Tugboat Can't Save You Now.

In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
             -Hunter S. Thompson

Five Reasons the World of Lance is the Same as Before

The last few weeks have seen the cycling world “reeling” or “turned on it’s head” by the whole USADA Armstrong three-ring circus.  People are proclaiming that everything has changed, they are either shocked or justified in their previous convictions that he doped. In some cased they still believe in Lance and now saw USADA is out of line.  Passions have flared and the debate has raged online, on rides and over beers.  It seems that many cycling fans have been left stumbling around as if they had just stumbled through the looking glass.

Personally, I think nothing has changed.

Let me outline some of the points of my argument:

1)      Did you really think he was a nice guy beforehand?

Other than that little detail of being a Champion to Millions in the Fight against Cancer, what has he done that made you think he was a nice guy?  He sued a team sponsor when he won his first tour after they ran an add congratulating him (apparently they had the rights to sponsor the team, not use Lance’s image) and he has systematically destroyed the careers of people that stood against him (I give you Simeoni).  The guy has pretty much had to be the alpha in every situation at all costs- and its clearly cost him friends and relationships over the years.  And you get the impression he probably doesn’t care.

Dude is kinda a dick.

2)      Did you honestly think he was clean?

In bike racing, where there is smoke there is all too often fire.  Several of his lieutenants went on to test positive after leaving Postal, and more to the point he was part of a generation, that in the clarity of hindsight, appears to have been doped to the gills.

3)      He’s still the best rider of his generation.

I don’t want to be labelled an Armstrong apologist but drugs can’t make a racehorse out of a donkey.  Everything about Mr. Armstrong’s long and illustrious career (and his stint in triathlon prior to that) suggests that he was genetically one in a million.  He won the pro world title at an age when he was still a U23 and  had a fairly successful time as a classics rider (he won Fleche Wallone if anyone remembers) all BEFORE becoming the Tour de France obsessed winning machine.  And he did it against a generation of pros that were at least as dirty as he allegedly was.

Move over if you look at this seven tour wins he also had luck on his side- you can’t dope your way to seven tours without crashing out, flatting at the wrong moment, or having a mishap in the first week.  That he did it seven years in a row is astounding.

4)      He still helped the sport explode onto the mainstream.

Lance was in Dodgeball. Nobody is going to put Cadel Evans in a Ben Stiller flick anytime soon.  Hell he couldn’t even make an episode of Two and a Half Men if he was the half man.

For a time there, if you raced bikes at least the general public would ask you “Like Lance?” rather than “would you ever try and do an Ironman? That sport is really tough!”

5)      The sport is still cleaner than it was before.

I’m not actually sure I can prove this. But I, and others, believe it- and maybe that on its own is a good start.  Teams like Garmin and Sky have based their business models on being clean teams- and that for sure is a step in the right direction.  If the cycling world decides earnestly to clean itself up at a high level them maybe it can be done- otherwise there will always be more young guns looking to be pros, sadly they are a replacible commodity.  Title sponsors on the other hand are harder to find- when the teams themselves say enough is enough then maybe things are finally changing.

Did We Fail?

A Retrospective Look at Canadian Cycling at the London Olympics

Great expectations.

Canada’s top cyclists undoubtedly entered London poised for greatness.  They entered these games with World Champions and World Cup winners amongst their roster.  They were bold enough to predict not just three medals but that that was a conservative estimate.

Comparisons were made to the 1996 Games where Canadian cyclists won medals in all three cycling disciplines (BMX having not yet been added).  Tara Whitten had won three World Titles in the period since Beijing, and Catherine Pendrel has become the standard against which female mountain bike racers are measured.  Zach Bell was a contender, and who could forget, that Canada had something new – a Grand Tour Winner! While Ryder was outnumbered in the road race, surely he could be counted on to repeat his high pressure time trial performance of the Giro.  Clara Hughes, a Canadian sporting legend, had returned to the sport to fulfil her manifest destiny of becoming Canada’s most decorated Olympian.

And yet we fell short.

First Ryder crashed out of the Tour de France putting a cloud over his conditioning.

Then Hughes could not match the torrid pace of Kristin Armstrong- herself on a comeback from both having her first child and breaking her collarbone at the Exergy Tour.

Whitten fought a 6-round out and out war with the top athletes from Great Britton, Australia and the United States.  And lost.  So narrowly, heartbreakingly, lost.

