Cheating
The layers of idealism, politics, science, phobia, and greed that combine to form cycling's doping problem deserve to be taken apart. For me, the impetus to finally attempt this is the Landis Tour de France doping situation, which I think is clearly a French conspiracy -- after seven years of Lance dominance, the French partisans were fed up, couldn't quite sully the name of Armstrong with even post-career scandalization, and decided to frame a successful active American racer and deprive him of his rightful win in the 2006 race. And they knew all they needed was a semi-serious accusation that would resonate in the press. Since they couldn't win legitimately, they cheated.
For the 2006 race, I really started paying attention when they hit the mountains. The course was such that the mountains were going to be decisive. Watching Landis on the day he cracked, I remember thinking, "That's one smart cyclist. He's realized that he can't win today, so he's going to preserve himself by crawling up the last climbs so he can bounce back with extra energy tomorrow. He's even willing to suffer the humiliation of this grandmotherly pace in order to execute sound strategy!"
Of course, the next day, Landis scorched the field and surged back into the lead. And then the framing began.
This particular frame was made from existing materials. First, cycling is the most monitored sport outside of weightlifting for banned substances. Baseball and football fans are living in a fool's paradise of ignorance -- many of their players are playing juiced all the time -- but those sports have decided to put in the most rudimentary and beatable testing schemes imaginable, yet they still catch juicers, if that's any indication of how widespread the practice is in those sports. The hypocrisy within the sports world is already severe when it comes to the notion of ingesting or injecting performance-enhancing substances. Cycling's idealism about doping is perhaps admirable, but also perhaps foolish. Idealism can be either.
Another raw material used to make the frame is drug phobia. Athletes can specifically gain advantages through altitude training (which boosts their red blood cell counts pretty much as EPO can); through carefully managed, professional nutritional programs that shed pounds; and through massage, jacuzzis, and other recovery strategies. None of these is banned. Each can enhance performance. But, heaven forbid you drink too much caffeine or take anything else that's deemed a drug. You can use money (to support travel to and living at altitude), staff (get the best masseurs and physiologists), and chefs to gain advantages, but not a drug.
And this is not for reasons of safety. Look how long it took cycling organizations to make helmets mandatory. If safety were a priority in pro cycling, then descents would be less dramatic (lower speeds, fewer hairpin turns, more concern about skirting cliffs), sprints would be forbidden, and races over cobbles wouldn't exist. Safety is something sponsors and organizers worry about occasionally. And drug safety is addressable even if drugs were allowed.
If the notion is to eliminate one-sided advantages, then training programs, nutrition, and masseurs would be equalized. If the problem were safety, then the demonstrated dangers of descents, sprints, and cobbles should be addressed. So, the drug issue is not about unfair advantages, safety, or the ideal of the untainted athlete (is a pampered athlete who trains at altitude and sleeps at sea level untainted?). It is about drug phobia. In cycling, the drug phobia can be used to smear people without adequate evidence. Just the allegation carries such taint that it effectively cancels out performance.
We live in a culture that is hypocritical about drugs -- we are appalled that competitive athletes might take substances to recover faster, breath easier, or compete more effectively (forgetting that they are running these risks for millions of dollars), but give us our caffeine, cold medicine, Viagra, and bogus nutritional supplements when very little is at stake -- well, we have stressful lives and are fighting to stay young. But let's make sure our athletes are pure, as ideals. We'll be the reality, they will be the idealizations. We can't let them manage risk on their own when it comes to things they put in their bodies, but we can let them deal with the risks on the road at high speeds, despite the fatalities that occur each year.
The frame around Landis needed this high level of drug phobia to work, because the circumstances and science don't hold up on their own. Not only were multiple procedural steps missed in the test, with not even the correct rider number assigned to samples at key transitions, but the communications from the authorities involved had "frame up" written all over them (it was like a bad murder mystery, in which the killer gives himself away by stating something only the killer could have known). However, facts, forensics, and science have an uphill battle against drug phobia brandished by witch hunters, nationalists, and a corrupt lab.
Plainly, slathering yourself with testosterone cream one evening is not going to create the kind of performance that Landis gave that day. Let's be realistic. Testosterone cream doesn't work that way. In fact, testosterone doesn't work that way. What does work that way is this: a super-fit rider preserves his strength on brutal climbs the day before, nurses the sting of humiliation overnight, and transforms that sting through recovery into an inspired ride. That is the formula for a spectacular rebound performance. That is what enhances great athletes.
