Really nice article on cyclingdoping by Vaughters. I would have to say he would be a great leader of the UCI.
Seems like an intelligent, honest bloke, and has a positive outlook towards the whole enchilada of cyclinghatage.
Login or Register
Jonathon Vaughters Article
-
-
sheesh. needs a good edit.
-
He does seem like an intelligent guy. Honest seems like a bit of a stretch given his background (he may be honest now I am just saying I don't know). I find articles like this, originating from within the cycling world, a bit silly. I don't see a solution for the doping problem coming from within the cycling world. There is a high chance that any solution for doping that orginates in the cycling world will be self-serving in some way.
Solving doping in cycling is a hard problem that needs an entity that is focused solely on the problem. Cycling needs a body with no connections to cycling tasked with catching as many cyclists as possible. That is their only responsibility. They should never need to think about cycling 'the sport'. No one else should have any say in how doping controls (and doping punishment) are done. They should be God when it comes to catching dopers in the pro peloton. I am not sure about Vaughter's idea of the teams paying the bill but the doping organization obviously should be well funded. If the teams do end up paying the bill it should be done with a level of indirection to avoid a direct - 'team A paid $x to the doping organization'. It seems a payee will always find a way to get some leverage over the entity they are paying if they are motivated to do so. Some indirection would make this a little harder to do (maybe teams pay into a pot and the money is used for a number of things, not just doping controls)
Each cyclist (or anyone else) shown to be connected to doping should be penalized by the organization according to well established guidelines. Everyone else has to be assumed innocent. People who have done their time need to be let back in (assuming the guidelines do not ask for lifetime bans)
Every effort needs to be made to ensure there is no interference from people like Vaughters. There is no way to know if 'this is the time' Vaughters (or someone like him) is telling the truth or if they are just trying to promote their self-interests.
-
Zurich@"Every effort needs to be made to ensure there is no interference from people like Vaughters. There is no way to know if 'this is the time' Vaughters (or someone like him) is telling the truth or if they are just trying to promote their self-interests."
Unless I've completely lost my reading comprehension ability,I thought that was the point Vaughters was making?
-
At this point, Vaughters appears to be transparent, by his actions within his team. He brought sponsorship into the sport, stuck his neck out,( along with David Millar, co-owner,) and his riders testified,*before the USADA) and he kept every one of his riders.
These guys, Millar, Vaughters are very brave, the Omeratists outnumber them in pro sports, 30 to 1, hats off Vaughters.
Just today I read one of the Williams sisters talking on yahoo about Armstrong and steroids, could not hear a thing from her except clacking of gum. -
Zurich I take it you did not read his article because as funny as an insider telling how cycling can be fixed almost quoted you. You know he is saying the same thing? Another real hilarious thing is in the Part 2 of the interview with Pat McQ that he agrees the UCI should not be policing itself in matters of Doping. Give them an actual read.
-
@Master50 and @bobswire - After rereading the last paragraph I realize I got stuck on the 'we can give them total honesty to help their work'. I have to admit I have started to get a 'knee jerk' negative reaction when I read that. I feel that if there is one thing we can depend on from this sport it seems to be lack of honesty.
However you are both correct. I was skimming that last paragraph too quickly. I agree with what Vaughters says about the complete separation and the funding.
I really hope they do it and it works.
-
I agree with almost everything he says including taxing the racers to pay for the new governing body, but I disagree with the 100 year doping history. I doubt Anquetil and Coppi were doping back in the day.
Back in the 40s they were still drinking wine while riding their bikes thinking it would give them an edge. I'd like to believe doping became popular in the last thirty years, and while I'm at it I'd also like to believe GL was clean too.
-
Anquetil's famous quote (I praphrase) that one cannot win the tour on fresh water would seem to imply otherwise in his case. amphetamines were rampant in his day. Coppi, I don't know.
-
Zurich
No worries but you just gave a good example of how much of a hurry we are all in. Been there and stayed for the foot removal ;)
I think JV is generally correct to say doping started with the sport. The purpose of the drugs and their performance enhancing properties have changed a lot.
