Feb 17 2013, 04:39 PM
QUOTE(butthead @ Feb 16 2013, 12:03 AM)
in theory, yes... it is up to who has the bigger balls to take in more banned substance and endanger themselves... but until the day that the sport itself find ways to effectively police the use of drugs short of invading one's privacy...no one will ever know if everyone is racing clean...
same situation as F1 years ago when they got fed up with teams hiding traction and launch control software within their ECU softwares... they could not tell or find who has it and who hasn't and the best they could do is "not to ban it" as it causes some teams to be furious when they suspect rival teams of having it while they have not (or have it but still wanted to complain) by analyzing off the grid launch videos and engine noises during corner entry and exits...only until recent years that they have found a brilliant way to standardized ECU units across all teams did they re-ban it again...
not an argument to say let riders dope as they like as that is not the very healthiest thing to do... but, there isn't much point to get unsatisfied (from a spectator's POV, unless i am andy riis) at who's who is suspected of doping because this is solely the reasons this guys exist in the first place...because of some humanly impossible feats we choose to believe in, or in other words feats that catches the our attention as we ourselves could not do it...
would i say over the years i have not cast doubts over alberto contador's 2009 verbier ascent? lance's comeback 2.0 at the age of 38? efforts of team astana controlling the 2009 tour peloton almost day in day out (which i think is a harder act than team sky in 2012 for the fact that other big threat teams exists and a more jagged parcours)? lance's attack on pantani at hautacam (with the shaking of the il pirata's bald head when he realizes he could not follow the accelerations) having drawn him into a crazy mano-a-mano combat over 100K's away from the finishing line (yes, proven to be drugs. but still made you question his performance during those days), not to mention how le doper manage to ride everyone off his wheels after giving "the look" and many other le doper incidences, lemond (even) during his final TT against hinault to win his grand tour title by a measly few seconds (can an aerobar really prove that much difference?), "the cannibal" which we can't leave out come doping? winning many multiple races in the same year while winning the tour or even the triple crown of cycling of double grand tours in a single year (not once, but 3 times in his career... it must have come down to some magic potions)? almost unheard of nowadays when winning the giro-tour combo is admitted to be almost impossible...
yes, wiggins tone on the doping stance might have change from years back like kimmage states, but he has also came into the limelight since 2009 along with the increase of pressure as team captain... but i think to be fair, anyone is gonna get offended being asked the same question repeatedly year in year out... would anyone say mark doped because he too went berserk at some journos when they kept asking lance related or doping questions at press conferences...
if come 2013 team sky can repeat the same act with saxo and radioshack in the play, then it would arouse my curiosity...
having the media manipulating how the spectators think by throwing proven / unproven and facts/theories around and working yourself up is not the best way to enjoy the sport... if you are against wiggins because you were rooting for cadel in 2012... i would have understood a whole lot more the reasons behind it... but just because of some nut jobs trying to prove themselves right and show that they have been abused by armstrong publicly over years of tormented media life is just no reason to... which is why i treat it as an entertainment or else i would have flown to france, camp by the road side for days waiting for the peloton to pass which ends in mere minutes year after year...
having all the bikes at the same weight is also not really making every bike the same... one bike might have a lighter set of wheels with all the ceramic bearings and techno whistles and a chunky frame while the other might be saving watts with an aero shaped wheel at the expense of lightweight while still staying within the same weight limitations... the bikes have already grown to the point that it could be so light that mechanics have to start adding leads to their bikes or use heavier parts just to meet the UCI weight limits... it's a matter of throwing weight around nowadays...
Good reply. Conclusion is we have to treat this as entertainment. But is it acceptable if you cheered on for a rider, being in awe with his prowess winning stages and idolized him, only to be revealed later that the win is contributed from cheating / doping? We are in no way affected by their action but...it just doesn't sounds right to me same situation as F1 years ago when they got fed up with teams hiding traction and launch control software within their ECU softwares... they could not tell or find who has it and who hasn't and the best they could do is "not to ban it" as it causes some teams to be furious when they suspect rival teams of having it while they have not (or have it but still wanted to complain) by analyzing off the grid launch videos and engine noises during corner entry and exits...only until recent years that they have found a brilliant way to standardized ECU units across all teams did they re-ban it again...
not an argument to say let riders dope as they like as that is not the very healthiest thing to do... but, there isn't much point to get unsatisfied (from a spectator's POV, unless i am andy riis) at who's who is suspected of doping because this is solely the reasons this guys exist in the first place...because of some humanly impossible feats we choose to believe in, or in other words feats that catches the our attention as we ourselves could not do it...
would i say over the years i have not cast doubts over alberto contador's 2009 verbier ascent? lance's comeback 2.0 at the age of 38? efforts of team astana controlling the 2009 tour peloton almost day in day out (which i think is a harder act than team sky in 2012 for the fact that other big threat teams exists and a more jagged parcours)? lance's attack on pantani at hautacam (with the shaking of the il pirata's bald head when he realizes he could not follow the accelerations) having drawn him into a crazy mano-a-mano combat over 100K's away from the finishing line (yes, proven to be drugs. but still made you question his performance during those days), not to mention how le doper manage to ride everyone off his wheels after giving "the look" and many other le doper incidences, lemond (even) during his final TT against hinault to win his grand tour title by a measly few seconds (can an aerobar really prove that much difference?), "the cannibal" which we can't leave out come doping? winning many multiple races in the same year while winning the tour or even the triple crown of cycling of double grand tours in a single year (not once, but 3 times in his career... it must have come down to some magic potions)? almost unheard of nowadays when winning the giro-tour combo is admitted to be almost impossible...
yes, wiggins tone on the doping stance might have change from years back like kimmage states, but he has also came into the limelight since 2009 along with the increase of pressure as team captain... but i think to be fair, anyone is gonna get offended being asked the same question repeatedly year in year out... would anyone say mark doped because he too went berserk at some journos when they kept asking lance related or doping questions at press conferences...
if come 2013 team sky can repeat the same act with saxo and radioshack in the play, then it would arouse my curiosity...
having the media manipulating how the spectators think by throwing proven / unproven and facts/theories around and working yourself up is not the best way to enjoy the sport... if you are against wiggins because you were rooting for cadel in 2012... i would have understood a whole lot more the reasons behind it... but just because of some nut jobs trying to prove themselves right and show that they have been abused by armstrong publicly over years of tormented media life is just no reason to... which is why i treat it as an entertainment or else i would have flown to france, camp by the road side for days waiting for the peloton to pass which ends in mere minutes year after year...
having all the bikes at the same weight is also not really making every bike the same... one bike might have a lighter set of wheels with all the ceramic bearings and techno whistles and a chunky frame while the other might be saving watts with an aero shaped wheel at the expense of lightweight while still staying within the same weight limitations... the bikes have already grown to the point that it could be so light that mechanics have to start adding leads to their bikes or use heavier parts just to meet the UCI weight limits... it's a matter of throwing weight around nowadays...
And yes I agree with you until the day UCI can truly implement a mechanism to ensure the cleanliness of this sports, there will be few journalists or fans that will always questioning the riders.
To put it in a simple explanation, we have to take the sport as entertainment similar to WWE. You know the wrestlers are faking and putting all the drama according to scripts but heck we are still enjoying it. And if we were to take a serious sports such as cycling the same way as watching a WWE match for entertainment purposes, then let them dope all they want and enjoy the fun.
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