Mass communication, investigative journalism, the Internet, mobile phone etc., have all made the cynical, sweep-it-under-the-carpet activities of previous generations of cyclists and athletes much more difficult to hide. It was wrong in the past, it is wrong now and only attitudes like yours let it go on so long.

The public attitude in europe is who cares . They knew right from the beginning it is a tough sport and dope helps . Do you really think NFL , NBA , MLB fans do not know their heros also use drugs day in and day out . What is their attitude ? who cares . If that is the case than why are we so uptight about doping in cycling . Lance did not start the doping culture in cycling . He just did better than anyone else , including european cyclists .

So, what's your point? OK; You don't like it -- but that does not make it any the less true.

... And, yes, the truth is coming out: They ALL doped.

Now the question is: are they STILL doping?
... I would be quite surprised if they aren't

If you read up on it, you would find that no, not everyone doped. Wether I like it isn't the issue. The issue is what is right, and what is right for the sport. Cheating is not right, whether it is in professional sports or in amateur sports. In the case of cycling, taking doping to the level used by US Postal, and adding in the 'Omertà', created a playing field that was the furthest possible from being 'level. It was the "Americanization", or "Corporatization" of doping.

Here is another good article: https://velonews.competitor.com/2012/...-doping_263058

Yes, I'm sure. There are always a few rebels in any field...

Exactly. Bicycle racing wasn't on the US radar until then. When LeMond won, there weren't a gazillion specialty interest cable channels, and the guy had a French name riding for a French team. I had to go the back pages of the sports section to even have a shot of finding daily results of the TdF. If he was leading going into the final weekend, then MAYBE it'd be on the front page. And the internet hadn't had its impact.

Again, the distinction between hardcore cycling fans and the public at large. Even with all of the recent attention, I often get a blank stare from people when I mention the name, Greg LeMond. I expect it from people under 40. But they aren't the only ones.

Would you or those who don't care have a different perspective if the kids who idolise these flawed heroes are caught behind the change rooms with needles and some "performance enhancing substance" shooting up, so they could satisfy their win-at-all-costs parents on the sidelines?

After all, their heroes do it, and people like you give them their complicit support, so why not let the kids have a go at it, too? The kids today are your breeding ground for tomorrow's champions...

Or you can look at it positively -- Armstrong has become the poster boy for cleaning up cycling -- at all levels!!

That's how I look at it. My children are very talented and competitive. I would sign them both up for amateur racing if the sport was cleaned up more. If they start right, they should continue to keep up good behaviour. If it isn't cleaned up, I wouldn't support them in just about any sport. Who wants a messed up, suicidal child?!

Skins International Trading suing UCI, McQuaid, Verbruggen: https://www.skins.net/en-AU/news-and-...70d2c1ed6.aspx

This is a de facto admission that it isn't the "attitudes" that caused the problem.

Beyond that, I finally put my finger on what bothered me about your post: here's a sport that has existed for longer than you have been alive and has been practiced almost exclusively on the other side of the planet from you. But that's all unimportant because now that you have an interest in the sport, it needs to be rearranged to suit your particular mores and needs.

Maybe instead of moving to the airport and then trying to get the flight patterns changed, you should simply find a different place to live.

Wait, so there are parents who encourage their children to "idolize" star athletes and who put so much pressure on those children that they feel the need to take drugs, and you blame the athletes?

Dope -- and doping -- are very complex subjects...

While I cannot disagree with either of the above opinions, I think it would be better if we (and especially the government health agencies like the FDA, NIH, ATF, and so on) focused on WHY people take drugs (even performance enhancing ones) and especially: what the very real consequences are...

Working in community mental health, I worked closely with people who take them, why they take them and what the (devastating) consequences are in their lives. That reality did more to dissuade me from any form of drug use than any laws or "Here is your brain on drugs" poster...

I don't think you can dictate these things from above. People will always make up their own minds no matter what the law is or what you say. I think education (Real education rather than proaganda) is the only thing that will ultimately have any significant impact. Yes, there will still be people who take dope -- but they will be doing it knowingly rather than out of ignorance or defiance.

So, while I KNOW how bad drugs and drug use are -- I disagree with how we as a society go about combating that menace.

I am a minority here, but I gotta say this anyway. I dislike LAnce for personal reasons, he's basically a jerk. It may be that that's the attitude you have to have to be a team leader in cycling, but I don't have to like it. That said, I believe that professional sport is and should be fundamentally different that amateur sport. In Professional sport, the riders make their living by being good, taking risk, being noticed, bringing sales and notoriety
to their sponsers/owners. Who am I to say they take too much risk? Factually, all professional sports participants risk a great amount of permanent physical damage by participation in sport. So how risk much is allowable? and what kind? There is no "purity" in professional sport. Think of the number of tell-all books by former athletes, telling of spit balls, illegal hits and tackles, way to fudge starts, bounadires, and the like. It has always been and will always be, win however you can get away with. Thats the truth of professional sport.

