Has cheating made cycling irrelevant?

By: Loren Nelson North County Times | Sunday, July 30, 2006 7:00 PM PDT ∞

Has cheating made cycling irrelevant?
By: MICHAEL KLITZING - Staff Writer

No. To call cycling a particularly dirty sport is like calling "Bad Boys II" a particularly mindless Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

In comparison to what, "Kangaroo Jack"?

Just like the scant number of masterpieces in Bruckheimer's catalogue, few are the professional sports in which squeaky-clean jocks are getting by on determination and Wheaties alone. It's all one big scientifically-enhanced cesspool.

The only real difference with cycling is that its policies seem to be effective at catching the cheats, and its brand of justice is shockingly swift.

The sport's doping cops hound the stars and aren't shy about naming names ---- even on the eve of cycling's biggest spectacle. Nine riders, including favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso, were suspended just before the start of this year's Tour de France.

Would the NFL have the guts to suspend a team's star quarterback the day before the Super Bowl for flunking a steroid test?

We'll never know because pro football's drug testing never seems to catch anyone but Ricky Williams ---- and his drug of choice enhances performance only in the realm of competitive eating. As evidenced by some of the names that surfaced in the BALCO investigation, football's testing policy might be a tad behind the curve when it comes to identifying the cheats.

Baseball, in which players have been popping amphetamines since at least the 1960s, is an even bigger debacle. Commissioner Bud Selig touts the game's strengthened drug policy, yet human growth hormone still goes untested.

Meanwhile, home runs are up. Wonder why.

Whether Murrieta's Floyd Landis is a cheater, or just a guy who has been unfairly smeared by cycling's overzealous campaign against doping, remains to be seen. Hopefully, it's the latter.

But there's no denying that cycling takes seriously the threat of performance-enhancing drugs. If only other sports had put their athletes under such scrutiny, Victor Conte might still be playing bass in Tower of Power.

After all, it's incredibly naive to think that pervasive doping is limited to cycling, just because that's where the most recent headlines have come from. If you deem the sport dirty because of these most recent allegations, you'd better get ready to turn your back on track and field, and baseball, and undoubtedly football.

Maybe even competitive eating.

Has Kobayashi been tested yet?

Contact staff writer Michael Klitzing at mklitzing@nctimes.com.

Yes
In their unending quest to gain a competitive edge, cyclists have been known to ingest chloroform, amphetamines, alcohol, aspirin, cocaine, caffeine, steroids and strychnine.

No doubt they would drink dish soap and eat elephant dung if they were convinced doing so would buy them a fraction of a second or, even better, position on the podium.

You could argue the world's top cyclists are superb athletes who push their bodies to the breaking point and beyond. All that might be true, but it still fails to legitimize the sport, considering you could also say the same about legendary professional wrestlers with names such as Hulk Hogan, Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake and "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka.

In terms of sports hierarchy, cycling, with its peloton of cheaters, ranks just below the scripted theatrics and steroid-bloated superstars of pro wrestling. At least pro wrestling, years ago, quit pretending the winners and losers weren't predetermined.

Yet the charade continues in cycling, where retired seven-time winner Lance Armstrong insists he's Mr. Clean in a pig pen sport despite unending allegations that suggest otherwise.

You can find a "Tour de France Doping Timeline" online that starts in 1903 and includes a 1978 incident involving Michel Pollentier, who officials discovered to be drug free and pregnant after submitting his wife's urine as a sample.

Deathly serious was a four-year run in the late 1980s and early '90s in which 18 European cyclists "mysteriously" died not long after the invention of EPO, a drug that boosts red blood cells.

Several top riders, including favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso, were barred from this year's race because of an ongoing doping investigation.

"The riders tell me: Doc, if you want to go hunting, you take a rifle. If you don't want to use a rifle, you don't go hunting. Everyone is looking for a magic potion," said Dr. Max Testa, an Italian exercise physiologist and UC Davis sports medicine expert, in a recent Sacramento Bee article.

