Landis Lands First Punch - But No Longer Dreams

The day after Floyd Landis enters the nasty ring of accusations and denials, it appears clear Lance Armstrong is his sentinel opponent - and he has landed the first punch. Sure there are others, Hincapie, Levi, DavidZ, etc. including UCI head Dick Pound, but Landis came out swinging for the top step of the America podium of cycling icons and there's only one guy standing there - sorry Greg - it's Lance.

This has the makings of a grand soap opera reality movie the likes of which a nation tired of economic bad news, Wall Street stumbles, endless desert war, oil spills and Glenn Beck's Hitler-Obama tirades is dreaming.

But that's it - its and American soap opera. Okay, maybe David Walsh, self-appointed cycling-doping-journalist is taking glee in the pilot episode of what will undoubtedly consume the summer cycling season, but does this really have historical legs to stand on, in the only arena which really counts - The Tour of Cycling History?

I sound a bit like a broken record here, but folks, read your history books. And you know what you will find? History doesn't just repeat itself, it's been riding the same old grand boucle for more than a hundred years. Doping in cycling isn't new news.

Wait. Let me repeat that.

Doping in cycling isn't new news.

That is unless you love old news. News that has been chewed up and spit out a dozen different ways. News that has been printed and recycled so many times that it barely holds the ink. You can tweet and IM it a thousand times, its just old news.

This is not a condemnation or support of Landis, Armstrong or any other cyclist or person that has used some performance enhancer. Personally I think drugs are wrong. But this is about history. A history of a sport born out of marketing, media, and men who make money. Drugs have always been the lubrication of the 3Ms. They made this machine run throughout history.

The sport we love so dearly, cherish so passionately, are willing to put our lives on hold for 23 days each July for, is just that, a sport. SPORT - period. What we do on the weekends and a few other days a year is ride our bikes - we are not pro athletes - we are not paid to do this - and we are not paid to take certain risks to do this. Pro athlete are.

Landis landed the first punch while swinging at Lance Armstrong, and maybe a few others he feels wronged by, but what he is clueless about, and so too a litany of non-cycling-journalists at The Wall Street Journal, ESPN, NY Times, and others, and armchair cycling critics everywhere, is History (yes, with a capitol H) doesn't give a damn. It didn't give a damn in 1892 when they pedaled the first Paris-Brest-Paris, it didn't give a damn in 1896 when they pedaled the first Paris-Roubaix, it didn't give a damn in 1903 when they pedaled the first Tour de France, it didn't give a damn in 1924 when Henri Pelissier and his brother Francis spilled their guts and little boxes of pills to journalist Albert Londres for his Forcat de la Route, and it didn't give a damn in 1967 when Tom Simpson O.D.d on amphetamines and alcohol climbing the slopes of Mont Ventoux, and it didn't give a damn at king Eddy's tearful exit from the '69 Giro, and it didn't give a damn in 1998 at the Festina Affair, and it didn't give a damn at Il'Pirata's overdoes failed blood test in the '99 Giro d'Italia or after he died of a cocaine overdose in 2004, and it hasn't given a damn in past 107 years of drugged racing in Italy, Spain, Belgium, France or any other country.

Yes, I hate doping, I wish they, the pros, wouldn't, but History says it's not about Floyd Landis or any of them, as individuals, but as Le Tour de France Director Christian Prudhomme put it, it's about a dream:

“Cycling has always made me dream,… It is an extraordinary sport, a legend of a sport, a sport of legends. It's almost as hard as boxing and combat sports. It takes place in exceptional conditions, obviously the mountains, the cobbles. It's a sport where anything can happen. The weather plays a significant part and the riders have to confront it. It has always made me dream.”

We all dream of riding our bikes fast, faster than the next guy, fast enough to win. We all take risks when we try to go to fast. No one ever said chasing dreams was safe.

Andrew Messick has reoccuring nightmares of Henri Desgrange

History is a funny thing - ya know, the way it keeps repeating itself, but nobody bothers to listen, or read, or watch.

