Ricco Suffers Kidney Failure After Transfusing His Own Blood

[MartinC]

Good old Cav, cuts to the chase, as usual ...

As condemnation goes, I don't think it comes much more clear-cut than that.

Entertaining, but a tad sanctimonious. Ricco is a serial cheat and should be punished. Cavendish has himself been sanctioned for cheating. I know Ricco's offences are tainted with the moral panic that surrounds drugs but Cav's offence is the same as an illegal tackle in rugby - it can leave a fellow sportsman dead, disabled or out of the game for a while. People seem to be making nice (in the old sense of the word) distinctions about types of cheating and nationality.

I appreciate that this post won't be popular but people should look at the whole picture not just cherry pick bits that reinforce their indignation.

 

[Padbeat]

Entertaining, but a tad sanctimonious. Ricco is a serial cheat and should be punished. Cavendish has himself been sanctioned for cheating. I know Ricco's offences are tainted with the moral panic that surrounds drugs but Cav's offence is the same as an illegal tackle in rugby - it can leave a fellow sportsman dead, disabled or out of the game for a while. People seem to be making nice (in the old sense of the word) distinctions about types of cheating and nationality.

I appreciate that this post won't be popular but people should look at the whole picture not just cherry pick bits that reinforce their indignation.

Woah there, big guy! Are you referring to the irregular sprinting from the last Tour (or was it the previous one)? I think that the distinction between deliberately and premeditatedly taking banned substances and transfusions and on the other hand pushing just a little bit too hard (possibly - it was a marginal call IIRC) is not a nice distinction.

It's screamingly obvious. There is no equivalence between them. I'd be stretching to even call it cheating. If it were football, Cav's offence would garner a yellow card, and the pundits would be debating the decision in the post-match analysis.

And as to sanctimonious, I don't think that Cav would argue that he is whiter than white when it comes to the sprint, but that's not how the sprint works, is it? None of the top sprinters are or ever were meek, retiring, shy types on the bike.

 

[MartinC]

Exactly Padbeat. There's cheating that you've decided really is cheating and then, apparently,there's cheating that you've decided doesn't count. Cheating is obtaining an advantage by breaking the rules of the game you're in. Believing someone only cheated a bit is a 'nice' distinction, did Bertie only cheat a bit?

If you want to draw moral distinctions between the two cases we're comparing here then on one hand you have someone doing something which many find distasteful and only endangers himself and in the other it puts other competitors at risk. Both are obtaining an advantage by breaking the rules.

To some extent I'm playing the devil's advocate here but the distinction that many make between what's "part of the game" and what's not seems to depend very much on the prejudices they hold.

 

[oldroadman]

Exactly Padbeat. There's cheating that you've decided really is cheating and then, apparently,there's cheating that you've decided doesn't count. Cheating is obtaining an advantage by breaking the rules of the game you're in. Believing someone only cheated a bit is a 'nice' distinction, did Bertie only cheat a bit?

If you want to draw moral distinctions between the two cases we're comparing here then on one hand you have someone doing something which many find distasteful and only endangers himself and in the other it puts other competitors at risk. Both are obtaining an advantage by breaking the rules.

To some extent I'm playing the devil's advocate here but the distinction that many make between what's "part of the game" and what's not seems to depend very much on the prejudices they hold.

The last couple of posts must have been made by someone who has never experienced top level races, finishing sprints, or even the last 10km where all the scrapping for position goes on! And generally what goes around comes around, so to equate anything like that with deliberately manipulating your blood, or chemically enhancing your capabilities, is like comparing scrumping an apple with murder. I know what I want done with cheats, and in a rough ride knew how to do the job, look after myself, and realise that it's part of the game, just like hard hits are part of rugby.

 

[John the Monkey]

I've just watched that brilliant I hope he recovers but I also hope he becomes somebody's b1tch in prison

Well, it's ok to hate Ricco, see?

Didn't hear much of this kind of thing about ol' bloodbags durng his farcical pre-suspension season, and we're not hearing much of it about Di Luca. To be fair, it's not just Cav making with the hyperbole though.

 

[MartinC]

The last couple of posts must have been made by someone who has never experienced top level races, finishing sprints, or even the last 10km where all the scrapping for position goes on! And generally what goes around comes around, so to equate anything like that with deliberately manipulating your blood, or chemically enhancing your capabilities, is like comparing scrumping an apple with murder. I know what I want done with cheats, and in a rough ride knew how to do the job, look after myself, and realise that it's part of the game, just like hard hits are part of rugby.

