laurence said:
once again, the media believes there are only drugs in cycling. shame that they don't investigate sports that don't do any drug testing instead of picking on one that does and is trying to get rid of the problem. i don't think there'd be much sport on tv if that happened.
Hmmmm, I can't help but feel that what you're saying Laurence (and it's by no means the first time I've heard it said, so it's not personal) is the rather skewed 'the world hates us 'cos we is cyclists' take on events. Other sports do get the hammer for drugs, athletics being the most obvious. Football gets the hammer for other reasons, notably financial irregularities relating to managers and agents. Horse racing gets hammered for race fixing, cricket for match fixing and so on. Every major sport has a monkey on its back, cycling's monkey is doping and it's been prevalent, perhaps even dominant, since the very beginning. It is absolutely inextricable from the sport. I read Blazing Saddles by Matt Rendell today. A cheery and slightly eccentric gallop through the Tour's history, a celebration of what makes the Tour special. Certainly not a high profile 'dope in cycling' expose. I was amazed by the number of winners who cheerily admitted to using dope, in one form or another, during their careers. Jacque Anquetil's admission that he used drugs 'whenever necessary', which was 'nearly always' springs to mind. This is a man lionised by cycling fans. Maitre Jacque, winner of 5 Tours. The smoothest, most elegant man to ever put foot to pedal. And Riis, Landis, Zabel, the fools caught in the Puerto net and so on. What right do we have to wonder why people raise their eyebrows when pro-cycling is mentioned? None. None whatsoever.
