Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Doping and Lance... My RANT on the Cycling Central VA Board...

I kinda went off on my friend's message board yesterday.  I was really annoyed about the whole doping scandal and all the "Lance is guilty/innocent" thing and I let it get to me.  I should have kept my mouth shut or at least opened my mouth on my own web site. 
 
Sorry Jay. 
 
The question was basically "Do you think Lance cheated or not?"
 
Here's what I wrote:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Ahhhhhhhhhh My favorite topic. :D It must be Tour de France time because I'm PISSED OFF ALL THE TIME!!!! Just kidding. :D

This year it snuck up on me. I was going to ignore the tour this year and have a happy July, but that wasn't to be. The TdF came after ME this year.

I got a call and a bunch of e-mails from folks at Discovery Channel about a Race2Replace press conference that they wanted me to take part in. There's a long freaking story about why they invited me. Trust me, they did and I went.

It was really cool. I got to talk with George Hincapie, Johan Bruyneel and the head of marketing for the team. I got to ask my question along with bigtime journalists from VeloNudes, AP, USA Today, LeMonde, etc. Both took time to answer my question thoughtfully. It was damn cool. I was totally jazzed about the tour and being invited to more of these press conferences.

Later on Friday afternoon I got around to reading VeloNews.com and that same old pissed off feeling came back.

I'm so freaking sick of all this crap. I'm embarassed and ashamed that I let myself get sucked into being psyched for the tour again.

The only answer to doping is to ignore professional cycling. As long as the fans keep expecting their heros to compete from February to November at a high level, you're going to find doping in professional cycling.

Do yourself a favor and switch the TV off. Skip over the articles about the Tour in VeloNews. Take all that time that you're saving and go for a nice, long bike ride. Trust me, you'll be a better person for it. :D

My rant is over.

I will add my $.02 on the topic. My personal take on all of the stuff that came out this week makes me convinced that Lance cheated. Will we ever know for sure? Probably not. Do I care? NOPE!

Later! Sorry to poo on the tour for y'all.

Pete

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