Look around, far and near, choose a subject, it's not hard, and you'll find historical stuttering. Sometimes it takes a few months or years, but if you can step away from the myopic perspective we 60-year-lived humans have, you find history weaves a pretty nice sin curve over and under the x-axis of all time.

Today AEG Sports president Andrew Messick denied rumors that ASO, Amaury Sports Organization, the French events and media mega-conglomerate that owns the Tour de France, Dauphiné Libéré, Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Nice and other major cycling events (as well as the French Open in tennis, is positioning for a takeover of the Tour of California, calling it only a “media partnership.” (Messick denies ASO takeover of California Tour) You, and Mr. Messick, might want to post those words up on the bulletin board for a future re-read, maybe under the header "History Repeating Itself."

Just a brief ride down the muddy cobbled road of cycling history might shed a little light on the new business arrangement AEG and ASO are team time trialing into. The ASO, or the true grand patron of the Tour de France, began life in the marketing madness of the Parisian newspaper L'Auto. A century ago L'Auto was being gapped off the circulation wheel by rival L'Velo. To avoid DNFing L'Auto's heads Victor Goddet and Henri Desgrange masterminded a race called le Tour de France and went on to demolish the competition and create a race legend.

For the next 50 years L'Auto dominated the sport print media in near monopolistic fashion - and fever. L'Auto ceased publication in 1944, a by-product of its ambiguous allegiance during the Occupation, with Liberation its assets were sequestered. In Phoenix-fashion it rose 18 months later from L'Auto ashes as L'Equipe, at it's helm Goddet's son Jacques. The 1960's telecast economic woes for print media with television assuming a more attractive role - L'Equipe was struggling, prompting Tour Director and L'Equipe head Goddet to capitulate to a merger of the paper and subsidiary cycling gemstone to Émilien Amaury (1965); with whom he had earlier made his successful bid to relaunch the Tour de France after WWII. Over the next decade and a half the two men transformed the conglomeration into the Amaury Group (ASO). The Amaury Group is owned by French publicity and marketing entity EPA (Éditions Philippe Amaury).[1]

In the past few decades le géant de sports de la France has been gobbling up events most recently the Dauphiné Libéré, and driving interest in Vuelta a España. “(UCI president Pat McQuaid) has heard these rumors too,” Messick said, referring to the ASO takeovers. “He and I talked about it, and I told him they are false.”, from the VeloNews article. Of course McQuaid heard them, he is having the same Desgrange nightmares. ASO is cycling, and has reduced the UCI to as insignificant an organization as can internationally exist. McQuaid knows once ASO has Tour of CA, and Australia that doesn't leave the UCI with any toys to play with. Kinda like the early days of the Tour and being a Isole - good luck on getting anything but the broom wagon to show up when you have a mechanical.

ASO has continued to grow, becoming more powerful, controlling more and more of what is professional cycling and spreading the sports media marketing tentacles first unleashed by Henri Desgrange. So Andrew Messick, those reoccuring nightmares you keep having, the ones where the ghost of Henri Desgrange keeps taking everything you own, take note, history says the giant he left behind is looking west, all the way to the coast of California.

PS - Andrew, how's your French?


[1] drawn from a fascinating book The Tour de France 1903-2003: A Century of Sporting Structures, Meanings and Values, editors Hugh Dauncey and Geoff Hare.

Dope, Dopes & Dopers

Sometimes you start a blog - oh, say in the shower, or on the bike, or while having a pint with your girlfriend (her's is usually anything other than a pint), or when the new issue of CycleSport magazine arrives and Lance isn't anywhere on the cover in name or likeness (gotta be a mistake at the printer's). Then sometimes you have this blogopiphany just before you open another's blog and see it's a viral blogopiphany, they too are going down the same circuitous route of "WFT? - I can't believe what I just read?"

