The good old days of procycling – no EPO or growth hormones in sight.
Professional Cycling is a funny business, especially when the negative dope tests come through. There is almost comic value in the earnestness with which pro-cyclists will deny all knowledge or try to pass the blame onto their wives, grandmothers, or how their pet dog needs those packets of EPO.
The thing to do is to deny the allegations with as much strenuousness as possible. You can even mount a public campaign to raise funds for your defense. It seems there will always be supporters willing to bury their heads in the sands and ignore the reality of cycling and doping. Sometimes you might be lucky and convince enough people and get welcomed back into the peloton as nothing had happened.
But, after a period of 2 weeks to 10 years, the doper often gets fed up with maintaining the charade and admits everything. The problem is that after lying for so many years, no one wants to take you seriously. Also, some people find it hard to believe the industrial quantities of doping that did occur in the 1990s and 2000s. In all innocence, there are probably people who think the only time cyclists take dope is when it shows up in a dope test.
However, if you can face looking at the reality of pro-cycling, if you read accounts by insiders who lay bare the systematic cheating and doping of cycling, nothing can surprise you. (cycling doping scandals)
Yet, you know their will come a time when the cyclist will finally end the charade of lying and admit his use. In some cases like Bjarne Riis (EPO) it is after your cycling career is well over.
In some cases, you can just keep pretending to be innocent and get welcomed back into the Pro tour. There is a certain rider doing well in the Giro d’Italia whom I can only think of as an unrepentant doper. It reminds me of the scene in “The Royale Family” – Which goes along the lines of:
“So Darren have you learnt anything from being put in prison on three different occassions?”
“Yes, don’t get caught!”
Whilst Floyd Landis is easy to dismiss for changing his mind, it is interesting to note the
UK publication of Le Métier, a vivid account of a pro rider’s life by Michael Barry, another former US Postal rider (who now rides for Sky). Barry recalls how doping was widespread to the point of universal acceptance when he first joined the pro ranks.
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It’s always gone on, just not on such a sophisticated & scientific level as to day. About the time the picture was taken it was things like brandy & amphetamines. One to dull the pain the other to allow you to push beyond normal limits. Remember Tom Simpson.