Overnight, from Geneva in Switzerland, the President of the International Cycling Union (UCI) upheld Lance Armstrong’s USADA ban and stripped him of his seven Tour de France titles which he won between 1999 and 2005.
It’s a sad day for the sport.
My feelings about the whole sorry saga are ambiguous and I struggle with them when considering Lance’s plight.
Drugs have always been a blight on cycling, right from the earliest days of bicycle racing. It’s an insidious side to the sport which until now has been kept well hidden inside the confines of the peloton and the trade teams.
Even in the amateur ranks where doping is just as rife there has been a reluctance for dopers to come forward and tell exactly what they know. It has been an accepted part of the sport and the wall of silence has taken a lot of battering before it has fallen.
Amphetamines, steroids and general pain killers of all varieties were always the drugs of choice for cyclists and even as I was growing up and becoming interested in cycling due to my father’s involvement in the sport stories of drug taking were often heard, laughed about and many domestic champions were mentioned as possible dopers and first hand accounts of people I know and respect taking drugs for performance were related to me.
It was all part of the game and was tolerated.
The seed to Lance Armstrong’s demise was first sown in Italy in the late 1980’s.
Many cyclists who had been significant riders in that decade suddenly noticed an increase in the pace of Italian racing and many competitors who, for want of a better term had been “donkeys’” had suddenly turned into champions. It didn’t take much effort of thought to realise a new drug was on the market and the Italians were getting their fill.
Some of the old champions saw the writing on the wall and retired and those who stayed committed to the doping “arms race” and Lance Armstrong and his team became the leading protagonists in modern scientific doping and challenged the rest of the cycling world to catch them if they dared.
Before EPO and the advent of modern blood doping techniques in the early 1980’s, a blind eye had been turned to the drugs which cyclists used to get through the Tour de France and similar races.
Riders doped for many reasons and the sport was very much a working man’s domain and many of it’s greatest champions have been the sons of peasants and miners and cycling was the only way out of a dull life following in the footsteps of their parents.
For a sport that was immensely popular in western Europe, it was very poorly financed and many riders rode only for a bike, jumper and a pair of knicks (cycling shorts).
Money was made from the private races to which riders were contracted after the Tour de France, the problem being, one had to have the results on the board before a promoter would offer a decent contract. Cycling, despite it’s popularity, was one of the lowest paying professional sports. Is it any wonder doping flourished? I was once told by a fellow who had raced in Europe in the 1960’s that it was a case of “if I don’t win today, I don’t eat tomorrow!” Thus the cyclist’s psyche was established and doping became an accepted part of the cyclist’s “preparation”.
Cyclists got around their own doubts about the morality of doping by convincing themselves that the best cyclists still won despite the doping although that is a hollow argument, however true. EPO was the game changer.
Teams enabled drug taking and hired doctors to administer EPO and preside over blood doping. I was once told by a very good young Australian cyclist who had secured a contract on a top European team that he had been ordered by management to embark on a drug program and when he showed reticence he was threatened with dismissal. To his ever lasting credit he told the team in no uncertain terms where to stick their dope and he left the sport forever. Another indirect victim of the doping culture. He now flies choppers off warships, a far more honourable profession.
There are claims that things have improved in the sport and that may be right but the conditions that created the Armstrong monster still exist and only a fool would suggest that blood doping and drug taking have been expunged from the sport.
There are many things which have to happen before cycling fans should start feeling confident that a movement to rid the game of drugs is rising. Restructuring the UCI should be a priority, an independent body to oversee doping cases is a must. Tougher bans need to be enforced and a more equitable share of revenue needs to be devised. And these are only the first measures that need to be taken.
As for my thoughts on Armstrong? I find it hard to accept that his Tours will be taken away and left blank yet other convicted dopers will remain on the honour roll. I feel an asterix would be better left beside those years so fans in the future will realise that yes, it was entertainment but it certainly wasn’t sport. Let Lance’s Tour victories be a reminder of the folly of professional sportsman who cheat and a monument to the greed that overtook him and caused him to dope and the enablers in the the sport and it’s hierarchy that allowed it to happen.
I feel sorry for Lance, I really do. I still think he was a great athlete who used the system as it stood to achieve a remarkable sporting feat. But his own character, greed and pride caused him to upset too many people and he was the one who has paid the heaviest price.
