Amidst all the crap going on, I think one guy you gotta admire is CSC boss Bjarne Riis. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it his sole decision to pull Basso out of the tour because of the possible harm it would do for the CSC team? Maybe (probably) Basso could haver pulled off the win however…
Dude… where to start…
yeah, i’m sure mr 60% is as honorable as they come.
I admire Riis. you have to admire a guy who carries water bottles and gets injured, then comes back the next year and beats Indurain in the Tour de France and earns the nickname in the peleton ‘mr. 60 percent.’
Yeah sure, I admire him.
Touching his bowel movements has been known to restore sight to the blind.
<< Dude… where to start… >>
I think this is a good place:
From Breaking the Chain, Willy Voet - (The Dane = Bjarne Riis in the 1996 tour on the stage to Hautacaam)
“The Dane, who was to win the race, literally played with his rivals before obliterating them. And the haematocrit level of his rivals, certainly at Festina, had been blithely boosted to about 54 per cent. His exploit was as perturbing for those in the know as it was spectacular to the uninitiated. Two years later from my prison cell I couldn’t help laughing nervously when I saw Riis become the riders’ spokesman as the Tour de France descended into farce. What kind of cycling was he defending?”
There used to be a file from the ‘man of honour’ on the Cyclingpeaks Software site that depicted his winning ride at the Amstel Gold race. I’m not sure if it’s still up there or not…
The funniest think about the file: the rider’s weight! It’s obviously over-inflated–by a lot. It’s pretty obvious why…the w/kg for the last 40 minutes were so unbelievable that if they put Senor 60 Percent’s real weight, the file would go from the sublime to the ridiculous…
IIRC, if you look at his published, real weight at the time, and looked at the file, I believe it ended up being well at/over 6 w/kg for the last 50 minutes of a long, hard race. hmmm… Mr. Honorable…