It's time to celebrate the unholy hell that the French Revolution, with its cry of "liberty, equality, and fraternity" unleashed on France. Like most revolutions, it sounded great, had some convincing reasoning behind it, caused a senseless bloodbath, and moved the country from a horrible, out-of-touch dictatorship into a much more enlightened form of government, which was a really horrible, out-of-touch dictatorship. It was superior to the old absolute monarchy, however, because it had really good slogans. Like "liberty, equality, fraternity." Unfortunately, the revolution triggered roughly 150 years of electoral instability. Whooooops...
We're going to celebrate it by watching a bunch of second tier French riders duke it out with the Tour de France contenders, and we're going to eat some cheese. The cheese we're going to eat is Bethmale, among the most famous of the Pyrenees (sometimes goat) cheeses. It boggles the mind to think about "famous goat cheeses," but we're talking about France here, so maybe it isn't so mind boggling at all.
You should enjoy the cheese, and stroking your chin like a philosopher, ponder the damage that dopers cause to our sport. No, I'm not talking about the arrest and scandals, I'm talking about articles like this one by Neal Rogers, raising questions about Riccardo Ricco's excellent (but not exactly super human) effort to put 1:17 into the peloton by crushing the final climb of the day, and then descending as fast as everybody else. According to Rogers,
Riccò’s ride had fans and journalists buzzing over a display of strength that bordered on the implausible at a Tour that is desperately trying to re-establish credibility after two years of scandal.
Really? Ricardo Ricco, the diminutive climber, having a really good performance on a 15% grade mountain? Seriously, where the hell has Neal Rogers been the last two years? Ricardo Rico can't do a lot of things on a bike - yet. He's not much of a time trialer, and he's a lousy rouleur. He's one of the guys who is likely to have a lot of trouble if he gets off the back on a windy day, as happened to Christophe Moreau last year.
But Ricco can climb very, very well, and has been an off-the-front climber since he moved into roadracing from cyclocross.
But this comes as a surprise to Neal Rogers. According to rogers, the fact that Ricco "admires Pantani is troubling to some." Let's see, a diminutive Italian neo-pro who is a climbing specialist admires a dead, diminutive climbing pro who was perhaps the most beloved racer in Italy since Fausto Coppi? Oh yeah, totally suspicious. I'd give him 20 years for that. What other evidence does Rogers have of doping?
Well, "rumors of suspicion circulated throughout the Tour after French newspaper Libération reported Saturday that the Italian had been tested four times by the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) since the race left Brest seven days earlier." Really? So I guess we should presume that Columbia and Garmin are doped to the frickin' gills, since they get tested *all* the time.
There's other damning evidence too. One of his support crew is a masseur who once was involved in doping. Okay, fine - everybody in pro cycling who hasn't been involved in doping, please raise your hands. Bueller? Bueller?
Okay, now that's all rumor. But Rogers goes past rumor mongerinng, and really turns the truth on its head, stating:
Riccò has a UCI certificate verifying that he has a naturally high hematocrit of 51 percent, one point higher than the UCI limit of 50 percent established at the 1997 Paris-Nice as indication, but not proof, of blood manipulation.
Okay, news flash. The UCI doesn't give certificates indicating that your blood has been manipulated. It gives certificates to riders who have unusual physical characteristics. It isn't unusual for pro-level riders to have a hematocrit over 50. 50 happens to be the magic number, above which riders are automatically suspended for two weeks for doping until an investigation may be completed. The problem is, there are people who have a natural hematocrit at or above 50. (Full disclosure: now that I actually pay attention when I get phsyicals and stuff, I've found that my natural hematocrit varies between 48 and 49 - if I trained a bit better, riding at altitude a bit - I'd be a doper in Rogers' book too.) Just because Ricco has this certificate does not mean he's a doper, or under suspicion of doping. It just means that he was able to substantiate the fact that he has naturally high hematocrit. Finding a pro rider with naturally high hematocrit is about as unusual as finding NBA players who are 6'10" - yeah, they're gifted, but there's no trickery involved.
As the final nail in the coffin, that last bit of 'proof' Ricco is doping, Rogers tells us that:
Riccò also finds himself repeatedly under the microscope due to his inclination towards unabashed trash talking. . .
What the hell? So a guy chews out the peloton for riding too much "piano," he should be under suspicion for doping?
Please.
If this is what passes for a story at Velo News today, they should change their name to something more apt, like the Velo Enquirerer, or perhaps the Weekly World Velo News. There's nothing wrong with anti-doping, you all know I'm strongly in favor of it, and there is nothing wrong with investigative reporting, but to report a collection of rumors that stop just short of alleging a leading young pro talent is doping, is pretty shameful. Doing it the way Rogers does, not with direct accusations but reporting rumors and attributing them to unidentified sources, is particularly gutless. That he tapdances just on this side of libel doesn't really make it any more noble.
12 comments:
I let my Velosnooze subscription expire about 7-8 years ago. I see I havnt missed much.
