After the latest blood doping scandal this year that has caused German TV to suspend coverage of the tour and now one of the favourites of the year did an amazing come back this week despite being battered and bruised from crashes to pull himself up over the Pyrenees and take a stage win, it has now been released that Vinokourov tested positive Saturday for blood doping (the day he won the time trial) and they are awaiting the results from his mountain win on Monday. In response, Vino's been suspended and the sponsors pulled the whole team from the race. Below is a newsletter I received last week that sums up how frustrated I am with the sport, and yet I keep watching, and hoping that there still are
real athletes out there that aren't cheaters. I'm so frustrated & disappointed that I just want to cry. As for my favourite rider this year (Rassmussen), he's passed all the tests so far, but there are rumours floating around. Historically, there's usually some truth behind them, so I don't expect him to be in much longer either.
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Growing up with Heroes
In a world with a million television channels and cameras everywhere, the imperfection of athletes is more obvious than ever before. I often wonder if my heroes growing up took the same drugs athletes today take. The HGH, EPO, TGH and testosterone filled needles are a puncture in the bubble of boyish dreams. If you are eight, or 10, or 14, caught in that once-wonderful phase of growing up called the age of worship, then you have my sympathy. Every time the press reveals another counterfeit hero, kids pull the posters of cheats off their walls and learn to become cynical way before their time.
No age is possibly as beautiful as this time of believing, when mothers' commandments about clean clothes dismissed, and the first heroes are pasted onto the walls.
How we stepped back, and looked at our heroes, and grinned, wearing a reverence so clean, so pure, it was almost holy. Of all rituals of that time, this was the most innocent in a way, for we believed, emphatically, completely, in the goodness and greatness of another man. Perfection in a poster.
In those non-Internet, non-cable TV days when information limped along, and journalists didn't pry, and athletes were more discreet, and temptations of fame were fewer, we were rarely introduced to the fallibilities of our heroes, we rarely heard about their indiscretions, we were infrequently disappointed. If heroes fumbled, there was always an excuse.
Every year the Tour de France would pass in the north I would make sure I was on my best behavior so that dad would take me with him. A full day of waiting just to see my heroes pass by in fifteen seconds. While we waited, my grandpa would tell stories of cousin Joseph and how he swore during the “great war” that if he ever got out alive he would bike as hard as he could and try to win the tour de France. In 1919 he would finish 8th. It was those and other stories that made me want to be the best one could be.
But how do you make excuses now? How many justifications can kids find? How does worship remain pure when so many heroes are not?
As generations go, this one has it hard. Footballers con referees. Racism lurks. Drunken nightclub incidents involving athletes abound. Assaults are not uncommon. Disrespect is everyone's birthright. A lot of it happened before, but now, in a million TV-channel world, with cameras everywhere, the fallibility of athletes is more obvious.
You wonder in a couple of weeks when the winner of the most celebrated cycling race in sport, and the fairytale champion of the toughest stage event in cycling turn up positive tests, will kids be surprised, or will they just shrug?
But maybe it's worse than that. Maybe kids are just being inured to drugs. You wonder sometimes that if so many athletes take drugs, so many Olympic gold medalists, Tour de France winners, tennis players, that perhaps young people might eventually think it has some legitimacy. Maybe they think it's the only way to ensure a level playing field. That short-term gain is worth the risk and so many grownups anyway just wink and turn a blind eye to such stuff. Maybe it's not such a big deal, it's shameful but the shame passes.
Blithely we say to kids, don’t smoke, say no to drugs, "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing", though we rarely care to spell out the difference. There is a crucial distinction between paying the price to win and winning at any price. Athletes leave me cold with their willingness to win at any price, and I'm no kid. Decades have passed since East German doctors systematically doped young athletes which led to tumors and cancers and in one terrible case a woman athlete opting for a sex change.
Still, despite the dangers, and the enhanced testing, they cheat, confirming its human nature to be seduced by the short cut. Athletes will store their blood and put it back into their bodies because more blood means more red blood cells, means more oxygen to the muscles, means better endurance performance. No, wait; sometimes they'll put other people's blood into their bodies. Worse, there is a suggestion that blood from a different species is sometimes used.
They'll inject human growth hormone even though it can lengthen your hands and result in a protruding jaw. They will use a catheter to insert someone else's fresh urine into their bladder so as not to get caught. They will experiment with a mixture called Belgian pot which is a mix of heroin, cocaine, caffeine and cortisone.
Cyclists have died in their sleep, on the bike, but riders will still inject and swallow. On the Internet, I found reports of two studies where doctors offered athletes a hypothetical magic pill, saying it would mean constant victory for five years but then death. Half the athletes they polled said it would be worth taking. Sometimes you're not sure whether athletes want to be invincible, or take drugs because they already believe they are.
Money has made it a worthwhile bargain for many. In a recent list, the top 10 earning athletes of last year (prize money and endorsements) together took home just over $363 million dollars. Some men evidently will kill themselves for a fraction of that money.
If they get caught, they deny, they'll say they ate too much nandrolone-fatted veal, or inhaled second-hand marijuana smoke and will henceforth wear a gas mark at parties, or that their toothpaste was spiked with drugs. These are real excuses from athletes who tested positive. Who do they think will believe them? Maybe only a kid.
Great, wonderful, clean, authentic heroes remain and sport is hardly in crisis. But in a world where numerous feats by cyclists are looked at askance, inaction will be fatal. It means more honest athletes need to speak out. Parents need to draw lines. Coaches need to be monitored. Schools need to emphasize fair play. Bans should be more than two years and at least ensure the missing of the next Olympics.
What will it take for this issue to reach its tipping point? When will this fade? Maybe we should take the financial element out and have government sponsored athletes.
I can't wait till the day I can take my son to see the tour and tell him about Cousin Joseph. If for nothing else so that kids believe it's safe to put up posters.
After all, what fun is growing up without heroes?
Dream big,
Christophe Vandaele
President,
SBR MULTISPORTS
cvandaele@sbrshop.com
