What happened to ... ?

[chuckmicD]

Anybody mention Romains Vainsteins? He's an all-time fav nothing-champ-nothing rider.

 

[GuyIncognito]

Re:

Anybody mention Romains Vainsteins? He's an all-time fav nothing-champ-nothing rider.

I'd love to be the kind of nothing rider who gets 11th at the Worlds and is all over the top of the Tirreno stage classifications as a neo-pro, wins a bunch of big races in the 2nd season and is world champion by the 3rd

What happened to him? He was only in it for the money, like many from poor backgrounds. After being world champion and signing a big money deal with Domo, he ballooned in weight and couldn't give the slightest about training. When nobody else would offer him big money he retired early and admitted he had no interest in riding for anything less than star salary.

 

[hrotha]

3rd at MSR and Roubaix as the reigning world champion isn't what riders who just disappear do. Guy should have been the next Museeuw.

 

[roundabout]

that guy

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/13162/Thomas-de-Gendt-encourages-fans-with-100-clean-statement.aspx

 

[Billie]

Valentino China?

Whooped Basso, Di Luca and Nocentini's ass in every race in junior category.

Never did anything in his couple years at Saeco

 

[Gung Ho Gun]

that guy

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/13162/Thomas-de-Gendt-encourages-fans-with-100-clean-statement.aspx

Maybe he became 100% clean

 

[blackcat]

Re:

Anybody mention Romains Vainsteins? He's an all-time fav nothing-champ-nothing rider.

think he married the daughter of the owner of the vinyard wine co of Vini Caldirola or Cantina Tollo, I think the former

he liked to wear his bandana before compulsory helmets...

how is my memory doing Libertine Seguros?

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

Anybody mention Romains Vainsteins? He's an all-time fav nothing-champ-nothing rider.

think he married the daughter of the owner of the vinyard wine co of Vini Caldirola or Cantina Tollo, I think the former

he liked to wear his bandana before compulsory helmets...

how is my memory doing Libertine Seguros?

google is my friend... i got the wine co wrong, its Cantina Tollo! no no no, I was right, it was Caldirola

http://www.bikeradar.com/au/news/article/vainsteins-finished-at-31-10697/

Former world champion Romans Vainsteins is apparently jaded with professional cycling and on the brink of retirement at just 31 years of age. According to reports in Italy, the Latvian finisseur has lost the will to train and even to put himself in the shop window for 2005. Vainsteins, who became world champion at Plouay in 2000, had his contract with Lampre rescinded after the world championships in October, officially for not respecting the team's internal code of behaviour. Those in the know report that Vainstein's performances had become considerably more energetic on the dancefloor than on the road, where he has plunged to 151st in the world rankings. One team that would be willing to accommodate Vainsteins is Vini Caldirola, for whom he rode in 1999, 2000 and 2003. It was in his first stint with the team that Vainsteins wooed the daughter of the Caldirola company owner, Elisabetta Caldirola

 

[blackcat]

 

[blackcat]

whatta bout the phat phuk who rode for Saeco and was good in Roubaix, and always stacked on two Jan Ullrich's in the offseason Dario Pieri. He would be a blimp by now.

I heard he left to start his of pizza place

 

[hrotha]

Re:

whatta bout the phat phuk who rode for Saeco and was good in Roubaix, and always stacked on two Jan Ullrich's in the offseason Dario Pieri. He would be a blimp by now.

I heard he left to start his of pizza place

And also to finish it.

 

["Jeff"]

Re:

Valentino China?

Whooped Basso, Di Luca and Nocentini's ass in every race in junior category.

Never did anything in his couple years at Saeco

That happens all the time. Not every good amateur, let alone junior, will turn into a great professional.

 

[GuyIncognito]

Re: Re:

Valentino China?

Whooped Basso, Di Luca and Nocentini's ass in every race in junior category.

Never did anything in his couple years at Saeco

That happens all the time. Not every good amateur, let alone junior, will turn into a great professional.[/quote]

Guys like Ivano Fanini specifically named China as a hugely talented guy refusing to dope

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

What happened to Papp's list-o-clients?