Amateur sport, until people were able to make huge money at it (Think track and field), had a different attitude, and purity had a place in the competition. The only reason cycling has a issue with drug use is because the UCI decided that they wanted professional cyclists to be able to compete in the Olympic games and thus became subject to the WADA. Thus the spotlight was focused on the personal cost of being a professional cyclist.

So I believe it would be good to return to the "old days". Professional sports can prepare their athletes however needed to get the best performance, drugs included. There is risk to the athletes, but like all other professions, that risk is considered and is part of their compensation. Let amateur sports have strong anti drug policies and programs, and the purity comes from competing for the sake of the competition. Professional sport is about making money, pure and simple. I am not saying that there should be no rules, but the current chase to ride professional cycling of drugging stands little to no chance of success, promises only more and more draconian measures and achieves exactly nothing to ensure a non-exostant purity of sport.

I think the supporting evidence comes on Bike Forums almost every day when people post about their new leases on life having taking up cycling and eventually ditching the medications and substances they have taken either legally or illicitly.

And I do tend to agree that effective community change more often has to be incremental rather than imposed as a Big Brother law. Yes... it is a complex subject, and in cycling it has to start somewhere, with Armstrong, it seems.

The issue still remains that for junior sportspeople, the incentive to do exceptionally well is the lure of the dollar in professional sport. The room at the top is limited, and many parents will do whatever it takes to get their kid into it.

And the parents think that they are doing their kids a favor...
... Very sad ...

Many in this 50+ forum have come to realize that that kind of "success" is actually failure....

Perhaps. But it seems to me that it is just more of the same. Just one more slogan, one more poster or billboard that is soon forgotten.
... Right or wrong, guilty or innocent, Lance will simply be known as the one who got caught -- or the one held as the scape goat --whichever view you might hold. Nothing will change. Nothing was accomplished. In 6 months it will be old news...

It's a bit like mandatory sentencing for drug possession. It only fills up the prisons with users. It changes nothing...

thanks for the reply.


1. I still believe that any attitude that implies doping is not a problem is wrong - we can argue about the semantics of it being a sport or a job, but at core it is a sport where winning is the aim, and doping just makes it an artifice like WWF.


2. I know the sport of cycling pre-dates me, but I am no Johnny-come-lately to the sport having taken part in my first club run in 1961, so my interest is not fleeting. I accept that your knowledge of the sport is greater than mine due to your professional involvement, but my view on the acceptability of doping has been held for years and is as valid as yours.


3. Which side of the planet are you talking about? As someone who lives in Wales I always thought the other side of the planet was Australia or China. I was at Box Hill to see the Olympic cycling. In 2007 I watched the TDF just 150 miles from my home and in 2015 it is likely to pass within 2 miles of my house - that's not the other side of the planet.

Track and field was very likely among the first sports to be affected by PEDs. Anabolics in the sprints and weight events, and blood doping in distance events. The Soviet bloc was using steroids as early as the 1950s, mainly with their weightlifters. It branched out into track and field from there. Weights are a necessary part of every world class sprinter's training regimen, and athletes who throw the shot, discus or hammer probably spend more time in the gym than they do on the field. Pole vaulting requires an enormous amount of upper body strength. Cycling was long in the dark ages of sports doping, using mostly amphetamines and other stimulants.

Touche!!

I sometimes question why our pros can't take the same supliments we as non pros do? DHEA and other over the counter drugs that relieve aches and pains that we simply pickup and pay for and take with our morning coffee. When GNC comes out with new a new recovery pill or recovery drink we are free to try it without worry if it contains a banned substance that may or may not have anything to do with our performance.

We watch TV and understand we can get a blue pill that makes us feel like we did when we were young and we take it, because we want to feel like we did. But if that pill makes a pro rider feel like they did as a junior they can't take it? Reminds me of when I used to sail in PHRF. When everyone knew a full batten sail would inprove the the shape of a sail we were told we couldn't use it to race. Yet sportsmen not racing could use them and their sails would last much longer than ours and made them better into the wind. If it isn't against the law for the average citizen it shouldn't be for the pro athlete. Just my opinion.

On another forum, an amateur power-lifter brought up the same issue. He must carefully examine the ingredients in over-the-counter supplements lest he risk running afoul of the anti-doping rules in competitions.

With that last post in mind, this isn't a bad article to read:

https://sock-doc.com/2012/10/athletes-on-drugs/

Lance is just a pawn in the career aspirations of Travis Tygart and the political power struggle between the IOC, ADA's and world governing bodies of the olympic sports.

And we (the fans) are to blame.

The WADA rules apply to amateur cyclists, as well as pro's. They just aren't as enforced.

I do hope you are being facetious...