And perhaps most inexplicably, Pendrel, Canada’s most consistent performer, an athlete with a history of rising to the occasion at the biggest events- just had an off day.  It’s something ordinary in bike racing, something that happens at some point to everyone that has ever raced a bike.  At any race on any given day there is always one favourite that falls short.  Catherine lined up, and it just wasn’t her day.  Pendrel, who rose to the occasion four years ago in Beijing to finish 4^th, and who has gone from strength to strength ever since, faded badly on the open exposed course in Hadleigh Field to come 9^th.  At just about any other race, in any other year, Pendrel and her coach Dan Proulx could just call it an outlier and move on- but unfortunately it happened on a day that only comes every four years.

Jacques Landry, the head of Cycling Canada, gave some sage words afterwards when he told the media to remember that both Pendrel and Whitten are World Champions.  And remain champions.  Fans of Canadian cycling can take pride in the way our athletes fought through adversity.  Perhaps there was no better example of this than Zach Bell, who when clearly not in the form that he had hoped to be, and with his medal ambitions slipping through his fingers, chose to go on the attack rather than concede defeat.  His win in the scratch race did little to help his overall placing- but it spoke volumes to his character.

Monique Sullivan, in her own quite and unassuming way, did what Olympians should do.  She fought uphill for two years to even qualify a spot at these games, and when she got the opportunity to come and compete put together some of the best races she has ever had.  She combined the grit, tactics, speed and aggression needed to make the keirin final- and in doing so earned the right to line up as one of the fastest 6 women in the world on two wheels.  There was no medal for her at the end of the day- but in making the final she rose to the challenge and embodied the Olympic ideal.

From Atlanta to London

There is no doubt that Canadian cyclists performed better in Atlanta than London.  The medals alone tell that story.

But there is another story, one where in London we have changed the markers for how we wish to be measured.  While every medal in Atlanta seemed to come with a story of an upset ride from an underdog (with perhaps the exception of Curt Harnett in the men’s sprint) Canada came to London hungry for more.  Results that had previously been seen as successes were seen as failures.  On the track Canada fielded riders in six events and were competitive in five.

We had riders that could win, and they were justifiably upset when they did not.

They were well supported, by systematic work that was done behind the scenes in the year leading up to the games to help ensure our riders had the best possible environments to perform.  Geoff Kabush, in riding to 8^th place and Canada’s best ever men’s cross country results thanked Dan Proulx and the rest of the staff that made it possible.  Kabush has a pretty good frame of reference when it comes to Olympic performances. He set the previous benchmark twelve years ago in Sydney when he was 9th.

No where is this transformation seen more clearly than in the even where we did medal- in the inaugural Women’s Team Pursuit.  Four years ago when it was announced that this event would be included in the Olympics, key individuals chose to focus on it as an avenue for a medal.  A plan was laid out.  And it was followed up with training camps, a base in Los Angeles, added staff including physiotherapists and nutritionists, trips to the wind tunnel and efforts to procure the best equipment available.  And it paid dividends with a shinning set of bronze medals for three talented athletes. 

And in this lies the road to Rio- Canadian Cycling needs start planning now (other Nation’s already have), follow through and perhaps most importantly procure funding for it all.

And hopefully, somewhere in Canada, young kids have seen the efforts of Catherine, Monique, Zach, Tara and Geoff and through to themselves that just maybe one day they themselves can win.

Doping at Fondo's?

Why are people cheating to recreate?

Should they be testing at the Heart and Stroke ride too?

I don't know what's worse. Cheating to win a fondo, or that it's so obvious people will cheat that they had to have doping control.

En forme or no form?

They feel pretty much the same.
You just do better with one.
The results may change but the suffering stays the same.

Rule #19:

It 's spelled "prime."

If you spell it "preem" -  you're wrong. Unquestionably and undeniably wrong.  And you likely don't understand the history of your own sport.

Prime is a french word for bonus, it has nothing to do with "premium" as has too often been claimed of late. 
Riders should have to spell the word out before they can collect their money, and race organisers that spell it wrong in their bible/advert/race report should loose their sanction.

Severe? Perhaps, but we need to stop the erosion before its too late.

Just look at cross country skiing, wich seems to be adopting the concept but spelling it wrong in every article I've come across.

Sigh. Being old and cantankerous is a tough cross to bear.

Rule #73:

You can't retire if you never got paid.

Seriously, if you never got paid, or couldn't get fired for a bad result, it means it wasn't your job. 

You don't retire from a hobby.

The word you are looking for is "quitting."