Doping: Attitude and bias...

[Boris Bajic]

Back in 2000 I was riding with a big club in Cambridge and I remember vividly the arguments I used to have with just about everyone over LA. I thought he was dirty and all those in his team, I was very much a lone voice and I am looking forward to going back next month to do some reliability rides with them and say,
"I told you so". Very childish I know but I really was angry with the fan boys at the time.
The thing that concerns me now above all else is that if I knew / strongly suspected he was doping then virtually everyone involved in pro cycling must also have known and yet silence reigned. The fashionable term is "omerta" and is frequently applied to the peleton, giving it an aura of mystery.
In modern times my "hero" has for many years been Jens Voigt, but listening to him a couple of days ago defending LA, one of my last bubbles has well and truly been burst. I didn't want him to be dirty, I wanted to believe. As a self confessed cynic I was playing the ostrich rather well, sigh.
It doesn't get any better either after listening to Andy Schleck on LA and doping [and I was never convinced by the Schlecks] it would seem the show goes on. I look back at the 2009 Tour podium and I don't believe, but then in 4th place is Wiggins with known dopers behind him - F Schleck, Kloden, Nibali. What am I to think? There are three possible answers, 1. Everyone was clean, 2. Wiggins was clean, most were doping, 3. Wiggins was doping along with everyone else. I don't believe the first scenario, the second is the one I want to believe but logically can'y be right, the last option I don't want to believe.
Can pro cycling not get it through their thick heads that they are losing viewers and sponsors? Few trust the UCI anymore and yet I think now is the best opportunity there has ever been to start anew. If you are caught doping and do not name names, life ban, if you come clean and tell all, 3 years with no second chance.
Just to finish by saying that unfortunately it has even penetrated the amateur ranks and we are gutted. Apologies for such a long post, much more that could have been said but I fear it will be a small audience.

This is close what I was trying to get to in the OP. I 'like' Voeckler and I 'like' the late Pantani and I 'like' the late Fignon, so I have always cut them some ethical slack. I rather liked Ulrich too... I kept thinking he was going to finish ahead of LA. With hindsight that seems silly, but at the time I was waiting for it to happen.

This selective attitude to our heroes is inexplicable, but it sits well with me, so I do it. I share your slightly uncomfortable feeling about our 'chosen heroes who must therefore be clean' being up there in the results among the dirty guys... My example was Evans having a storming Giro in (?) 2002. I loved it when he won the TdF and I loved it even more when he was the nail-hard cobber who never quite got beyond bridesmaid. But in 2002 he was up and racing with the dirty mob in the era of dirt.

I never quite 'got' why folk fell for the suicidal 'maximum attack' of Voigt, but he is another one where the affection of the fan allows us to cut some slack. My elder boy quite likes him and I'll bet he thinks he's always been clean. "Shut up WADA!"

As you do, I have a selection of scenarios that offer me the chance to keep the heroes I want to keep.

Just musing above; no slight intended. Most or all of the riders I mention above are heroes to me.