Well thank you Joe Lindsey (Boulder Report) for your befuddled-bewilderment at the most recent round of anti-doping WTF. From Joe's blog (but do go read it all), "First, they only re-tested 17 samples. Second, they didn’t find anything. Third and most interestingly, they didn’t expect to. “It was not our goal to find anything,” said AFLD head Jean-Pierre Bordry, to German press agency DPA (via CyclingNews), adding (via AFP/VeloNews) that they just wanted the “security of the truth” in knowing they’d not missed any positives. But they didn’t expect to find any. But ran the tests anyway. Gotcha."

Then said Bordry. "I am astonished that there were no positive doping tests at this year's race."

Okay, stop! I don't have a Phd in anything grammatical or pharmaceutical. But WTF? Bordry, where are you going with this?

For a moment let's skip all the alphabet soup labeling - CERA, AFLD, EPO, UCI, WADA, LA, WTF, eLaMiNOP, or whatever. Something that needs a little light shown on it is, if the cops quit catching robbers because robbers quit robbing (ya, right, I know) do we no longer need cops and therefore without cops we will get robbers robbing again which means we need cops to... well, get my point, sorta? It's about catching dopers, you dopes.

What is Bordry babbling on about? So, “It was not our goal to find anything,” HELLO? If you don't, you don't have a job! And neither do the dozens of other members of the labcoated beaker-brotherhood. As my friend from India would say, "Give me a break mon."

Now in a related (hang in there, I promise it is) Part II:
In all this we also lose track of the fact that this is entertainment... wait, it's Entertainment, with a capital E. Since when do any of these 20/30-something year olds - virtually none with an education beyond the bike - save lives, prevent wars, right social ills, create great art, even teach bike safety to a local grade school? (Ok, one concession: Major Taylor was chipping away at the color barrier when he raced.) They do what they do for themselves and for us as Entertainment. Like NASCAR (sorry, more alphabet soup) we even like the crashes - fess up, we've all seen a few youtube bike disasters.

As Entertainment it is entertaining - let's enjoy it.

C'mon, this years TdF was Entertainment because of the soap-Astana-opera - we enjoyed it - it was real egos crashing into one another, not just bikes - we all can't wait for Prudhomme's route announcement Oct 14th so we can talk about Season 2 of As the Tour Turns.

The thing is it has always been Entertainment - they created races to sell stuff; to sell newspapers, sell beer, sell bicycles, hell, maybe even sell dope.

One of my "favorite" doping stories is from the early 1920's when riders in the Tour de France use to smear cocaine-flake-impregnated cold cream on their legs to ward of the cold and pain while crossing the lofty Cols Director Henri Desgrange had cooked up to make the race 'truly manly'.

From a Wikipedia entry:

In 1924 the journalist Albert Londres followed the Tour de France for the French newspaper, Le Petit Parisien. At Coutances he heard that the previous year's winner, Henri Pélissier, his brother Francis and a third rider, Maurice Ville, had resigned from the competition after an argument with the organiser, Henri Desgrange. Henri explained the problem - whether or not he had the right to take off a jersey - and went on to talk of drugs, reported in Londres' race diary, in which he invented the phrase Les Forçats de la Route (The Convicts of the Road):

"You have no idea what the Tour de France is," Henri said. "It's a Calvary. Worse than that, because the road to the Cross has only 14 stations and ours has 15. We suffer from the start to the end. You want to know how we keep going? Here..." He pulled a phial from his bag. "That's cocaine, for our eyes. This is chloroform, for our gums."

"This," Ville said, emptying his shoulder bag "is liniment to put warmth back into our knees."

"And pills. Do you want to see pills? Have a look, here are the pills." Each pulled out three boxes.

"The truth is," Francis said, "that we keep going on dynamite."

Henri spoke of being as white as shrouds once the dirt of the day had been washed off, then of their bodies being drained by diarrhoea, before continuing:

"At night, in our rooms, we can't sleep. We twitch and dance and jig about as though we were doing St Vitus's Dance..."

