We actually did the math out, and I believe that SlowTwitch’s own Mark Montgomery may at least be a podium finisher, if not the winner of said TdF. \
Pretty funny, but I do have to say that it does piss me off now that I know for sure that I was racing against heavly doped athletes. A thread awhile ago about Redlands was a good example. I mentioned that a famous British rider was popped for doping back then, and I caught a lot of shit for that, until I finally found the article that outed him. People had a blind eye back then, and even I just thought it was isolated. In one sense it does make me mad, because I did pretty well against those guys, and I was clean, but on the other I guess I was just a lot better than I thought I was…I will just have to hold onto that thought I guess, that I would have crushed those pencil necked roadies, and not the few top 10 finishes I got over the years in the pro. 1,2, races…
Right and THG was the ONLY synthetic steroid completely unknown to drug tests due to its obscurity. do you really think those guys are clean? If they have a good lab working with them, there are seeminly limitless ways to manipulate compounds to achieve the steroid effect and be undetectable at the same time. They cannot test for substances they do not know exist.
I’m not so sure about Zabel. Other sources within Telecom said that some people were juiced but not Zabel. His admission that he tried it but then had such adverse side effects may be true if you consider this.
72 hours is not enough time to correct things for most steroids.
Unless correcting things involves a fake penis with clean urine in it.
There is a store in East Lansing which sells those! “In Flight” it’s a store for stoners. They have bongs… excuse me… glass tobacco pipes and all sorts of other stuff.
It sounds like people around here are so angry that our sports (mainly, cylcing) are so riddled with drugs that you are looking to point the finger at someone else and say it isn’t just us. Well the bottom line is you don’t know if it is or isn’t. I am standing on proof and you are standing on a festering turd of pure speculation. They must be on drugs they are bigger, faster and stronger than 20 years ago.
Yes, players are bigger, stronger and faster its a natural progression! Just like doctors are doing more amazing things. It is a function primarily of two things: A) larger pool of talent B) earlier sport specific training and development
With regards to A) as money grows the league grows and more kids are motivated to live the dream B) look around high schools now. The days of the triple sport athlete are dwindling. You have people playing or training for one sport all year round as early as 10 years old.
You can’t say one sport is clean while the others are not. Athletes in every sport are breaking records as fast if not faster than in football. So I assume you believe every sport is filthy.
I have to admit that I was not unlike many Americans in that I was a bit naive about the level of doping in the pro peleton, and even more naive about the participation of American athletes. Not so any more. Honestly, if I were French (which I am…sort of…folks came over in 1600), I would be pissed too. The French have a very aggressive testing program. If you knew that your guys were not getting results because everybody else was doped, wouldn’t you be pissed? I can understand the push to expose the dopers, even if it seems a bit hostile at times.
Did anyone see the article on velo news about the raids on the Quick Step team’s homes. Supposedly several arrests. Another team to be excluded from the Tour???
I think I remember Phil Liggett saying rather famously somewhere that if Lance Armstrong is found to have ridden dirty that he would wash his hands of cycling altogether. I wonder what he, and other high-profile media people think about this Hamilton/Landis/Basso/Zabel/Riis situation? Add Virenque and Millar and I’m just about ready to hang up my interest. I know it’s shite to bag a sport because of a few bad apples, but it makes me think about all the guys I knew growing up who rode their asses off just to make some of the smaller US Classic races, and never even had a chance on the international stage because they didn’t have the resources to dope.
Truthfully, for French riders to dope now, if they belong to a Pro team, it’s pretty hard with a ‘suivi longitudinal’. The French Anti Doping Agency tried to impose a similar process for all riders but it failed unfortunately.
That said, I don’t think we have many really talented riders right now anyway, so I still think someone not french would win the tour…
Before doping, fancy bikes etc. the main thing remains to have a truly gifted rider. Armstrong, Ullrich, etc. were truly amazing riders, doped or not. France doesn’t have a Hinault or an Anquetil at the moment.
Ding ding ding!!! Absolutely, at least every endurance or power sport. Beta blockers in the ones that require a steady hand.
You can’t honestly believe that the “American” sports are clean…“football” and baseball are amongst the worst because of the money involved. If you can make a shedload of cash playing a sport and just need that bit extra to get there, most athletes seem to be able to justify it to themselves, often on the grounds that “everyone else is doing it” or “this stuff isn’t even banned (yet)”. I don’t see this “proof” you’re standing on, a lack of failed tests is nothing of the sort with the labs being way ahead of the testers and the adminstrators running a half-assed testing program however they might try to spin it as otherwise.
If you wanted to make a case for curling being clean I might believe you. You need drugs to watch that one
Operacion Puerto has 200 athletes listed. 50 pro riders. Not one athlete of the other 150 got any problem whatsoever…not one…even though there were a few names that came out that were really well known (zidane, ronaldinho, nadal for instance…)
Riis (and others) had to know that this would be the response. I guess I still don’t know why Riis came forward. He hurt himself, his country and his team. What did he gain? I can appreciate that he sleeps well at night and that he wanted to do what was right, but is that a good enough reason when you know that there are many others out there who did/are doing the same thing. Did someone have proof?
a number of support staff (doctors and trainers) from the old Telekom team had come forward with first hand accounts of doping (and I think one even wrote a book). One guy even claims to have injected Jan Ullrich w/ EPO and HGH. I don’t think its a coincidence that Zabel, Riis, Henn, Dietz and Aldag all came forward at the same time.
Yeah, cycling’s a mess but at least theytry to tackle it and do so in public. The really big money sports that run their own programs just sweep it under the carpet to keep the cash rolling in.
