Oh man this must be the best food the hub has ever tasted? My personal opinion on the matter - I don't know Eben well. I only did a few races/training rides with him. I see there is a few allegations against him by an ex team mate. I can not comment. I only recently found out she is not part of the club anymore and I also don?t know why she left. It does not sound like she left on a good note judging by her comments. Again, I am sure there are two sides to that story as well. Bottom line I can?t be bothered to keep up to date with the latest gossip. I?ll move on. I can not tell whether he doped or not. His story does sound a bit dubious though. In all fairness if you go by his story there is no excuse really. If you want to race at that level you need to make sure you abide by the rules and also consider your team mates when it is known that medicines contain all kinds of funny things. There has been enough awareness over the last couple of years with regards to doping. The truth is that only he will know whether he is a cheater or not. Whatever he says does not matter; the positive result is what matters. And that is unfortunate because it reflects badly on our club and our teams. From what I have seen Eben is a very strong rider and if it is true that he doped I am sure he will do just as well without it. I cannot imagine from what I have read that ephedrine gives you such a major advantage over your natural ability? Ag I don?t know what to believe, maybe it does give you an advantage in 100km races and therefore people are persuaded to take it. Will have to go read what self confessed doper and supplier Chunky said a few posts back. Eben has been given a sentence by the UCI and he needs to do his time. As disappointed as I am - my personal take on it is that I am not going to hold anything against him. Life is just too short to keep grudges. It will remain on his CV but what is the point of giving someone a sentence and then still make life difficult for him after he has served his time? We are a good team of guys and the people I do know very well in the club I fully trust their integrity. Carel has done a lot for us and for cycling. The cycling community is so small in this country and every little bit of investment to help promote the sport should be supported. As we all know, no club or team is immune to this kind of thing happening and every successful venture has got its setbacks. I do not say that this incident should go unnoticed, but being on the receiving end I would rather provide my support if it happens to any other team. I did not break Barloworld down when one cheater was exposed on their team I continued supporting them. Let?s ride our bikes! epoh2009-01-18 08:16:33