I only hope his demise will be the catalyst to improving this great sport and make it the envy of the sporting world for it’s fight for clean racing. If it doesn’t, then the scourging of Lance Armstrong will have been in vain.
It’s a sad day for the sport.
My feelings about the whole sorry saga are ambiguous and I struggle with them when considering Lance’s plight.
Drugs have always been a blight on cycling, right from the earliest days of bicycle racing. It’s an insidious side to the sport which until now has been kept well hidden inside the confines of the peloton and the trade teams.
Even in the amateur ranks where doping is just as rife there has been a reluctance for dopers to come forward and tell exactly what they know. It has been an accepted part of the sport and the wall of silence has taken a lot of battering before it has fallen.
Amphetamines, steroids and general pain killers of all varieties were always the drugs of choice for cyclists and even as I was growing up and becoming interested in cycling due to my father’s involvement in the sport stories of drug taking were often heard, laughed about and many domestic champions were mentioned as possible dopers and first hand accounts of people I know and respect taking drugs for performance were related to me.
It was all part of the game and was tolerated.
The seed to Lance Armstrong’s demise was first sown in Italy in the late 1980’s.
Many cyclists who had been significant riders in that decade suddenly noticed an increase in the pace of Italian racing and many competitors who, for want of a better term had been “donkeys’” had suddenly turned into champions. It didn’t take much effort of thought to realise a new drug was on the market and the Italians were getting their fill.
Some of the old champions saw the writing on the wall and retired and those who stayed committed to the doping “arms race” and Lance Armstrong and his team became the leading protagonists in modern scientific doping and challenged the rest of the cycling world to catch them if they dared.
Before EPO and the advent of modern blood doping techniques in the early 1980’s, a blind eye had been turned to the drugs which cyclists used to get through the Tour de France and similar races.
Riders doped for many reasons and the sport was very much a working man’s domain and many of it’s greatest champions have been the sons of peasants and miners and cycling was the only way out of a dull life following in the footsteps of their parents.
For a sport that was immensely popular in western Europe, it was very poorly financed and many riders rode only for a bike, jumper and a pair of knicks (cycling shorts).
Money was made from the private races to which riders were contracted after the Tour de France, the problem being, one had to have the results on the board before a promoter would offer a decent contract. Cycling, despite it’s popularity, was one of the lowest paying professional sports. Is it any wonder doping flourished? I was once told by a fellow who had raced in Europe in the 1960’s that it was a case of “if I don’t win today, I don’t eat tomorrow!” Thus the cyclist’s psyche was established and doping became an accepted part of the cyclist’s “preparation”.
Cyclists got around their own doubts about the morality of doping by convincing themselves that the best cyclists still won despite the doping although that is a hollow argument, however true. EPO was the game changer.
Teams enabled drug taking and hired doctors to administer EPO and preside over blood doping. I was once told by a very good young Australian cyclist who had secured a contract on a top European team that he had been ordered by management to embark on a drug program and when he showed reticence he was threatened with dismissal. To his ever lasting credit he told the team in no uncertain terms where to stick their dope and he left the sport forever. Another indirect victim of the doping culture. He now flies choppers off warships, a far more honourable profession.
There are claims that things have improved in the sport and that may be right but the conditions that created the Armstrong monster still exist and only a fool would suggest that blood doping and drug taking have been expunged from the sport.
There are many things which have to happen before cycling fans should start feeling confident that a movement to rid the game of drugs is rising. Restructuring the UCI should be a priority, an independent body to oversee doping cases is a must. Tougher bans need to be enforced and a more equitable share of revenue needs to be devised. And these are only the first measures that need to be taken.
As for my thoughts on Armstrong? I find it hard to accept that his Tours will be taken away and left blank yet other convicted dopers will remain on the honour roll. I feel an asterix would be better left beside those years so fans in the future will realise that yes, it was entertainment but it certainly wasn’t sport. Let Lance’s Tour victories be a reminder of the folly of professional sportsman who cheat and a monument to the greed that overtook him and caused him to dope and the enablers in the the sport and it’s hierarchy that allowed it to happen.
I feel sorry for Lance, I really do. I still think he was a great athlete who used the system as it stood to achieve a remarkable sporting feat. But his own character, greed and pride caused him to upset too many people and he was the one who has paid the heaviest price.
I only hope his demise will be the catalyst to improving this great sport and make it the envy of the sporting world for it’s fight for clean racing. If it doesn’t, then the scourging of Lance Armstrong will have been in vain.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 