DiLuca's stupidity defense

Bro Deal

"The day after I had a flat stage, so an injection would have been useless," Di Luca continued.

FLandis tried a defense like this. Didn't work out so well.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

Crankyfeet

Bro...you really have it in for these guys who dope.

Doesn't the fact that probably 95% of the peloton dopes in some form, make it an institutional/systemic problem? If it was only 10 or so guys doping, and they were winning everything, I'd want to string them up. But nearly everyone has succumbed to the temptation. It's nearly impossible to be a pro and not have succumbed probably. Clean cyclist and professional cyclist are almost mutually exclusive (at least in the past, excluding guys like Gilbert)

IMO we should give the riders a bit more room, and focus on changing the system to make doping less of an option. We worked out on this forum that most of us would also dope if it meant significant performance improvements, and you had little chance of testing positive. The governing bodies, promoters, and the fans to an extent, set this trap up for pro cyclists, and then when they fall in, we chastise them, especially when they initially try to lie their way out of it. IMO, we are playing into the UCI's hands by persecuting the cyclists. The system created doping, not a few bad cyclists IMHO.

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Bro Deal

I have it in for those who treat the fans and everyone else like we are morons. When the riders get popped, they should have the cojones to man up. I am waiting for one of them to be honest enough to say, "So what? I'm was just doing what everyone else was." Instead it's total denial or a bullcrap story about how they strayed in a moment of temptation and they are sorry.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

Crankyfeet

The fact that they have told the lie of being clean probably 5,000 times to their close friends and family over the years, probably makes the lie easy to make when they get popped. They risk total rejection from those close to them if they man up with the truth. They couldn't afford to tell the truth to their friends and family through their career. It is a sorry predicament that the system has created IMO.

But I hear your point. And I respect that you are a person who seeks the truth. We want them to have the courage to reveal the truth, to pull away the facade, like Jaksche has done. But the profession and their peers have slowly destroyed their integrity and courage to tell the truth. Lying gets a lot easier if you have done it 5,000 times I imagine.

I hope I am not coming across as an apologist for dopers. Perhaps I am one a little. Because I see their eventual predicament as a slow process of small incremental seduction and moral slips encouraged by big rewards and little risk. Especially made easy until late 2005 when it was almost condoned.

I also feel very sorry for courageous moral riders like Gilbert who are good enough to survive, and even win early season, riding clean. Who knows... he could have won 8 TdF's if everyone was clean like him. He could have been respected in history like Merckx and Hinault in a drug free sport. Who knows? Instead he has to take his small glories when he has the opportunity.

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helmutRoole2

Props to Crankyfeet, but I have to agree with Bro on this one. The biggest problem is the lying. As long as star riders have a gullible fan base, they're going to lie. I've pointed this out several times, but when Camenzind came up hot, he offered no comment and retired. This coming from a former world and World Cup champion. It speaks volumes.

Guys like Landis and DeLuca are trying to salvage their reputations and future paychecks when the fact of the matter is, they participate(ed) in a sport that is on many levels a game of Russian Roulette and it is that way because of the layers on layers of lies to explain put forth to explain performances otherwise impossible.

Guys like Landis should Camenzind-up. They've already banked a shitload and have had the experience of being a top flight professional athlete. They should consider themselves lucky; lucky that they responded to the pharmaceuticals; lucky that they got to ride and in some cases win the monuments of the sport; lucky they got ride the latest, mechanic-maintained equipment; lucky they rode in a team bus... all that stuff. Instead they want their own jet airplane like Lance.

The way the sport is right now, no one will bank it like Lance because no one will believe that type of performance and for good reason: because it ain't possible.

It's taken seven, eight years for people to finally start to figure that out.

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"Bait in 08" --nns1400

padawan

[QUOTE=helmutRoole2]Guys like Landis should Camenzind-up. They've already banked a shitload and have had the experience of being a top flight professional athlete. They should consider themselves lucky; lucky that they responded to the pharmaceuticals; lucky that they got to ride and in some cases win the monuments of the sport; lucky they got ride the latest, mechanic-maintained equipment; lucky they rode in a team bus... all that stuff. Instead they want their own jet airplane like Lance.
[QUOTE]

Yeah, I sense Landis is just bitter than Lance got away with it and he didn't. But he'll never own up - at least not for years. He might one day pull a Bjarne Riis but I doubt it. He'll take the Tyler Hamilton approach and deny, deny until he's blue in the face. What's he going to do, offer to pay back all of those Americans that had the wool pulled over their eyes and financed part of his legal fees? That's what gets me fired up - that on top of lying, he's willing to take other people's money to support that lie.

I hope Di Luca gets the full 2 year suspension. It's becoming more unlikely that teams pick up a rider after problems like that. They're just too hot to handle with all the bad press doping is getting again. I wonder how easily a guy like Basso will get a contract when his suspension expires.

