a place for egoat to get it out of his system (doping thread)

Superhuman—does that even have meaning and relevance in the present day? Is it possible for someone to be “so much more doped” than anyone else, to stick out like a sore thumb, and not get popped? Me, I get twitchier about guys who have been declining slowly, and then they suddenly have a great race. Or they’ve been pretty strong, and then a new test comes out, and they ride like total crap. (I had that reaction to Dekker shortly before he was let go, for example). In other words, it’s a pattern specific to the rider that makes me antsy.

So—what yanks your chain? Superhumanness? Or inexpliableness?

Show me a positive test, or a few reliable eyewitness accounts, then we’ll talk. I’m seldom surprised when someone is caught doping, but I feel it’s unfair to non-dopers (and I am pretty sure there are some) to assume that any great performance must be the result of doping.

I don’t usually speak up here and I am half asleep still but I can’t get past what happened this morning. I haven’t read the “post race” thread but I need to get this off my mind even if it’s been written already.

The doping insinuations and outright nasty accusations got out of control in the RVV live thread today and no one with power here stopped it despite the many and repeated requests, demands and protests for those doing it to stop.

I’ve been participating in live threads in the cafe for 5 years at the least and I’ve never seen that behavior and even worse it came from a few who know better. I am currently giving the alcohol consumption the blame for the lack of oversight and self control. That may be erroneous but I can’t make sense of it otherwise.

Hopefully it doesn’t become a frequently occurring event because that would ruin the live thread experience and although I can’t speak for others my opinion is that a lot of us would stop coming here.

The best part of PdC is that we respect each other and today that was totally not respectful.

It was a spectacle that I am ashamed of as a member of this site. My apologies to the lurkers and newbies who witnessed it. Please don’t take it as an example of how we behave here.

I’ve rarely mouthed off about anyone else here, re :doping, Live thread or no, and I’ve been coming here much longer than many of you. Enough is enough. I call it like I see it and I simply do not trust Cancellara any longer. I did not blow up over Ricco or Sella, or Basso, or Di Luca… get the picture? Lance pissed me off, Landis pissed me off now Cancellara pisses me off. I’m not going to sit by and watch people jacking saccharine suppositories, as someone so elegantly put it this morning. Again, sorry if I offend, but my opinions are heartfelt. and sincere. No alcohol needed.

All but 5 or 6 have tested positive for some PED. I did accuse some poor Astanans because I figured they all wanted to be like Vino and dopers seem to cost more than 1 point.

I’m a firm believer in legalizing PEDs for sport and doing what Cofidis and Festina did back in the day so that these poor bastards don’t end up like Ricco.

If you want to go on some rant regarding your thoughts of a rider, then make a post and rant away!

A race thread is for what is happening in the damn race.

Getting more to the point –
I am placing the responsibility back on the management whom were apart of the thread and did not simply just ‘Bah Hammer’ it while stating quite clearly to E-Goat to simply make a post to go rant on.

Why is that so complicated?

It is not stopping anyones freedom to say what they feel, but rather making sure a Race Thread is not chronically getting hijacked by anyone regarding relatively anecdotal opinions.

There’s no way i can watch what cance has done lately and not wonder about it (and i think he’s a very likable rider and a great rider, doped or not). I mean it’s as though he could enter a ttt by himself and not just win but obliterate the field. What he has been doing lately just seems too much. Granted yesterday lies in contradiction to this (although he didn’t switch bikes for once ;)))) (not sure how serious i am about this but i find it funny that all his superhuman performances have involved a bike change and now he shows he’s human when he doesn’t change bikes – probably just a coinkydink …)

Anyway i agree with the no doping talk during race-thread rule because it is often very distracting. At least during the business end of a race. I actually feel the same about all other sorts of totally O/T comments during the business end of a race, but it’s true that doping discussions are often more distracting than say, cheese discussions. I don’t know, in this case i didn’t find the doping talk particularly distracting – i mean there wasn’t much in the way of real discussion – was more just egoat yelling doper and others telling him to shut up. I can z past all that pretty easily.

So i think egoat screwed up a little – but he’s one of the most enjoyable posters on here. I can certainly cut him some slack.

In general, people seem to think that it is acceptable to say that people are dopers before there is ANY evidence – certainly, I am not aware of anything that links Spartacus factually to dope in even a tendentious way; team, acquaintances, doctors etc. Certainly not in the last 4 years, say. So why do some people think we can accuse people of doping? In part, because we have a (partly subconscious) belief that “they are all at it”.