I think that most of the early doping might not even still be considered as performance enhancing as much as sleep and pain management. Single stages of 500 km and many other examples that bike racing was more of a torture spectacle than sport.
Thankfully the circus aspect diminished but the general demands on pros did not reduce the number of race days. I don't know when Testosterone came to the peloton but I think it was the first true performance enhancer even if it was used primarily as a recovery agent. If i was to characterize the doping activities of this age was it was compassionate with the intent of reducing riders suffering. Just to get them back on their bikes.
The next point changed everything. I think the first concerted efforts to enhance performance came in the amateur ranks where the prestige of nations held great sway. Entire ideological focus of nations and their political systems Pros were doing their pro stuff but national amateur teams brought glory to their countries. Certainly a lot of pro riders could race clean in these times but ama tears in east block countries were being doped by their federations. Eventually you can include the us Federation too.
Ironically this spelled the end of amateur racing too. It became obvious that east block riders were pros or at least did not have to work as the soldiers they were said to be. The olympics oped to pros and doping was getting better, a lot better. True performance enhancing and undetectable. The money got better too and the stakes for each rider meant income and employment at least for the riders that made the top squads at the tour
It becomes obvious there is a boost in performance as almost all the top races get faster. Some of this because the pressure to win and get the jerseys out in the TV coverage that the races change just because of publicity. Most of us know the narrative of the last 25 years. Why we want so much to eliminate it from the sport where other sports are still pretty complacent I don't know but we really need to adjust our persecutive and instead of apologizing for our past we need to be supportive of the change and boast about what we have done to make cycling a clean pro sport within the limitations of true clean.
Call me Naive but I really believe we are cleaner than the sport has ever been. -
Well, we can only hope that cycling is clean. Going back to the Merckx era, there was an arms race in undetectable, and or non-banned stimulants, steroids, blood doping etc. Before Simpsons death testing never happened in cycling.
I agree, cycling is cleaner than most other pro sports. Cycling is under the worlds microscope now.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B6ZycaBelU
I would advise everyone to watch this video.
As you all know, I am starting a cycling business. As a result I have been talking with a lot of Belgians. They told me about the 1962 TdF...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_Tour_de_France#Stages
In the night after that stage, Hans Junkermann, riding for the Wiel's team, became ill. Junkermann was in seventh place in the general classification, and his team requested the start to be delayed by ten minutes, which the organisation allowed. After that stage, stage 14, had started, Junkermann quickly fell to the back, and had to give up. He was not the only one: twelve riders fell ill and said 'bad fish' was the cause. Tour doctor Pierre Dumas realized they had all been given the same drug by the same soigneur.[8] Fourteen riders abandoned the Tour that day, including the former leader, Willy Schroeder, the 1960 winner Gastone Nencini and a future leader, Karl-Heinz Kunde.[4] Jacques Goddet wrote that he suspected doping but nothing was proven - other than that none of the hotels had served fish the previous night. The newspapers ridiculed the riders, and this made the riders furious. They threatened to strike, but the journalist Jean Bobet, a former cyclist, was able to talk them into continuing[5] although Jean Bobet was one of the creators of film "Vive Le Tour!" which ridiculed the riders and their 'bad fish' explanation
Look at the Groene Leeuw rider and the GS Ingis rider. Note the commentary.
I will give Lance credit for one statement...exactly how far back to we really wanna go with this.
Kameron. Your boy Jacques Anquetil won the race. Some of his greatest hits:
"Leave me in peace, everybody takes dope."
“You would have to be an imbecile or a crook to imagine that a professional cyclist who races for 235 days a year can hold the pace without stimulants”
“For 50 years bike racers have been taking stimulants. Obviously we can do without them in a race, but then we will pedal 15 miles an hour (instead of 25). Since we are constantly asked to go faster and to make even greater efforts, we are obliged to take stimulants”
It is his word versus ours. We like our word. We like where we stand and we like our credibility."--Lance Armstrong. -
@kr - thanks, great video. And yeah, doping goes back... On Fausto wikipedia says:
Coppi was often said to have introduced "modern" methods to cycling, particularly his diet. Gino Bartali established that some of those methods included taking drugs, which were not then against the rules.