Bro Deal

I'm sure Landis and Hamilton are pissed. They got popped just as they were on the threshold of breaking into the big money. All the older riders who have been busted in the last few years must be angry. They know that the biggest doper of the last decade, maybe in the history of all sport, got away with it and now they are, in some part, paying for the outrageousness of Armstrong's behavior. He had to keep pushing it to ridiculous extremes.

FLandis and Hamilton had it in their power to make a difference. They know what Armstrong did and how he did it. They know where the bodies are buried. They could have blown the lid off of the whole sordid affair. Instead they turned themselves into the butts of jokes.

I haven't got a problem with Millar or Vaughters or Andreu or Riis or Jaksche or anyone else who has fessed up. I do wish they would give a more complete account. The systemic nature of the doping has led to a sad situation, and the brunt of the consequences is falling on the riders. The riders cry about this, but they could change it. It is omerta that is protecting the riders who are smart enough or lucky enough not to test positive and their doping infrastructure. If the riders chose not to go along with the "bad apples" theory then they could take the blame off of themselves and put it on the systemic nature of doping where it belongs. They choose not to do this, and I have a hard time feeling sympathy for those who refuse to help themselves.

The denials are now a stupid defense. It isn't 1997. It isn't even 2004. The time when you could stonewall a doping investigation and make excuses that would actually be believed by gullible fans is over. When I hear a rider like DiLuca using a bullshit defense like doping at that time doesn't make sporting sense so I must be innocent, it makes me feel that he must think me and everyone else is a moron. It's a great big, "Fuck you!" Well, fuck DiLuca and everyone else like him.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

Frigo's Luggage

I am with both Cranky and Bro on this one. Most of the riders are just cogs in the machine. Dope or lose your job to the next guy that is willing to do it. I don't even mind the lying about it. I don't expect them to tell the truth. The thing that pisses me off is the egos these guys get once they start winning. I am not upset by the guy that dopes to feed his family. I get pissed by the obnoxious prima donna stars that wouldn't be stars if they were clean...DiLuca is at the top of the list.

Cranky, looking to score some PEDs for next weekend?

hawkeye87

I wish Riis and others would speak up too. I don't think it's in Bjarne's nature. He seems rather private and somewhat abrupt about discussing issues like that.

I think another problem is that those riders who finally did fess up and are still at an age to ride, seem to be shunned. Millar is the notable exception. But Jaschke and, potentially, Sinkowitz appear to be headed towards retirement. Heras, too.

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." -- Wayne Gretzsky

Crankyfeet

I don't think the layers and layers of lies are a cause of the problem... I think they are a symptom. The sport makes doping almost mandatory at the elite pro level. Significant performance improvements occur from doping against a small risk of detection (either you're extremely unlucky or stupid to get caught) and the fact that your competition is mostly doped, makes it a neccessity to compete, as well as being an almost impossible temptation to refuse (as a top athlete, performance increases and the desire to win or achieve more become an obsession). Moreover, the initial decision can perhaps be subtle and almost obligatory, but once it's made, you have joined the dark side. Maybe you are only 22, just joined a team, and they begin the team medical program on you. It almost feels like it is expected. Everyone accepts the situation. But for years and years, nearly everyone you meet and your family all at some point ask you "So do you dope?", and you have no choice but to lie to them, each and every time. For to tell the truth would start a fire that you wouldn't be able to control. And only your pro cycling peers become your true friends, because they share your lie. And you begin to dislike yourself, but whilst you are with your peers (the omerta) you can comfort each other that it is the only way.

Personally, I'd like everyone to have the cojones to reveal the truth. Everyone including the doctors, the teams, the DS's, the corrupt UCI, everyone involved in the lie, to come forward and lay it all on the table. But it may not solve the problem. Because until the risks of doping outweigh the rewards, it will probably continue, no matter how much everyone hugs each other and promises to start afresh.

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Crankyfeet

How did you see through my pathetic attempts to rationalize my own weak morals teetering on the brink?...

It maybe isn't a coincidence that my totally untrustworthy subconscious has managed to befriend the only rider who's also an ER doctor in our club...

It wasn't a conscious decision... but if I get dropped from the F grade peloton again... I might be in a morally vulnerable state...

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Frigo's Luggage

Send me your FedEx account number in a PM. I may have a package for you.

Crankyfeet

The UCI's treatment of the whistleblowers is one of the main reasons why I hate those guys' guts. But I think the sport needs some kind of an official governing body. It's just that the current UCI's involvement in the sorry mess is never admitted to... and they prefer to have the public believe that there is only a handful of "old" riders who dope... and once we get rid of them the sport will be lily, virgin bride, white.

If the UCI were really interested in getting to the bottom of the mess (instead of wanting to cover up the bottom because that's where they are), then they would be championing these guys and encouraging others to come forward.

It's hard to know whether to fight for the sport, or just shoot it like a horse with a broken leg, and start over. The latter looks like the best solution, day by day, IMHO.

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limerickman

Camezind was the only rider that I can recall who admitted it, as soon as he was caught.

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.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.