Tour de France legends to ride in Absa Cape Epic

[MTBeer]

Agreed. The vituperative moral outrage is interesting to see. This same reaction led us to completely annihilate hansie cronje. I believe we treated him very badly indeed.

 

People make mistakes. I wonder how many of us, in similar positions, facing similar levels of demand, desire, ambition and pressure might not make similar decisions that so many elite athletes have made. Condemnaion and the desire for extreme punishment is easy. It allows us to feel superior, justly aggrieved and it suggests punitive remedy ti restore the illusion of the moral order. In reality I think these situations are more complex and full of human frailty and our propensity for error.

 

Maybe when we judge so harshly it expresses the almost universal frustration that the world is not as we want it to be, not even in the sprint for the finish line which we want so much to be pure and separate from the rest of messy humanity.

 

 

seriously?

 

yes people make mistakes ( and I agree with Thor Buttox's definition of a mistake), but we don't all blame the devil and roll out our religious beliefs as a proof of innocence.

[Raemondo]

seriously?

 

yes people make mistakes ( and I agree with Thor Buttox's definition of a mistake), but we don't all blame the devil and roll out our religious beliefs as a proof of innocence.

 

Also, some 'mistakes' are career ending and rightly so, regardless of how much innocence or ignorance was involved, both in commerce and in sport. 

[NickGM]

Hate to disagree with you, but a would think that a mistake has a couple of broad characteristics:

 

1) it was done with atleast some degree of unintentionality

2) that the consequences can be reasonably easily ascertained

3) some learning/growth is done that prevents a recurrence of the mistake

4) most importantly, acceptance of the mistake, and recompense and restitution is done in good faith, because the parties recognise 1) above.

 

Perhaps it may even take a series of mistakes by an individual, but then expand that to a series of murders and the mistakes aren't considered as clear cut. While I agree that it it not black and white as to where a mistake ends and a crime begins there is at least some reason to believe that systematic fraud over decades, without acceptance, nor recompense to innocent parties, is not just a mistake.

 

I have read tons on the subject and am busy with 'The End of the Road' about the Festina affair. They made an active, comprehensive decision to cheat using defined processes and methods. As did our friend Lance Armstrong (allegedly, out of his own mouth).

 

Perhaps you said it best about the 'punitive remedy to restore order'. In this case, as in so much of society at the moment, there is none. Just a vindication for the truth eventually.

I feel like an amnesty/truth and reconciliation approach to the 90s and 00s era of cycling would be pretty productive. By all accounts, riding clean during that area was so rare that they had a special phrase for it ("Pan y agua"). I'm pretty sure the imminent outcome of the operation puerto investigation will show us that most of the guys we loved were doping. 

 

And the more top riders that are shown to have been dopers, the less likely it becomes that the remaining "clean" riders at the top of the pile were actually clean, because it must have meant they were superhuman. I loved miguel indurain, but honestly, that he was able to dominate so many other riders during the glorious days of EPO when it existed but there was no test for it? To blindly assume he was clean is naive. 

 

In the 1950s and earlier riders were open about their use of performance enhancing drugs. Fausto Coppi (who won several Giri and a couple of tours) famously said that he took amphetamines all the time, simply because it was necessary. It wasn't a big deal. Riders used drugs, and continued to do so through the decades - the drugs just got better. Then it got secretive, and then it got ugly. 

 

I don't judge them. I think doping was par for the course. The riders from that era just need to lay it all out on the table in the same way that Tyler Hamilton and few others already have. I think it would be really interesting and good for everyone involved. I'd love to read Jan Ulrich's account of that period. 

 

But where all that leaves one with regard to ex-dopers riding the epic? I have no idea. Using them to publicise the race does seem wrong. But I do think they should be allowed to ride. We would probably love it if pantani (RIP) could ride the epic - somehow he is one of the "cool" dopers. 

 

Obviously all just my opinion.

[N-I-N-J-A]

[428 others]

[428 others]

[nonky]

I feel like an amnesty/truth and reconciliation approach to the 90s and 00s era of cycling would be pretty productive. By all accounts, riding clean during that area was so rare that they had a special phrase for it ("Pan y agua"). I'm pretty sure the imminent outcome of the operation puerto investigation will show us that most of the guys we loved were doping. 

 

And the more top riders that are shown to have been dopers, the less likely it becomes that the remaining "clean" riders at the top of the pile were actually clean, because it must have meant they were superhuman. I loved miguel indurain, but honestly, that he was able to dominate so many other riders during the glorious days of EPO when it existed but there was no test for it? To blindly assume he was clean is naive. 

 

In the 1950s and earlier riders were open about their use of performance enhancing drugs. Fausto Coppi (who won several Giri and a couple of tours) famously said that he took amphetamines all the time, simply because it was necessary. It wasn't a big deal. Riders used drugs, and continued to do so through the decades - the drugs just got better. Then it got secretive, and then it got ugly. 

 

I don't judge them. I think doping was par for the course. The riders from that era just need to lay it all out on the table in the same way that Tyler Hamilton and few others already have. I think it would be really interesting and good for everyone involved. I'd love to read Jan Ulrich's account of that period. 

 

But where all that leaves one with regard to ex-dopers riding the epic? I have no idea. Using them to publicise the race does seem wrong. But I do think they should be allowed to ride. We would probably love it if pantani (RIP) could ride the epic - somehow he is one of the "cool" dopers. 

 

Obviously all just my opinion.

 

Great comment!