I think you may have made the right move. That kind of gossip-posing-as-a-story should never have made it past even a web editor. If Ricco had put 5 or 8 minutes into the GC contenders, yeah, that'd be surprising. But he's a 125 pound climbing specialist who put 1:17 into them, and they sat up over the last couple miles. Rogers acts like it's a huge deal and immediately raises suspicion of doping, when in fact it's about what you'd expect of Ricco. It's the kind of rumor-mongering that really undercuts legit anti-doping efforts and makes Velo News look kind of puerile.
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Jimbo,
I agree with you on the Parker thing, but I actually thought that it was not the low point. The low point was the article that was making fart jokes about Chipotle burritos. What a waste of column space....or electrons...or...something.
The kid is what a buck twenty soaking wet, he can climb cause he doesn't have C cups holding him back!! His explosive climb was so awesome to watch, very exciting. Ever since the Tour started I have been raving about him, he carries a pic of Pantani in his pocket, lets hope he doesn't have to fight the same demons off the road. Because I will be crushed if Rico tests + he is my latest Italian cyclist crush after Basso.
Excellent Post.
I dig Ricco's riding. About as close to a Northern European hard man cyclist a spindly little Italian climber can get. He talks tough and then He rides tough.
Hey, I'm going to a alpe d'huez viewing party next week, what type of cheese/wine should I bring?
thanks and have a great day.
Hey Mark. I'd bring whatever the hell I wanted, but if you want stage-specific stuff... You're in Beaufort cheese country if you're at L'Alpe d'Huez. Beaufort is like a super-duper Gruyere, a slightly spicier hard cheese. It is akin to Romano Locatelli in that cheese' relationship to Parmigiano - same idea, but better executed.
You could make a really, really good fondue with it. It is a gruyere-style cheese after all.
But what I would do would be to get some smoked salmon, cut the cheese into little cracker-sized squares, and put bits of smoked salmon on it.
You'll need to bring a fairly solid white wine to go with that, maybe a White burgundy. An inexpensive choice that is fairly widely available is Louis Jadot 1996 Mâcon Blanc-Villages Chateau des Jacques ("Jack's Farm"), or you could maybe scare up some Georges Duboeuf Pouilly-Fuissé. Either should be well under $15, but any fruity, citrusy and solid white burgundy will do the trick. If you could lay your hands on it, a bottle of a good German Franconian (Franken) wine, a half dry (halbtrocken) would probably be the right combination of tangy and sweet. They're tough to get hold of because Bavarians drink around 90% of the wine produced in Bavaria (Bavarians drinking booze... who'd have thought it?) but if you can get one, in its curious little rounded Bacchusbeutel, it would go down a treat.
you forgot to mention that the french revolution introduced the concept of libertarianism. One of the best ideas of all time when mated with egalitarianism and the brotherhood of man.( some of the best american ideas spring from this) Just don't let the fascists get ahold of it, then things get randy....and we lock each other up.
I'll also point out the french like to throw anyone out of the tour whom they don't like....
Anon 7:37 - in what meaningful sense was the French revolution about libertarianism? They were big into killing off the establishment, destroying the church, the monarchy and the middle class, and then into destroying anybody "the people" didn't agree with - "the people" being an increasingly narrow circle of oligarchs who used violence to get their political way. I guess in a Rothbardian sense it was libertarian since there was no real government to speak of, just a strongest-guy-wins sort of Hobbesian contest for spoils. That strikes me as a pretty degraded form of libertarianism, more of a discredit to the breed than a good example of it. Their version of liberty was, at best, the sort that one finds in a communist totalitarian state - freedom from the old oppressive order, but in its place something equally oppressive or worse - just a different flavor of oppression.
I'd attribute the formation of libertarianism to John Stuart Mill, or perhaps to Lysander Spooner.
Well, I guess you can temper your outrage at this unprofessional hack job. He seems merely to have been saying what everyone was, rightly, thinking. Then again, maybe the 'B' sample was mishandled. We can only hope the fourth column has been manipulating those jackbooted thugs posing as gendarmes (do they really need ten of them to arrest each spaghetti armed 125 pound italian) once again. How dare they cry scandal, those hypocrits!
Anon 6:14, you know what? I hear that the Garmin guys are all doping. That VandeVelde guy is really kicking ass. He came out of nowhere, and he rides for an American team. If that's not proof of doping, I don't know what is. Sure, we don't have any positive drug test results yet. But people are talking. And frankly, with all the discussions about Garmin being a "clean" team, I think they protest a bit too much.
There, Anon - do you have a problem with that? If so, please explain why that would be any different than Neal Rogers' story two or three days before there was any actual evidence of Ricco doping?
I'm pretty comfortable now with calling Ricco a probable doper. That's what I think today, it wasn't my view yesterday in the absence of evidence. I'm comfortable that I stood up and criticized Rogers' gossip column directed at him yesterday.
Tell me something, Anon, say you took some cold medicine and USADA decided to check out your Cat IV race, just randomly, and you got pulled for testing. Would you want me piling on your ass and telling the world "anon 6:14 is a big fat dirty doper" or would you want me saying the jury was out, and telling the people who were jumping to conclusions to have a mug of STFU until there was some evidence?
You make the call. It's a take home exam, you take as much time as you need. Meanwhile, I'll ponder whether this witch weighs as much as a duck.
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