Yes, there's all sorts of maneuvering to obtain advantage that goes on and it's part of the contest. Some of it's legal and some of it's not.

Am I talking about sprinting or preparation? Who knows? What's the moral difference? Cheating is cheating - it's when you cross the line from legal to illegal, it's often arbitrary and sometimes you get away with it and sometimes you don't.

Rugby is the same - some big hits are part of the game and some are illegally delivered with a malicious intent to put someone out of the game. In between there's a big grey area where the game is played and officialdom arbitrates.

If we can pick and choose for ourselves which methods of cheating are alright and which aren't then feigning moral outrage when somebody else makes a different choice is a bit precious. Presumably Ricco cheated because he thought he "knew how to do the job" and "realised it was all part of the job". He was wrong and should be punished.

 

[rich p]

Are you trolling Martin?

Are you seriously equating someone who doesn't quite keep a straight line in a bunch sprint, probably through carelessness, with someone who systematically blood dopes and pays dodgy medics large amounts of money?

 

[MartinC]

Are you trolling Martin?

Are you seriously equating someone who doesn't quite keep a straight line in a bunch sprint, probably through carelessness, with someone who systematically blood dopes and pays dodgy medics large amounts of money?

No I'm not. There, clearly is a difference in the two offences, one's planned for a start. What I'm challenging is the knee jerk reaction to anything related to drugs. There is a moral relativism at play. It's a bit like the speeding motorist - "speeding isn't really criminal, but what other people do is really bad" etc. etc.

Cycling is a highly technical sport and most of the advantage in competition comes from the way you prepare so this is where people will bend and break the rules to win. So you should test for it and catch them. But all the hype we can do without. Ricco will be punished for what he's done and it may even involve prison - pretty heavy stuff for sport. The gratuitous celebration by the mob of what may happen is the stuff of public executions and witch burning - it's not very not very edifying and does the sport no good.

 

[rich p]

The celebration, as you call it, is nothing less than pleasure that another drug cheat has been caught. Just as I was pleased that Basso, Bertie, Vino, Ullrich etc got nicked.

How you mix Cav up in this is the bit I don't understand. The fact that Ricco is disliked by the peloton as much as the tifosi means that schadenfreude is an understandable reaction. It's a red herring though - another cheat has got his come-uppance.

 

[rich p]

While I'm here, I think that the peloton, Cav, cancellara who have spoken out about Ricco and doping is a posiitive move for the sport. It's about time the omerta was broken and pro cyclists did resent the cheats.
One of Armstrong's biggest failings was not condemning the cheats. There may, of course, been ulterior motive at play though.

 

[John the Monkey]

While I'm here, I think that the peloton, Cav, cancellara who have spoken out about Ricco and doping is a posiitive move for the sport. It's about time the omerta was broken and pro cyclists did resent the cheats.

I'd agree, if it was consistent. I don't hear him shooting his mouth off about the return of Di Luca, or bewailing Liquigas' breaking of the Pro Tour Team agreement on Basso's return (granted, that's a while back). I hope it *is* the beginning of a change, for all that though.

 

[Smokin Joe]

To equate the bumping and barging that goes on in the heat of a sprint with doping is ridiculous. Anyone who has raced will tell you that their is a fair bit of contact in the peloton as riders jockey for position, and not just in the sprint. All the top sprinters from every era, Kelly, Basso, Maertins etc were involved in crashes that were of their own making, it goes with the territory and no one does it deliberately because they are just as likely as anyone else to get hurt. If you're not prepared to get in the mix you won't get anywhere and should stick to time trials.

Doping is a premeditated and systematic attempt to cynically cheat and is in a different category.

 

[oldroadman]

To equate the bumping and barging that goes on in the heat of a sprint with doping is ridiculous. Anyone who has raced will tell you that their is a fair bit of contact in the peloton as riders jockey for position, and not just in the sprint. All the top sprinters from every era, Kelly, Basso, Maertins etc were involved in crashes that were of their own making, it goes with the territory and no one does it deliberately because they are just as likely as anyone else to get hurt. If you're not prepared to get in the mix you won't get anywhere and should stick to time trials.

Doping is a premeditated and systematic attempt to cynically cheat and is in a different category.

Absolutely right.

 

[peelywally]

vampire , anyone got van helsings number ?

 

[Happiness Stan]

Once a dickhead, always a dickhead.