Angio Graham

Should their victories and time records from the Leadville 100 be vacated ?

I remember at the time Lance showed up to race a local mountain biker said "oh great, now the druggies are showing up and will smash the records".

Its generally believed that MTB XC racers are much cleaner than Pro road racers.

Shimagnolo

Really, it's just that their drug of choice provides no performance gains.

Jed19

And when you are stoned out of your mind, what is a "little bombing" down hills.

Angio Graham

ironic how roadies accuse mtb's of being druggies.

andysummers

Dave Wiens is now the 7 time winner of Leadville 100.

bigfred 

And the local amateurs never shoot up

At least in europe you know what the local belgie betting line is based on.

At some point they really need to split "amateur/olympic" sports and "professional" back up. Let the pro's play by whatever rules they want to for the sake of entertainment. After all that's what they're selling. And let those who would like to contest physical supremecy on clean terms remain amateur/olympic.

andysummers

Amateurs "shooting up" vs $1M doping programs administered by medical doctors/performance experts. Wonder if Wiens could break 6 hours w/ Dr. Ferrari's "help"

bigfred 

I believe the big dollars for pro programs has far more to do with "not getting caught" than actually finding the gains. The doping regimes are reasonably well documented and not that hard to find out about.

Erzulis Boat

You have it backwards. Pro stuff with Lance is actually more subtle. Am stuff with MTB is way more simple but effective, and cost way less I might add. We have been saying this for years, why the sudden interest?

gsteinb

Who is this we that you keep posting about?

Folks sudden interest is in it being one of the top news stories, and the coming apart of a legend and a sport. Why are you troubled by folks discussing it?

zero85ZEN

It's a pretty safe bet that Lance has been doped since the beginning of his career and during his retirement from pro cycling.

oldbobcat

That's not an accusation, just a jolly poke in the ribs based on a stereotype that isn't all that derogatory in this context.

SClaraPokeman

I just got back from my local AMC which I watched "Levi Effect--the Untold Story of Levi Leipheimer" (playing one night only nationally). I'm not sure what the recent revelations regarding Levi would have on the movie's attendance overall, but I think for me it probably piqued my interest when I saw the ad for the movie on VeloNews this morning.


The first 30 minutes are the most interesting. The film opens with Levi reminiscing on a bluff above Grand Butte about his childhood. Vintage footage of his skiing shows his talent and fearlessness as a teenager. He moves to Salt Lake City to go to college and be on the ski team, but finds the skiing program too easy and gets more serious about cycling.


More old footage chronicles his exploits as a Utah amateur and his dropping out of college to move to Belgium and briefly shows his steady and inexorable rise through the ranks. However right when one expects and hopes for behind the scene looks at the Grand Tours the film cuts away to his rural home in Santa Rosa.


We learn that he and his partner really like animals but it's profoundly disappointing to hear Levi talk more about his love of dogs than his relationship with Mr. Armstrong (Lance is mentioned for all of about 20 seconds!) as well as the rest of Postal team.


There's some footage of the Tour of California which is moderately interesting, and much about his Grand Fondo (which raises funds for worthy causes in Sonoma) but after about five minutes is pretty boring to watch.


About the elephant in the movie called doping, Levi claims he never wanted to do PEDs, but was in a terrible dilemma (believable) but states he didn't dope after 2006 (harder to believe but interestingly the year he won Leadville). The doping segment lasts for about one minute.


Overall the movie was just too much of a whitewash for me. I wanted to learn more of what the man went though in Europe (and see iconic French and Italian mountain climbs).


Levi comes across as a good enough guy here though. I doubt he's evil and I hope he can figure out something meaningful for his life as it's looking like his cycling career may be over.

Gordy748

I saw the Levi Effect last night too. I very unexpectedly really liked it. It shows the human side of someone who's currently being demonized, not only in this forum but across others too. I found the focus on the Tour of California rather profound, not the ones when he was winning but when he had to play second fiddle to his own team mate and accept the role of domestique.

As for the drug taking, it was only mildly touched on but there was enough there to give me a new perspective too. It's pretty clear that people like Riis, Ulrich, Pantani and Armstrong all willingly took drugs in order to win, and didn't care about the consequences. Others like Leipheimer were more hesitant about it, as if it was something they were compelled to do. I learned that there are different levels of guilt, where the lower ranked riders like Millar took drugs just to keep up, not necessarily to win.

The movie isn't really about professional cycling, it's about the good that professional cyclists can bring to their community if they apply their abilities to something other than an all-consuming desire to win. It's a move that, but for the temptation of the devil, could have been about Lance Armstrong.

I'm sure others like the poster above will be disappointed the movie isn't about Lance or USPS or how many drugs these guys took in order to win. But as a reminder that there is good in pro cycling, and even in those that took drugs, it's a movie worth seeing, and I'd recommend it to anyone passionate about cycling.

gsteinb

The flip side is I wouldn't download and steal the movie, thinking Levi is such a colossal tool bag and cheat, I wouldn't want to do anything that might slow his slip into obscurity.

lowlife1975

i have no interest in seeing the movie but what bothered me about levi was that he did EPO with Saturn, before he even reached the european elite pro level. to me that stinks of really doing whatever it took to get ahead. there were no big names pressuring him or organized programs in place. for me, its more understandable for guys like dave z and tommy d, who i presume didn't start doping until they reached the elite level. if i am not mistaken, saturn was just a uci pro continental team right?

gsteinb

Levi is a first class a-hole.

This is from the WSJ article

Forced. No personal responsibility. It's all someone else's fault. There's not enough ways to tell this guy to go eff himself.

roadwarrior

Sounds like another well known guy who seems to be on my tv all the time these days....

You all do realize that this film was in the can before all this recent stuff came to light, correct?

gsteinb

yes, but I didn't refer to his film.

MDfive21

totally agree, and i think you can apply that to most of the guys who are making these apologetic statements.. it's standard PR fluff apology material and nobody buys it.





isn't it ironic that everyone who is volunteering information (speaking of themselves, like levi) was 'forced to make a tough decision against my will.. bla bla not my fault" but when they talk about the big name riders, the Other Guy was a rage fueled, willing participant who would stop at nothing to win. it was all the Other Guy's fault that cycling is a doping extravaganza. what a crock.

Angio Graham

so did we conclude that Levi doped during the leadville 100 ?