Papps's list.

palimpsest #phonetics

 

[The Carrot]

Have we had Gustav Larsson yet? One of the World's best Time Triallists for a little while, and then nothing.

 

[blackcat]

john devine

 

[joe_papp]

Re: Re:

I find it massively f'ed-up that USADA has sat on a list of, what, a couple hundred buyers of EPO and HGH and have banned a handful? Isn't anyone curious? If you race bicycles in the U.S. you will regocnize some of the names on that list.

This perplexes me entirely.

And further reinforces the notion that there is no such thing as anti-doping. It is all anti-doping theatre.

True. They have to go after the big fish to justify funding from the US government, which comprises much more than half of their budget. In defense of Papp, part of his probation agreement was that he would cooperate with USADA and for whatever reason USADA doesn't want him releasing the list, which if F-up. Because: because Papp did everything Landis and Hamilton did to make it as a pro cyclist (trained hard, took drugs, lied about it) and yet he can't profit from it. Now, I understand he violated the laws of the land, but still, what does USADA have to gain by not letting the dog off the leash.

Mark Cavendish's avatar brought this post to my attention (lol/thx)...just to clarify, it's not a probation agreement that dictated the terms and set a course for future action, but rather, a plea agreement. This was a complex process, for reasons that I won't go into here, but the terms of probation to which the judge sentenced me (which began after a period of house arrest) were pretty straightforward - though of course I had to live up to my end of the bargain we struck w/ the USATT as outlined in the plea agreement.

Also, Papp seems an okay guy, not evil. Nothing like Armstrong. But it seems there's a Stockholm Syndrome relationship with Papp and USADA at times. He seems a cheerleader for that organization and yet they've got him bent over the barrel. That said, I think it's possible he reports back to USADA when things start heating up on the forums. Kinda gives them a heads up. So, if we keep asking for the List, maybe someday they'll let Papp release it.

Thanks for the kind words and the humorous description of my relationship w/ USADA. Yeah I definitely like to think that I'm not a monster, I have friends, a young niece who I love to death, and I even enjoy gardening and birding and have been volunteering time/effort to support the Monarch Butterfly lol.

And again w/o going into unnecessary detail or perhaps rehashing things that I may have posted about previously (??), I readily admit that, while I was legally compelled to cooperate w/ both the federal gov't and USADA), this was far from a bad thing because it provided a means by which I could obtain a legal outcome in federal court that I don't think would've been realistic otherwise.

USADA really, really went to bat for me in my criminal case - something they were under no obligation to do. Granted, I'd only been in an adversarial position to USADA for 6mos after I tested positive (before I stopped contesting the doping charge against me), so it wasn't some dubiously-timed, major about face made out of desperation that brought me into USADA's orbit initially (remember, they didn't even know of my trafficking involvement when I started cooperating with them, and that initial cooperation was not driven by pursuit of any targeted-gain on my part. In fact, I refused any suggestion even of a reduced sentence for ADRV #1, b/c I didn't want my conversion to anti-doping to seem too convenient).

OK, it was clearly wise/fortuitous when seen through lens of rational self-interest that I stopped protecting the corrupt pro-doping system in cycling as early as I did. And this paved the way for USADA's later, official pro-Joe involvement (in my criminal case) - involvement that meant I got the chance to "earn" my freedom more from anti-doping work than from cooperation w/ DEA / FBI / Secret Service (cooperation that is, based on what experience I did have, way more horrifying than one might be inclined to think).

But (and this to me is the important part) beyond the legal benefit, I also received tremendous personal support from certain people at USADA for a period of years (and I can never overstate the value of this moral support and encouragement). I would be straight-up lying if I said that it [the experience of receiving tremendous emotional support and encouragement from some good people at USADA] didn't engender at least some fondness for the organization, given the probable difficulty (in my mind) of separating the interactions w/ my supporters there from the context of their affiliation w/ USADA.

