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Petacchi and the Tour
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Quite a while ago I read Tom D's article entitled "Absolute Pansy" (http://bikesportmichigan.com/...orials/0000038.shtml) - in summary it strongly expresses his feelings about Petacchi after winning 3 stages of the tour and then quitting for no apparent reason at the beginning of the mountain stages - I absolutely agree with Toms assessment (although I would probably not have worded it so strongly) and it has been playing on my mind for some time - and here is my answer - although it would require a major shift in thought about Le Tour I would love to see stage winners being recognised at the end of the Tour AFTER THEY HAD COMPLETED THE TOUR. If you do not complete the Tour you do not get the stage win....ok now you can all go ahead and shoot me down!!

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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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I'll start by saying that I agree with you, Petacchi's actions did call into question the brilliance of his victories - maybe he was planning on quitting, and left nothing in his reserves while cooke et al restrained themselves?

But...

What if Belocki had won a stage? Or if Virenque had been injured? Or Ullrich? Would you deny them their recognition?

I propose that at the end of the tour, they recognized the stage winners who finished the Tour OR were injured to the point of not being able to continue.

My $.02




http://www.theninjadon.blogspot.com

"The bicycle riders drank much wine, and were burned and browned by the sun. They did not take the race seriously except among themselves." -- Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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my big issue with that atricle was the following line...

"Virenque is a hero."

wow

customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [customerjon] [ In reply to ]
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Haha, I agree with you there. Other than that one stage victory, Virenque was a scavenger, an opportunist. I was actually surprised that Armstrong didn't say something about it in the OLN post-partum interview ... he called Ullrich out for not slowing down for him in Stage 17, so he obviously wasn't looking to stick to the high road.

Still, knowing that he was hoping for the climber's jersey in Paris, you can't fault Virenque for his tactics. A strong climber and a good strategist, maybe, but a hero? Not in my book.

----Note: I still stick to my claim that it would be wrong to deny Virenque his stage victory if he'd crashed out later, in, as an example, the final TT (like Peschel did). He worked hard for that victory, and earned nothing but my respect for that.----




http://www.theninjadon.blogspot.com

"The bicycle riders drank much wine, and were burned and browned by the sun. They did not take the race seriously except among themselves." -- Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [vidaeboa] [ In reply to ]
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 my deal with virenque is he became king of the mountains doped to the gills, get caught, lies, sheds tears, lies again, writes book full of lies, comes clean. he is now close to the level he was at on dope. so how is able to ride great drug free when he used to have to use drugs to ride as well as he does now?

he's no hero.

customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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mr. pedantic notes: petacchi won 4 stages before quitting, not 3
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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ok here is a point. dude wins for stages then drops. do i agree with this? no not really. finish the tour. on the other hand he did win 4 stages. last time i checked people at that level aren't quiters. anybody get the word from the man why he slipped out the side or are we just throwing bombs?

customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [customerjon] [ In reply to ]
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[reply]my big issue with that article was the following line...

"Virenque is a hero."

wow[/reply]

I thought the same about this statement. Virenque was the only one of his team who did not confess that he took drugs. He is a big liar and not a hero.

Felix

http://www.weilenmann.ch.vu
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [customerjon] [ In reply to ]
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>>he's no hero. <<

No shit. A liar and back stabber and someone with no balls to fess up his wrongs, yes. Ah, but my thoughts of king richard are already well known.

You also have to remember that Petacchi's entire team was decimated with the flu and only 2 or 3 of them made it to Paris. I'll cut him some slack.

clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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Anyone who calls Petacchi a pansy needs to go back and look at the Giro where he won a stage after his time trial crash. The guy looked like a freaking mummy. I doubt many of us would have even started the next day, much less won. Petacchi dropped out of Le Tour because he was sick. If one can't remember back to the Giro, they should be more reluctant to throw stones.

I'm not a big fan of Virenque either, but I'm not going to get on his case for doping in '98. I would wager that somewhere between 50% and 100% of the field was on the juice back then. Festina just made a mistake and got caught.
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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I agree with Tom D.'s views on Petacchi. As I've posted extensively on this issue before I see no need to repeat the arguments. Suffice it to say that he let down his teammates, the public, the other racers, Le Tour and himself in this year's Tour de France.

-Robert

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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You guys might be overreacting a bit. I don't think what he did was real cool either but he is a damn good sprinter and he earned each of his wins (if you think sprinters hold back in the sprint for a tour stage because they know they're going to have to climb in three days, I've got a bridge to sell you). Keep in mind also, that the powers that be in the tour (and euro cycling as a whole) are watching and probably share some of the thoughts expressed here, even if they keep them to themselves. Look at what happened to Cippo. The decision to let him in or keep him out was close enough that I guarantee he would have gotten in if he had finished a few tours rather than grabbing stages and then quitting. A wise man once told me "Broadway is a two-way street. What you do going one way, they'll do back to you in spades going the other direction." I think the same goes for the Champs Elysees and I know it does for bike racing.



________________________________________________

Anyone who tells you they're as fast now as they were when they were 18...
sure wasn't very fast when they were 18.
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [john] [ In reply to ]
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John, I'm with you.

Uh, there's more to cycling than the Tour folks. Petacchi won a ton of stages at the Giro, crashed and did the mummy thing in the TT, then finished a mountain stage - a brutal mountain stage - even though he was well outside of the time limit and had to know it. Now he's going to head to Spain, win a bunch of stages in the first ten days of the Vuelta and call it a season. And a lot more people know the name Fassa Bortolo because of his stage wins this year. That's his job, and he did it well.

***
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [Marlin] [ In reply to ]
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Exactly.

If it holds that the sprinters should be held to a really high standard (ie they have to finish the tour) then shouldn't the GC contenders also be required to contest every stage, including the bunch sprints? Of course not, that would be ridiculous to expect of them (imagine Simoni in a sprint against Petacchi!)

