• Mailbag

Sunday’s Mailbag: Good for George; trade amnesty for info; ProTour code a shameful shortcut

by VeloNews.com

• July 02, 2006
• Comments Off

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

---

Good for George!
Editor:
I met George Hincapie in 1998 at Interbike in Las Vegas, while I was working for Vetta. On that day, Greg LeMond was a couple of booths away signing autographs with a massive crowd, but George was sitting alone in (I believe) the Sinclair booth.

I told him then that his battle for the yellow jersey (which he narrowly missed out on during that first week) was one of the greatest highlights and saving graces of that year’s Tour, at least for me.

I’m truly happy to see that eight years later, the maillot jaune has finally found a place on George’s back. Whether for a day or three weeks, and regardless of whether he is able to pull on the final yellow jersey in Paris, he will still have joined a very exclusive club. I cannot think of a more deserving rider.

Congratulations, George!

Steven L. Sheffield
Salt Lake City, Utah

The penguins march on
Editor:
After the movie “March of the Penguins” did well last summer, one studio analyst said the lesson studios could draw from the movie’s success was that thoughtful, well-crafted films could do well, even during the summer box-office season. The problem, he said, was that the lesson the studios probably would draw from the example is to “do more penguin movies.”

The animated penguin movie “Happy Feet” opens in the fall.

I’d like to think the lesson riders and teams would learn from Operación Puerto is that doping isn’t worth the risk. But I’m afraid the lesson they will learn is that it’s a bad idea to send the whole team to the same dope doctor in the same country. In the future, I suspect they’ll just spread their business around.

Steve Elliott
Avery, California

Amnesty and information can clean up sport
Editor:
It’s sad to see how doping and who’s doing it now makes the achievements of almost every professional cyclist come into question of whether they earned their triumphs fairly.

I hate to admit it, but I believe doping is a widespread and tolerated practice in professional cycling. Given that, I don’t think it’s fair for UCI to take further action against those already punished for doping, such as Tyler Hamilton. As it stands right now, he is under investigation and will probably remain that way in September, when he is originally eligible to compete again. And it’s likely that the evidence against him was for the time period when he was originally caught.

I think that drastic measures need to be taken to clean up the sport. If so many are doping, and those that aren’t keep a code of silence, a solution would be to offer an amnesty period for those not under suspicion to come forward and to revoke the suspensions being carried out with the condition that these athletes work closely with UCI and tell them of the methodology behind successful cheating. Once the methods are known, it will be easier to come up with ways of catching the cheaters.

If this could be done, professional cycling could start the 2007 season with a clean slate for everyone, better ways of catching cheaters, and a better likelihood that other professionals, including coaches and teammates, will single them out before another scandal could erupt.

The sport can be clean, but I feel the only way to ensure that is to wipe the slate clean and start over.

Michael Passman
Austin, Texas

’Guilty until proven innocent’ is shameful
Editor:
The fact that the ProTour Ethics Code excludes riders from competition merely because they’re the focus of a formal investigation amounts to nothing more than a brazen willingness to sacrifice the innocent for the sake of the sport. It’s merely saving face — something along the lines of throwing a five-pound hunk of meat to the frenzied cycling media to keep them at bay while attempting to discern which three ounces were actually guilty.

To say the “guilty until proven innocent” policy is warranted by the breadth of the drug-cheat problem is an undignified and shameful shortcut on the part of those officials whose knees buckle at the slightest public scrutiny and are too inept to conduct an effective, responsible investigation.

Al Spohn
Rochester, Minnesota

Remain vigilant
Editor:
Let us indeed enjoy the Tour. But we should not fall into the trap of complacency (remember Festina? Cofidis?). The Spanish ring has been busted. However, there will persist fears that there are other doping rings at work elsewhere.

Jean Boisjoli
Gatineau, Québec, Canada

Gods with feet of clay
Editor:
While talk of the infamous “asterisk” might mean “the guy who didn’t cheat,” it could also mean “the guy who didn’t get caught.”

Cycling and its current related behaviors are the perfect microcosm of contemporary human nature. These are individuals, with very large egos, repeatedly exposed to wealth and adulation (or the promise of such things). We expect them to act virtuously and ethically? This problem hasn’t been solved in all of the recorded history of humankind. This behavior is the mutant offspring of the menage-a-trois of our vanity, greed and instinctual self-preservation. Kings do it. Presidents do it. Men of the cloth do it.

While their feats of athleticism are awe-inspiring, making them “heroes” only further fuels the fire. By overly revering these athletic feats we are turning ordinary humans into legends or demigods. Once we do that, we expect them to act like gods, benevolent, just, merciful — to do the right thing. We expect them to then excel at all things. In turn, they may begin to believe that they might be more than human. They may begin to think that our standards are not applicable to their behavior. This is why it hurts so much when they come crashing back down to our plane of existence.

We all cheat. In some aspect or another, we all have cut a corner here or there. It’s human nature. Is it fair of us to expect top professional athletes to live by a higher moral code? Is it fair of us to level judgement on these athletes, when, as fans, we will probably never be exposed to the choices they have had to make?

This perspective isn’t meant to serve as an excuse for what these guys are doing. It’s meant to be an observation of our role, as fans, in the dynamic.

Robb Gibson
Tucson, Arizona

Give us stars, not understudies
Editor:
Cycling’s reputation, schmeputation — let’s discuss the real [commercial] reason why these riders should not be banned from the Tour de France: They are objects of beauty. Forget Tyra Banks and whether she has plastic tits — the other half of the “we” that are cycling fans want that German freight train to command the time-trial course, that Italian sweetheart to flash his dreamy smile. We want Ullrich! Give us Basso! Not their understudies.

Ann Mullen
New York, New York

---

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.