothes.
Just my opinion.

We certainly are. But the public knows, and he is ****ed of about it even if only in bursts. The genie never went back in the bottle in 15 years for cycling, when baseball and football achieved just that, so I'd say the people actually do care enough about the issue for it just not to be buried.

 

[hrotha]

I think that, for the most part, fans aren't seen as suckers but rather as outsiders who wouldn't understand and couldn't possibly understand what it is all about. People who would judge them unfairly without being on their shoes, by not buying their silly rationalizations about everybody doing it, keeping the level playing field and doping ultimately not altering the pecking order.

When they lie about doping, they're not actively trying to con anybody. They're telling their ultraconservative grandma they don't get drunk and have sex at college.

 

[ThisFrenchGuy]

I don't want to be judgemental about this, it's not the point (bouh dopers are losers!), but at the end of the day, they are conning us, aren't they?

Note though that I realize that the public, the audience should -ideally- be a secondary concern to the essence of the sport, and once we are there, we are making this also a show. Maybe (they feel that) they owe us nothing.

 

[BroDeal]

Bone idle ****ers.

 

[workingclasshero]

anonymous wa**ers

 

[henryg]

I don't think the public enters into the decision making process.

The pros are just playing by the rules. Not the rules as laid out by WADA and the ones publicly espoused by the UCI. The real rules -enforced by management and the UCI- far from the public eye. They didn't create the rules, the people who control there future did ...and the public?

I think the dopers self-serving opinion is the public wants bread and circuses but want to act shocked and dismayed when the curtain is pulled back on the price of the spectacle.

It's a totally corrupted culture. Where cheating is the price of entry and the accepted badge of a real pro.

 

[D-Queued]

I don't think the public enters into the decision making process.

The pros are just playing by the rules. Not the rules as laid out by WADA and the ones publicly espoused by the UCI. The real rules -enforced by management and the UCI- far from the public eye. They didn't create the rules, the people who control there future did ...and the public?

I think the dopers self-serving opinion is the public wants bread and circuses but want to act shocked and dismayed when the curtain is pulled back on the price of the spectacle.

It's a totally corrupted culture. Where cheating is the price of entry and the accepted badge of a real pro.

^^^

Dave.

 

[the big ring]

The pros are just playing by the rules. Not the rules as laid out by WADA and the ones publicly espoused by the UCI. The real rules -enforced by management and the UCI- far from the public eye. They didn't create the rules, the people who control there future did ...and the public?

This is definitely how I see it. It reminds me of the court scene in A Few Good Men when they were discussing code reds. Code reds that were clearly happening, but everyone was in denial. Classic omerta.

There's no code red in the rule book.
There's no canteen in there either, but everyone gets 3 square meals a day.

 

[ebandit]

?

I don't want to be judgemental about this, it's not the point (bouh dopers are losers!), but at the end of the day, they are conning us, aren't they?

Note though that I realize that the public, the audience should -ideally- be a secondary concern to the essence of the sport, and once we are there, we are making this also a show. Maybe (they feel that) they owe us nothing.

doped athletes are conning themselves as much as sponsors / spectators

but like a criminal they expect never to be caught

so there is little need to consider what others think .............until

 

[Cavalier]

What I find amazing is the sheer audacity of some people in professional sport. I saw a tennis player whining about being woken 3 times in two weeks at 6am - an hour most normal people are getting up to get ready for work anyway. I called him out on it for being pathetic. His response? "Get a life". They honestly think they've got a hard lot in life and nobody works hard.
I've seen guys on building sites busting their proverbial for a pittance each day in comparison. It's really laughable how they think that only they work hard, and any criticisers are just jealous, lazy nobodies.

 

[CharacterFirst]

What I find amazing is the sheer audacity of some people in professional sport. I saw a tennis player whining about being woken 3 times in two weeks at 6am - an hour most normal people are getting up to get ready for work anyway. I called him out on it for being pathetic. His response? "Get a life". They honestly think they've got a hard lot in life and nobody works hard.
I've seen guys on building sites busting their proverbial for a pittance each day in comparison. It's really laughable how they think that only they work hard, and any criticisers are just jealous, lazy nobodies.

Well, yes.

But not just guys on building sites. Half the world's population live on less than $2 a day!

Try this - http://www.globalrichlist.com/

We all have difficulties for sure. But pro athletes have no right to think their hardships are any greater than anyone else. B/c they aren't.

 

[Cavalier]

I meant more in terms of the effort rather than the reward. Don't want to turn the discussion into a measure of relative poverty. Point is, I don't know of a single sportsman on the planet who can turn around and justifiably say they work harder than a commercial tradesman, for example.

 

[pugdog]

It all starts when a kid who is on the school's swim team is lauded as a hero, and the kid who's brilliant at Latin or algebra is considered odd. The cocooning starts then, and they (the athletes) live in a bubble ever after.

As for the crowds that turn up to watch bike races, they aren't fooled. "Tous dopés is their motto. But they're having a fun day out. The rest hardly matters.

 

[ThisFrenchGuy]

What I find amazing is the sheer audacity of some people in professional sport. I saw a tennis player whining about being woken 3 times in two weeks at 6am

It is indeed a bubble who accounts also for the "tribal" nature of the peloton regarding to doping.
However, but maybe it is an illusion, I would expect riders to be downer to earth. And even if not, to have a stronger relation to their audience, starting with the physical proximity that they share on open roads.

That being said, faces in the crowd and all, it's possible we are a non-factor to most of them.

 

[CharacterFirst]

I meant more in terms of the effort rather than the reward. Don't want to turn the discussion into a measure of relative poverty. Point is, I don't know of a single sportsman on the planet who can turn around and justifiably say they work harder than a commercial tradesman, for example.

Fair enough, and you are right. The "generally public" work very hard, esp. compared to an elite sportsman.

But the point still stands. Most of the worlds pop' put more effort into just surviving than an elite athlete puts into his sport - and with none of the rewards.

Perhaps relative poverty (or greed) has a bigger connection to all this than we think. After all, we are talking about "corruption" of of a sport on the clinic, the attitude of very privileged "professional" athletes in this thread. It's all about the dough isn't it?