Most sprinters are eliminated from the tour because they can't climb (relatively speaking). Should they be penalised for that? Cippo was criticised in prior years because he made no pretense at attempting to get over the mountain stages. Petacchi at least made a bit more of an effort: he was dropped on the first climb of the first mountain stage, was ill, and knew that he would be eliminated at the end of the day anyway. So why not climb off when he did? The effect is the same, and may have prevented long term damage.

I remember a certain 5 time tour winner dropping out of his first tour after winning a stage. This was a planned abandonment, he had no intention of finishing the tour. In another tour, he abandoned mid stage from a breathing problem, rather than battle on to the finish.

Every single rider in the Tour is a phenomenal athlete. I don't believe it is our place to criticise them when they do their best and still cannot finish, to get to the start line of the Tour is in itself an extraordinary accomplishment. As I don't know what he was feeling, I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and say, "well done".

Jason
Last edited by: jasonk: Sep 4, 03 11:59
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [customerjon] [ In reply to ]
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You Guys SOOOOOO need to read the book Breaking the Chain by Willy Voets. He was the masseuse for the Festina team that got busted on the border with enough perfromance enhancers to sink a battle ship in his car.

I'm sorry to burst any bubbles, but probably everyone of the riders in the Tour are on some "special recovery supplements" and likely this extends into most Olympic sports. The bigger the money in a sport the more likely the doping.

Heres an intersting point for you: The Festina Team had a structured doping prgram in place, using some of the best riders in the world, yet they never even came close to winning the Tour. What then were the other guys on?

I loved this years Tour, I enjoy watching nearly all sports, but the cynic in me hates the fact that probably everyone on an olympic dias in any power/ endurance/ speed or strength sport is doped.

Heres hoping Triathlon can stay as clean as possible, and no I don't belive it is totally now.

Steve
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [Trinipples] [ In reply to ]
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Here's something that may (or may not) relate to your suggestion that most if not all the athletes are doped (I'd tend to agree, though I try not to dwell on it): Why do so many riders have abdominal ailments? Seems like everyone has a stomach virus or the flu at some point. Is it just coincidence that so many people are battling stomach viruses and the flu? Or are stomach problems a side-effect of certain doping products?

I don't know the answer, but it makes me wonder.
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [john] [ In reply to ]
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In Reply To:
Anyone who calls Petacchi a pansy needs to go back and look at the Giro where he won a stage after his time trial crash.
I totally agree. And doesn't it stand to reason Petacchi may have had an incredibly good reason (whatever it may be) to drop out of the Tour? Remember that last year he DID complete the Tour in spite of not winning a single stage. So with a bunch of stage wins already this year, doesn't it seem likely that he would have finished the Tour in hopes of taking home the green jersey had he been able? Damn armchair quarterbacks. I'm sure Petacchi is all broken up that he didn't live up to everyone elses expectations.
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [jhendric] [ In reply to ]
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I think its more of a csae of complete overload of the body that just destroys the immune system. Add to this the ammounts of Corticosteriods and anti inflammatroy's (further reducing immune responses) that these guys are on and you probably get a recipe for picking up a lot of small infections, and not being able to get rid of them.

Most of us know the problems associated with trying to get fuel right for a 1 day event, imagine trying to do it for a 3 week tour!!! So i'm sure that, along with the Drugs contribute to their Stomachs being occasionally dodgy.

Steve
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [Rich] [ In reply to ]
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 "Look at what happened to Cippo. The decision to let him in or keep him out was close enough that I guarantee he would have gotten in if he had finished a few tours rather than grabbing stages and then quitting."

The reason Cippo, and for that matter Pantani too, didn't get in, was because they couldn't get on a team good enough to qualify. For some reason, be it money or their personalities, they chose poor teams and, possibly, money rather than joining a good team earlier in the season.

Not sure about Pantani but if the price was right who would have turned down Cippo at the beginning of the season?

You could argue that team selection was French biased but there were plenty of other teams they could have approached.
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [2WheelsGood] [ In reply to ]
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Well, reasonable people will differ on this. Rob Roll made a comment at the end of the Tour wrapup program on OLN about Lance "not giving up" "not quitting" despite the many problems he was having. He didn't mention Petacchi, but it seems like it says a lot about a guy's character if he's willing to keep going even knowing that finishing will be quite difficult. When Petacchi quit he was not physically spent. He just GAVE UP. I saw the footage and found it hard to believe a professional athete would do such a thing. For triathletes to find this behavior acceptable is, well, very understanding of them, I guess.... :),

-Robert

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [Robert] [ In reply to ]
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In Reply To:
When Petacchi quit he was not physically spent. He just GAVE UP. I saw the footage and found it hard to believe a professional athete would do such a thing.


Extremely impressive. Armchair quarterback AND armchair physician. So you KNOW from what you saw on TV what condition Petacchi was in? And you KNOW from what you saw that he had no better reason than "he just gave up?" I'm quite certain you could make a hefty sum of money with that skill of yours. Just think, people could send you pictures of themselves and you could tell them what ails them.

As I said, given that he finished the Tour last year with nothing to gain, it makes absolutely no sense that "he just gave up" this year with the green jersey almost certainly his in Paris if he finished.

But hey, I won't argue. You KNOW what you KNOW from what you SAW on TV.
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Re: Petacchi and the Tour [2WheelsGood] [ In reply to ]
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Everyone is forgetting that petacchi also raced in the giro where he crashed hard and was eliminated by the race committee after a hellacious day in the mountains. he had a tough season, good results early. it's hard to maintain that level no matter what you may be on. it's especially difficult to stay in the game mentally, which we have seen is very important.

Craig
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