The latest black eye comes courtesy of Murrieta's Floyd Landis, this year's Tour winner who was discovered to have high levels of testosterone on a day in which he had a "superhuman" ride.

"I wouldn't blame you if it was a bit skeptical because of what cycling has been through in the past and the way other cases have gone," Landis said last week in a news conference.

Skeptical? Nah. I never believed in cycling in the first place.

Loren Nelson, sports editor, can be reached at (760) 740-3551 or lnelson@nctimes.com. To comment, go to nctimes.com.

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JD wrote on Jul 31, 2006 6:09 AM:Armstrong was tested hundreds and hundreds of times and the only doubt was a "B" sample from 1999 and yet people still believe he cheated. Could he have been smart enough to fool everyone? Maybe, who knows? Even Greg Lemond thinks Lance cheated. I was a road rider for years and loved watching the Tour from Lemonds victories until Landis last month. What to think? I do not know but it sure took the fun out of it this year!!!

Chargers Rule wrote on Jul 31, 2006 1:31 PM:I agree cycling is not a sport and why not allow all drugs and then they can ride around Europe for 2 months instead of 1

David wrote on Aug 1, 2006 9:40 AM:All the big money sports are built on drugs, drugs, drugs. We don't see pure athletic performance; we see chemically-aided performance. Cycling pales in comparison to baseball or track and field. I pay no attention to any pro-sports because of the drugs. I would rather watch a little league baseball game than chemically-altered pro-baseball.

lp wrote on Aug 1, 2006 10:23 AM:It's over. The entire sport is tainted.. it goes even back to Armstrong's last win. That went hush really fast. Landis is no better than, say Barry, when it comes to cheating in their respective sport. You can justify and say the "everyone" is using. Oh well, that is just an affirmation of what the sport has become. The race is pointless now.

Curious wrote on Aug 1, 2006 11:47 AM:Doesn't something have to be relevant in order to become irrelevant?

Paul wrote on Aug 3, 2006 10:55 AM:It's reported he drank beer and a shot of whisky the night before his remarkable come back. Well if Landis was dehydrated, why drink beer? It makes you more dehydrated.

RC Encinitas wrote on Aug 3, 2006 9:05 PM:I went to the tour two years ago. It was very exciting and a lot of fun. I watched every stage this year and rooted for Floyd. Personally, I am a bit disillusioned wth the sport. I was planning a trip to France next year to watch and ride. I am not sure now.

No it hasn't wrote on Aug 4, 2006 12:29 PM:It never has been relevent. Its so boring and unmanly, if cheating has had any effect, it has only been to give coverage to a "sporting" event that nobody pays any attention to anyway.

Padres Rule wrote on Aug 4, 2006 2:46 PM:Cycling, at least in France, is as big a polical football as World Cup soccer. The only difference seems to be that the French bitch and complain whenever a non-frenchman wins! Which seems to be forever! Why don't we see big howls about who won the World Cup? France didn't, so why are they silent?

Jay wrote on Aug 4, 2006 6:26 PM:ALL professional atheletes (dont kid yourself, "amatuers" are paid) and many school atheletes are nothing more than modern day gladiators, most pumped full of so many drugs (steroids/barbituates/nooroptics/narcotic pain suppressors)that they are barely recognizable as human any more. Their bodies look more like androids in a bad hollywood movie, either their muscles are bulged beyond all recognition as normal or the opposite: they are so skinny and emaciated that they look like death camp survivors. I also have to question why we idolize and promote this behavior? Look at how much time these people put into their workout regimen. Don't they have anything else to do? What do they contribute to society? My next door neighbor is handicapped, barely able to walk, and is a better citizen than ANY athlete. What it really comes down to is the fans. Unfortunately the average fan, nearly regardless of the sport, is a drunken, violent-proned half-wit with no life of his own. I don't understand why a decent newspaper has a Sports Page. Why not just have a "Fiction Page"? Would be just as realistic.

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