That's not to say that I'm an unreserved supporter of the US Anti-Doping Agency, or a blind cheerleader for their operation. Far from it, and my blog (which I don't update much now), Twitter, Facebook, comments to media all contain explicit criticism of various aspects of the anti-doping movement, and even some call-outs/challenges to USADA themselves. Detailing all that here isn't germaine (imo) or all that interesting (to me - right now), but I sincerely believe that I've maintained some objectivity towards USADA - though of course others may disagree.

...pauses to reflect...

...and I never supported the way in which they [USADA] crucified Armstrong (though he did everything in his power to ensure that he was crucified - though of course he didn't expect that!! d'oh). I only bring up Lance b/c your post and my effort to reply here have compelled me to reflect somewhat more than I've been inclined to recently on the past 10 years, why "it" happened how it happened for me, what it means to be where I am now, and - inevitably - what I realistically could've done different.

On this last part, I honestly don't spend that much time moaning about the difficulty I created for myself (that is, difficulty experienced now in present-day, and for most of the last eight years! lol), actively regretting "the choices" I made or beating myself up over the annoying reality of (in simple (?) terms) being the author of my own demise. I don't think it's realistic (for me) to suggest that there was any one key moment where I could've expected to do things so differently that I could've avoided all this mess (absent a pseudo-religious conversion, I guess, where my ethics were recapacitated and my world view rendered black-and-white).

(I hope that makes sense...basically saying that it was years and years of life that brought me to the point of even getting started in cycling, and then more years and years before I even knew about doping...and then years spent in a milieu in which cheating was totally normalized and yet still highly rewarded...hindsight is 20/20, but even with the benefit of knowing the future, it would not have been easy to convince a 26 y.o. Joe Papp [me] in 2001 to firmly turn his [my] back on procycling, finish his [my - but not really, since i didn't finish it lol] masters and commence regretless pursuit of a career in gov't/public service full-time.)

Ironically, in light of the argument I just made suggesting an inevitability of eventual less-than-desirable outcomes when we pursue certain paths through Life, I do wish I had reached out to Floyd sooner, rather than just testify "against" him, because I feel like he lost more than anyone through his involvement in doping (though of course some of that was self-inflicted...and how much more influential than proper big guns like Rihs, Armstrong, Och', and (I guess) Howard Jacobs (??) could I have been at the time? really? lol). And, as if that weren't enough, I wish I'd been more realistic in my assessment of the futility and hopelessness of Lance's entire "defense" strategy and argued more convincingly for capitulation when it still could've spared us this unsatisfying nuclear fall-out (what can I say? I don't think making him the scapegoat for cycling's doping problem was that awesome for anyone but USADA (and only then in the short-term)).

Anyway, that's it for now - thanks for the opportunity to reflect and write about this some more. I'll be around, I'm sure (not that i ever really "went away" lol )

EDIT: Oh, The List!! Yeah...i don't think my releasing unilaterally a client list is ever going to be so compelling and risk-free that that's what happens. I know that disappoints people, but at the same time I know even from what you wrote above that you seem to understand that - or at least assume that's probably what dissuades me from doing it. However, I've always said that I don't have a problem with either USADA or the USGOVT being the ones to release that evidence! (just so it's not on/up-to me lol)

 

[doperhopper]

Re: Re:

EDIT: Oh, The List!! Yeah...i don't think my releasing unilaterally a client list is ever going to be so compelling and risk-free that that's what happens. I know that disappoints people, but at the same time I know even from what you wrote above that you seem to understand that - or at least assume that's probably what dissuades me from doing it. However, I've always said that I don't have a problem with either USADA or the USGOVT being the ones to release that evidence! (just so it's not on/up-to me lol)

A well timed convenient hack would do the job - and it does not evnen have to be PappLeaks, better if it looks like coming from the government/police/etc. side, just my 50ct ;-)

 

[joe_papp]

Re: Re:

A well timed convenient hack would do the job - and it does not evnen have to be PappLeaks, better if it looks like coming from the government/police/etc. side, just my 50ct ;-)

"I can neither confirm - nor deny - that I left an unencrypted copy of PappList.xls sitting in a publicly-accessible folder on my GoogleDrive."

lol...