Saturday, August 25, 2012

Cycling is Corrupt and Hypocritical

 
     Pardon me for being cynical, but the Lance Armstrong story can not possibly be so simple.  Organized cycling would like you and me to believe that there was just one bad guy in the sport, namely Lance Armstrong, and now that we have proof that he used performance enhancing drugs, the rightful winners will be recognized.

     The fact of the matter is, however, that despite hundreds if not thousands of tests, there was no test result indicating that he used PED.  The same with Marion Jones, the jailed  olympic sprinter.  She never failed a drug test, but instead was convicted by testimony.  The conclusion is obvious:  the athletes know how to defeat the test.  Evidently  they have masking agents or some other way to completely defeat these tests.  THE TESTS DO NOT WORK.   

    People who get caught do something stupid, like forgetting to use the stuff that removes traces from urine.  The evidence says that if you are careful, you can enjoy at least a decade with frequent testing and not get caught.  

    Since that is true, it is very hard to believe that the second place finisher is any more clean than Lance Amrstrong.  Or the third place finisher, or the fourth or fifth.  Why not take PEDs, if the chances of getting caught are very very small?

    Do you believe that ten of Lance Armstrong's teammates decided to turn him simply because they are brave and honest?  No, it makes more sense to believe that they were threatened with going to jail if they didn't out him, because THEY WERE DOING IT TOO.  

    However, organized cycling does not want to admit that it is 100% corrupt.  Instead, they are trying to promote the fiction that there was only one person  of significance who ever cheated with performance enhancing drugs, namely Lance Armstrong, and the rest are all innocent and play by the rules.  

    I'm inclined to believe that virtually all of the top 1000 cyclists, and probably most of the high school kids who raced, used PEDs of one form or another.  Why wouldn't they use them, if there is a way to avoid detection, and you can't win without doing it because everyone else is?

   That is the reason why they are going on this witch hunt.  They would like to blame the entire doping scandal on Lance Armstrong, rather than admitting that all of the athletes are doing the same stuff.   Well, the whole thing is disgusting and a farce.  If you're going to throw the book at Lance Armstrong, fine.  Let him go to jail.  But let's also put the next top 1000 cyclists in jail because they did they same stuff.  And let's put the officials in charge of cycling in jail for a much longer time because they are willfully lying about the extent of the problem and in effect protecting the huge number of people who dope in order to blame the whole scandal on one person.  

5 comments:

  1. This is an incredibly simplistic view of both cycling and the scourge of doping in sport.

    "...let's also put the next top 1000 cyclists in jail because they did they same stuff." Really? You know this how?

    Read a book sometime.

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    1. Hi Anonymous, I assume you since you are so well read, you saw that according to the International Cycling Union, 20 of the top 21 cyclists from the Tour de France during Armstrong's seven victories have now been linked to steroids.

      http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/oct/23/transcending-the-bike/?print

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  2. Marion Jones is proof positive that it is possible to take PEDs without getting caught by chemical evidence. She was turned in by testimony, not chemical data. Same with Barry Bonds. Same in the NFL where a generation ago linemen were 70 pounds lighter and not as fast. There are millions of dollars at stake and no reliable way to catch the best dopers.

    It's highly doubtful whether it is possible to be competitive at the championship level without doping.

    In high school, up to 25% of athletes use steroids by at least some estimates. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spe/2005/steroids/index.html So if the top competitors in cycling or some other sport do not use steroids, at what point did they stop?

    Shall we assume that premier cyclists (except Armstrong) stay clean just because of sportsmanship?

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