The Correct Perspective on Doping in the Pros
 

Can be read here.

Who really failed here? Lance? Tyler? Hincapie? I have long held that it's more about the entire sport failing the riders and the fans than about individual athletes 'cheating'.

Read it and weep.

It's not a simple issue so it cannot be broken down to X+Y=Z.

The athletes, as individuals, those who used banned substances, should be held accountable as individuals.

But in terms of blame, as a fan, I continue to watch, knowing that many riders are juiced up--I'm not even in denial of that. The best thing for me to do to clean up the sport is stop watching it and buying all of the schwag.

That's the only thing I can control--my own actions. Everything else is irrelevant.

Carry on...

Sorry but I'm going to move this over to Pro. The Lance thread (or was it George) was my indulgence.

professional cycling is at best an arcane sport. various race organizers control the events. there is no independant rider's union. the governing body is inept and weak. teams and sponsors come and go.

with such impermanence, how can the sport mature?

A lot of people take sports way too seriously. It leads to massive hypocrisy and other ugliness, from little league to college football to Barry Bonds to Lance (if guilty). Pro cycling is so bad it's comical. I do like to ride and tinker with my bikes though, and had fun at the US Pros last Monday.

+1
The wife frequently comments about my being "oblivious, oh well. I like to watch guys ride bikes fast, love field sprints, cheer for whomever goes off the front to hold a long lead and win. The rest,to me, is drama, like the wife's soaps. I can, however, sympathise with anyone who actually participates and must deal with doping as a reality.

I think the article makes a lot of sense but it seems to ignore the fact that doping has been around since long before LA started winning the tour. If we are going to wipe the record clean as the author suggests, we need to go back a lot further than that. The US Olympic medalists in 1984 were "blood pumping", Indurain was almost certainly using PEDs, how about Jan? Should we wipe all of their records from the book? Let's move forward and really clean up the sport...if that's what everyone wants. The other option is to just let it go instead of making false representations that anyone really cares.

Personally, I don't care if the pros dope. I love watching Contador. But I'm certainly not naive enough to think that he does what he does without synthetic help. I think Lance was doped to the gills and guess what? I'm a Lance fanboy. This anti-doping crap has gone too far. It's getting in the way of my watching the freaks do what they do best.

ps. put Ricco back in there, I miss that crazy guy.

I agree, let's just cut to the chase and put engines in those bikes.

That's already been done. A long time ago.