However, the moment you believe “they are all at it” is also the moment that you cannot use superhuman performance as an indicator of doping. If they are all at it, the superhuman outperformance is due to factors other than doping.

So we are free with our accusations BECAUSE we believe doping is rife, but if doping is rife, the individual performance is NOT evidence. Tricky, huh?

Last year, yes, I could see the concern – although I can also rationalise it because in RVV he essentially beat one guy in a man to man duel, and in PR the group chasing him never worked together, so it was cance versus one (and sometimes none). cf the 2008 Alpe d’Huez stage for something that strikes me as completely comparable. Once you factored in the tactical situation, I thought his win was entirely explainable by talent.

This year – I didnt see E3, so i cannot comment. But in RVV, we had a guy go onto the attack, blow up, get ridden back into the group, hang with the leaders and get a rest – while noting that the leaders were also pretty much on the rivet as well – and squeeze a result out by tactical nouse. Substitute RVV for Gent-Wewelgem, and you have just described pretty much Tommy Voelckler (without such a high placing), who NOBODY thinks is doped, except possibly on French national pride.

I tried to ignore the stuff that came later – but admit it irritated me to see it going on. Glad to see the apology and I am not going to harp on that anymore at all. In fact, I think the “lancerella” name is fine to use if you want. It’s your opinion and if the name helps ya avoid getting all irritated and having to leave the live threads, then use away please. I do it with Bahvendish when he’s acting like a shithead. So, anyway, the community is better with you in it and feeling free to represent yourself – If “lancerella” helps keep ya sane – please go for it and I won’t be offended by it.
Cheers.

-live threads = no dope talk. period.
-can’t be surprised by any rider testing positive. nothing against (most of) the riders, it’s just the sad state of the sport.
-cancellara seems to be a nice guy and is an amazing athlete
-amazing athletes raise suspicion.
-lancellara is a funny play on names.
-accusing riders of doping is easy. proving they’re clean is impossible.
-people shouldn’t be put into the position of defending a rider they like, unless they want to. which is why it should be kept out of live threads. people attend those to watch some bike racing, not convert cynics.
-this isn’t the biggest deal. we’ve done a great job so far, in my opinion.

is the implicit message that there is no such thing as a legitimately outstanding (and by outstanding I mean head-and-shoulders above the rest) performance or performer. To me, this is both demoralizing—because outstanding performances/performers are the very thing I find inspiring in sports—and, more importantly, factually unsound. Babe Ruth must have been a doper? Ty Cobb? Wayne Gretzky? Joe Montana? Secretariat? Major Taylor? Even Eddy Merckx, who pretty clearly WAS a doper, is a convincing argument for the existence of superhuman athletes, since all his competition was doping too.

In short, I don’t think there is much doubt that legitimately superhuman (or superequine, in Secretariat’s case) athletes exist. You can wonder whether Cancellara is really one of them… but lacking any substantial evidence of doping, what is the point? He COULD be a doper… he could also be one of the legitimate greats. Why not hold on to that latter possibility until you have a solid reason to believe otherwise?

OK,

But I would suggest that “doping” in his era was not just prevalent (as many note) but also only limitedly effective …. unlike the EPO / blood doping eras.

Or am I under-estimating the power of amphetamines, whiskey (counterproductive?) and other early era doping?

The Nor Cal High School MTB League banned caffeine in competition because of the potential effects to the teenagers who might be using it for an athletic advantage. They aren’t regulating it with testing but an honor system with coaches ensuring their racers don’t use it.

Can you imagine banning caffeine in pro-cycling? IT is a stimulant known to help with glucose uptake and short burst efforts, so essentially a PED.

peloton for years. Remember the TdF 2007 Stage 3? Or how about the 2008 Olympic RR when he jumped up to the front (can’t find good vid of that.) Or the TdSuisse 2008? And then there’s MSR 2008.

My point being: Cance has been winning road races by powering off the front for years, it didn’t just start happening last year. Is it possible he’s better at it now because he’s done it so many times? You’d think so….

I’m a huge fan, and terribly prejudiced, but you have to really consider that this is how he wins road races.

who is always winning and has tiger blood in him(seems dangerous)? Well fine…

Check out this article on Cancellara in CyclingNews. His statements about dope testing are reminiscent of someone else’s.