"There's less flesh on our bodies than on a skeleton," Francis said.

The acceptance of drug-taking in the Tour de France was so complete by 1930, when the race changed to national teams that were to be paid for by the organizers, that the rule book distributed to riders by the organizer, Henri Desgrange, reminded them that drugs were not among items with which they would be provided.

There are others - from caffeine suppositories to hidden pee bags. Indeed, the history of modern doping virtually launched itself with the cycling craze of the 1890s - that's 1890's, as in over a hundred years ago, 10 years before they dreamed up the Tour - and the six-day races, or Madisons, (yes, they actually raced virtually non-stop for six days! Hell, I'd need drugs too for that) that lasted from Monday morning to Saturday night (no racing on the Sabbath, c'mon, this a dignified sport of Pius gentlemen). Extra caffeine, peppermint, cocaine and strychnine were added to the riders’ black coffee. Liqueurs, like whiskey and brandy, lifted the spirits of the tea drinkers. And one of the best - nitroglycerin - to ease breathing after sprints. This was Entertainment.

Of course there are always those on a crusade - Irish cycling journalist David Walsh, and John Hoberman, professor and chair at the University of Texas at Austin, self-proclaimed doping historian and author - their attacks are relentless against dope, Lance, and all before him. But guys, that's the point, there is an endless line before him.... So? Don't you get it? It's Entertainment!

German journalist and physician Hans Halter once said. "No dope, no hope. The Tour, in fact, is only possible because — not despite the fact — there is doping. For 60 years this was allowed. For the past 30 years it has been officially prohibited." That doesn't ruin it. As Entertainment it still is entertaining - let's enjoy it.

So everyone in cycling, please spare us the WTF denials, proclamations and moments of shock and pained distress when ever you catch or get caught - you'll never win an Oscar for them. In a world of REAL problems all you are doing is protecting your silly little jobs - period. If for two seconds you think any of your bullshit matters, might I suggest you hop on a plane, fly to Sumatra and tell the woman who just lost her house and two children to a tsunami - then listen to her story, she will show you genuine shock and pain.


Related: Dope - a good read on the subject can be found in the pages of A Dog in a Hat or check out the DVD The Six-Day Bicycle Races.

Ten Reasons to watch the Vuelta

1. No LA
2. No mention of LA (so far)
3. No reference to how it was when Lance won this race (although he did finish 4th in 1998... see, he is not just a one-trick pony)
4. No commercials for Lance (although after September 1st Radioshack, I mean The Shack, I mean... well what ever they call themselves, may have bought commercial spots since they are UCI compliant and the secret is out of the bag, oh btw, did you hear Levi also signed with RS.)
5. You get to see Belgium in some other season but the cold and rain of the Spring Classics (it does look greener in the warm and rain of August)
6. No soap opera stars to distract from bike racing* - Conti, LA and Levi are all missing
7. Somebody will win a sprint besides Cavendish - even if they do ride for Columbia HTC
8. You get an Aussie commentator (who does know a fair thing or two about pro cycling) which enables you to learn colourful bits like:
   
   • "looking fairly handy"
   • "all gone pear-shaped"
   • "tell mum he buggered that one up"
     
9. We and the UCI finally get to see the "Teflon man", Alejandro Valverde, since they can't seem to stick him for any of the million and one doping connections they reportedly have tried to ban him for
10. And finally, we hope, we get to see American Chris Horner, in the best shape of his life, at least finish, if not contest, a Grand Tour without a ... Ah crap! NO! results just in from Stage 4... and... Horner is out, a crash! Dang it!

* sorry, Vino is back

Seriously, Universal Sports (the guys who gratefully brought us the Giro d'Italia at the last minute) just penned a four-year deal for the Vuelta as well as Milan San Remo, the Worlds, and a handful of races we would never otherwise get to see, so it's worth tuning in - online or on the old technology, television.