The Landis affair is a travesty. The French partisans combined nationalism, drug phobia, and pseudoscience in an effort to drive a great American champion from the podium, or at least taint his win severely. Landis was framed. Fans and cyclists deserve better. Our experience as fans and the reputation of cycling has been cheated by misplaced idealism, drug phobia, or the misconduct of authorities.
For the 2006 race, I really started paying attention when they hit the mountains. The course was such that the mountains were going to be decisive. Watching Landis on the day he cracked, I remember thinking, "That's one smart cyclist. He's realized that he can't win today, so he's going to preserve himself by crawling up the last climbs so he can bounce back with extra energy tomorrow. He's even willing to suffer the humiliation of this grandmotherly pace in order to execute sound strategy!"
Of course, the next day, Landis scorched the field and surged back into the lead. And then the framing began.
This particular frame was made from existing materials. First, cycling is the most monitored sport outside of weightlifting for banned substances. Baseball and football fans are living in a fool's paradise of ignorance -- many of their players are playing juiced all the time -- but those sports have decided to put in the most rudimentary and beatable testing schemes imaginable, yet they still catch juicers, if that's any indication of how widespread the practice is in those sports. The hypocrisy within the sports world is already severe when it comes to the notion of ingesting or injecting performance-enhancing substances. Cycling's idealism about doping is perhaps admirable, but also perhaps foolish. Idealism can be either.
Another raw material used to make the frame is drug phobia. Athletes can specifically gain advantages through altitude training (which boosts their red blood cell counts pretty much as EPO can); through carefully managed, professional nutritional programs that shed pounds; and through massage, jacuzzis, and other recovery strategies. None of these is banned. Each can enhance performance. But, heaven forbid you drink too much caffeine or take anything else that's deemed a drug. You can use money (to support travel to and living at altitude), staff (get the best masseurs and physiologists), and chefs to gain advantages, but not a drug.
And this is not for reasons of safety. Look how long it took cycling organizations to make helmets mandatory. If safety were a priority in pro cycling, then descents would be less dramatic (lower speeds, fewer hairpin turns, more concern about skirting cliffs), sprints would be forbidden, and races over cobbles wouldn't exist. Safety is something sponsors and organizers worry about occasionally. And drug safety is addressable even if drugs were allowed.
If the notion is to eliminate one-sided advantages, then training programs, nutrition, and masseurs would be equalized. If the problem were safety, then the demonstrated dangers of descents, sprints, and cobbles should be addressed. So, the drug issue is not about unfair advantages, safety, or the ideal of the untainted athlete (is a pampered athlete who trains at altitude and sleeps at sea level untainted?). It is about drug phobia. In cycling, the drug phobia can be used to smear people without adequate evidence. Just the allegation carries such taint that it effectively cancels out performance.
We live in a culture that is hypocritical about drugs -- we are appalled that competitive athletes might take substances to recover faster, breath easier, or compete more effectively (forgetting that they are running these risks for millions of dollars), but give us our caffeine, cold medicine, Viagra, and bogus nutritional supplements when very little is at stake -- well, we have stressful lives and are fighting to stay young. But let's make sure our athletes are pure, as ideals. We'll be the reality, they will be the idealizations. We can't let them manage risk on their own when it comes to things they put in their bodies, but we can let them deal with the risks on the road at high speeds, despite the fatalities that occur each year.
The frame around Landis needed this high level of drug phobia to work, because the circumstances and science don't hold up on their own. Not only were multiple procedural steps missed in the test, with not even the correct rider number assigned to samples at key transitions, but the communications from the authorities involved had "frame up" written all over them (it was like a bad murder mystery, in which the killer gives himself away by stating something only the killer could have known). However, facts, forensics, and science have an uphill battle against drug phobia brandished by witch hunters, nationalists, and a corrupt lab.
Plainly, slathering yourself with testosterone cream one evening is not going to create the kind of performance that Landis gave that day. Let's be realistic. Testosterone cream doesn't work that way. In fact, testosterone doesn't work that way. What does work that way is this: a super-fit rider preserves his strength on brutal climbs the day before, nurses the sting of humiliation overnight, and transforms that sting through recovery into an inspired ride. That is the formula for a spectacular rebound performance. That is what enhances great athletes.
The Landis affair is a travesty. The French partisans combined nationalism, drug phobia, and pseudoscience in an effort to drive a great American champion from the podium, or at least taint his win severely. Landis was framed. Fans and cyclists deserve better. Our experience as fans and the reputation of cycling has been cheated by misplaced idealism, drug phobia, or the misconduct of authorities.
posted by Recycled Cyclist | 1:28 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home