Bartali and Coppi appeared on television revues and sang together, Bartali singing about "The drugs you used to take" as he looked at Coppi. Coppi spoke of the subject in a television interview:
Question: Do cyclists take la bomba (amphetamine)?
Answer: Yes, and those who claim otherwise, it's not worth talking to them about cycling.
Question: And you, did you take la bomba?
Answer: Yes. Whenever it was necessary.
Question: And when was it necessary?
Answer: Almost all the time![25][26]
Coppi "set the pace" in drug-taking, said his contemporary, the Dutchman, Wim van Est.[27] Rik van Steenbergen said Coppi was "the first I knew who took drugs."[28]Of course wikipedia is not a rock solid source, but I am sure on ecould find one...
-
Nice footage KR. To see Van Looy in such pain....oh my God.
Great stuff, to see that footage is to know cycling.
Loved seeing Bahomentes climb, similar to LeMond. -
I stand corrected, but you know understand my point.
-
great video keith thanks for posting. it again reminds me of Andy Hampsten's discussion of back in the days when riders were only using amphetamines and anabolics, and both had drawbacks. “Amphetamines made riders stupid … Anabolics made people bloated.” “EPO changed everything,” he said. It boosted a rider’s red-blood cells so they could carry more oxygen, leading to greater endurance."
Between 1980 and 1990, the average speed of a Tour de France rider was 37.5 kilometers per hour. From 1995 to 2005, it was 41.6kph.
-
Jacques Anquetil, the first rider to win the Tour de France 1/2/3/4/5 times!
-
Kaameron, Anquetil was in fact a unrepentant doper. He refused the drug test after reclaiming the hour record, this back when the hour record was arguably bigger than any two other prizes in cycling combined. The difference, which is huge, is the dope available to Anquetil was of only minimal advantage. That is the key difference between the Merckx era and before and the Indurain era till now.. Absolutists ignore this critical watershed.
-
Sorry, tried to edit that post but was too late.
Try again:
Anquetil was in fact a unrepentant doper. He refused the drug test after reclaiming the hour record, this back when the hour record was arguably bigger than any two other prizes in cycling combined. My point is not to bash you, and I apologize if this post seems to do that. Rather my point is the huge difference in the dope available to Anquetil was of only minimal advantage. Doping from the Indurain era on was a different thing, much more effective.. Absolutists ignore this critical watershed. So you were right in that this whole dopers are Evil thing hardly applied the way it can be now. -
LSD - That is my point. During that error the drugs available were no way close to we have now. So JA was a bad example, don't sue me. My point is racing bicycles started clean but got infected as years went by. OK so smoking and drinking on the bike was not the best idea but we are evolving, well most of us anyway.
Tour de France leaders Vervaeke and Geldhol smoke the competition in this humorous and insightful 1920s picture showing the two rivals sharing a cigarette, which, at the time, was thought to open up an athlete’s lungs. Teams well with “Tour de France Drinkers.”
-
Emphasis added.Coppi was often said to have introduced "modern" methods to cycling, particularly his diet. Gino Bartali established that some of those methods included taking drugs, which were not then against the rules.
It may be a nit, but it is an important distinction. Example - I would argue that altitude chambers are a form of doping, but they are legal, so I have no issues with people who use them.
If you are not violating the rules, I have no problems with doing what you want. I have no problem with people trying to change the rules.
But when you start braking the rules, or justifying it by saying "everyone else was doing it", then I take issue with that.
Just say "NO!!" to WCP!
"Want to get faster? Work harder, eat better, cut the crap. Instead of talking the talk, work the work" -
Anyone ever read that book Blazing Saddles, history of the TdF?
One chapter of the early Tour tells of a newspaperman wondering how the cyclists in the lead got ahead of him since he took a train to get ahead of THEM...
"The stone age didn't end because the earth ran out of stones, and the oil age won't end because the earth runs out of oil" -- Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute, rmi.org -
The video was awesome, and the three babes riding in Paris filled their shorts and jerseys better than any of those skinny '60s pros.
Reply
You must log in to post.