Brett’s recent post about Jensie brings up the dilemma of professional cycling for me. I admire many of cycling’s famous riders yet I don’t admire cheaters. Luckily for me I can fervently embrace opposable ideas within my consciousness and sleep well at night. Which also means I would have been one of those cheaters. I also see the tangled, messy, complicated history of professional cycling and embrace it but not too tightly.
Edwig Van Hooydonk and Inga Thompson were two hugely talented racers who retired in their prime rather than dope. I wish I had the moral fortitude of either of them. Inga was the best American female road cyclist in her time and until recently, an important part of her story went untold.
Warning: If you are American this is guaranteed to piss you off. The upper level of the United States Cycling Federation was as compromised and immoral as the UCI of Hein Verbruggen’s day. The point of this rambling rant is to introduce people to this interview, so ignore the rest of this post, if you must and read it.
When the experienced adults and coaches in the room are pushing youth toward doping, what chance does a young ambitious racer have? Inga rode for 7-Eleven seemingly as a one woman team. I remember watching the women’s races before the 7-Eleven dominated men’s races and there she was, beautiful, powerful, a long braid safely pinned to her jersey. Inga slayed all. She did have this to say about her experience with the men’s squad.
“My friend [name withdrawn], who was on those 7-Eleven men’s teams when I was on their women’s program -he has tons of doping stories from that time. I’m still surprised that no one has written a book specifically about the doping on that team – way before the whole U.S. Postal mess.”
Yes please, I would read the hell out of that book.
Let us not forget, every war that has ever been waged has been fought on the backs of eighteen year old young men. They will do anything. Doing up some crank to make sure your team wins that day’s criterium, that is not a problem.
I have to always remind myself, the real cycling is each of us, riding for our own reasons: joy rides, deposits at the pain bank, Cogals, Keepers Tours or the occasional amateur race. I never had to make that ethical doping decision, thankfully.
Recent musing from the V-bunker were about a little espresso as good quality legal doping. In 2014 the pros are still enjoying a little legal pot belge of crushed up pain killers and caffeine to get them to the finish. This is legal?
It is a common practice to use a mix of water, caffeine and pain killers. This can make you quite crazy, which is why I have never used it. I don’t want to, and it seems quite dangerous. -Mini Phinney.
Do I want to draw a line between these two stories? There are a few actually, the obvious one is between Davis Phinney, a long standing member of the 7-Eleven cycling team and his son Taylor Phinney, now racing for BMC. I’m fans of both of them and maybe I do need drugs to sleep well. Taylor is outspoken on his ambition to make cycling a cleaner sport. The second is Jim Ochowicz, the original 7-Eleven team manager and presently manager at BMC. Who is mixing up those bidons of caffeine and pain killers, Jim?
A forthright book about 7-Eleven’s powerhouse days would shed some light on a lot of things. Bob Roll, get busy.
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So the lesson learned is we do need to hear these stories now and until things change. There are still riders being caught for doing shite so obviously the problem has not been solved. Really though it is not just a cycling problem and until all sports take the same approach it will be in our society.
Inga, Connie, Beth Heiden - these were the goddesses of my ill spent youth in the amature peloton of east coast cycling. It always was a thrill to line up with them when they rode some minor mens race as training. It's nice to know Ingas story, sad that she was treated like that. I never trusted Eddie B from all the stories I heard and sorry to find out what a d-bag Gorski was.
Thanks, Gianni for that, I think?
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Cycling, like all sports, has a murky past. Cycling gets a bad rap these days because (many) of our sport's transgressors have been caught and publicly shamed. Why? Because cycling has probably the most comprehensive dope testing protocols out there. Why does cycling get this rap? Because most other sports have weak to non-existent anti-doping programs and their governing bodies are shit scared as to what they might find. To wit: Operation Puerto. Cyclings carry the bag, soccer stars walk away scot free. Tennis? Golf? Basketball? Football? I'll believe they take doping seriously when at the end of the game, several players are nabbed by doping chaperones and led off to be tested before they hit the locker room. Will that ever happen? No.
Bit of a digression (though, as the video is from the David Millar film project, it does have a doping connection) but have you seen the footage said film project got of Mini Phinney at the 2013 Tirreno Adriatico? The tale he told of the day is here. The video is the final time up the climb. He was cooked. Utterly. Probably knew by this point he wasn't going to make the cut:
@Al__S
Thanks fpr posting and the link. Great stuff!
@Gianni - thanks for posting this. For me, it is no longer about dragging the sport down or flogging the cheaters; it is about celebrating the V in those who toughed it out. Inga's is a cautionary tale for any parent who has children with other role models and authority figures. Best to learn right from wrong ealry and without equivocation, have the strength of your convictions and stay true to the path. I think this is the message from a story like Inga's - good for her - the V indeed!
@HMBSteve
@Rob
Exactly, this shit does need to see the light of day or people won't understand mistakes were made.
I don't want to be the dick on Velominati who keeps bringing this up but I really do think it's important and interesting. It's important mostly because people like Inga and Edwig are not well known to people under...ahem...cough, cough...a certain age because they actually said, No, I'm not going along with this program, cycling means too much to me to do that. These people deserve some recognition and respect too. The arguments about level playing field ignore the people who actually said it's wrong and did something about it.
Rob, do you remember Cindy (Sidney?) Chastain? Hubba Hubba, damn she was beautiful and raced like a fiend. Somewhere in my photo slide collection, I took some good photos of her; hairnet and blond pony tail. They will end up on this site, someday.
@Al__S
Thanks for that link, it is a great story.
I'm about to highjack my own article, why not?
Mini Phinney legs. All thanks to a USCF moto. Ouch
.
@Gianni
"Ouch" would be the understatement of the year! Holy shit that's some crazy scarring.
I'm going to make an early nomination for V Moment of the year: Lucas Euser getting up after his own crash then going over to his buddy Taylor to see if he was ok (which he really wasn't) then staying with him until the ambulance arrived.
@wiscot + fucking 1 to that. I seem to remember his comments when asked about it were along the lines of "Who cares? It's only a bike race. There was a fellow human suffering nearby, I was making sure I did whatever I could to help minimise that."
Also for those of you that haven't, read the other 2 "Perspectives on Doping" pieces on there. Theo de Rooij's makes for particularly interesting reading around how things went down at Rabo during the Chicken's time.