Gerdemann, the Italian Pros and Lance

November 3, 4:48 PMDenver Cycling ExaminerGary Koenig

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Denver Cycling Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Armstong and Simeoni (courtesy AFP)

I’ve had so many really good ideas in my life that I can’t come close to keeping track of them all. The fact that to a man, woman and child everyone to whom I reveal such genius pointedly refuses to jump on the bandwagon has not deterred me in the least. I know the rightness of my noodlings will prove out in the long run. Imagine my amazement, and that of my eighth grade teacher, Ms. Heinz, when Condie Rice announced a few years back the new US policy of dealing with troublesome nations by waging pre-emptive war whenever we felt like it. I had thought up this very proposal back when I was 14 years old and my eighth grade term paper had forcefully argued the merits of such a policy.

More recently, I have been trying to convince my cycling buddies that more draconian penalties, coupled with certain amnesty provisions, was the right approach to combating the doping culture that seems to still pervade the peloton. I was of the conviction that a serious ban, 5 years or more, would weigh heavily on a rider’s calculus when contemplating whether to dope or not to dope. But banning riders is not going to clean up the peloton to any significant degree. Allowing caught miscreants to continue to ride on the condition they fully spill their guts about their malfeasance – complete who, what, where and how would be required – would allow the dope busters to more quickly develop accurate anti-doping tests while also revealing the enablers who help besmirch the sport. What could help even more is for the top riders to speak and act regularly and forcefully against the practice. Rather than chasing down riders who have tried to break the code of silence around doping, the peloton and its patrons should be calling out and chasing down those who still believe it’s OK to screw their compatriots in pursuit of individual glory.

Apparently the Italian Professional Cyclists Association has been talking to Condie Rice, because they recently sent a letter proposal to Pat McQuaid, head of the UCI, proposing a program that, except for my illiteracy in Italian, could have been written by me. Specifically, they have suggested that “anybody who willfully cheats is out of the game for good.” They go on to suggest the UCI should “encourage the cyclists to really and effectively cooperate with the sporting authorities and with the police and legal systems.” Finally, the Italian Pros propose “the chance to return to racing after shorter bans if they provide evidence that they no longer have any connection with those who encouraged or helped them to use prohibited substances or methods.”

About a week after the Italian communiqué, Linus Gerdemann, a young German hopeful who briefly wore the yellow jersey in the 2007 Tour, spoke out against Lance Armstrong’s return, on the basis of doping suspicions from prior years. Tangling with Lance might cost Gerdemann a chance at a stage win a la the saga of poor Filipo Simeoni, who had the temerity to testify against Armstrong’s long-time sports doctor, Michelle Ferrari. In the 18th stage of the 2004 Tour, Simeoni attempted to join a 6-man break, only to be chased down by the race-leader himself. When the two reached the break, the riders who had worked so hard for a chance at a stage win pleaded with Armstrong to go back to the peloton so there would be no strategic need for a concerted chase. Armstrong agreed, but only on the condition that Simeoni drift back with him.

It has always surprised me that those who were presumably being harmed by the actions of the “few” cheaters in the bunch did not speak out forcefully and loudly about their disapproval of such actions. And why the acknowledged patron of the peloton never took a public stand on the practice is confounding as well.

But failure to speak out against a practice is not the same as being guilty of it, just as passing hundreds of doping tests is not necessarily the same as racing clean. No matter, the past is past. Despite the rash of positives out of the last Tour, I believe the peloton is moving inexorably to a cleaner level of racing, and Lance’s return should have to effect on that direction. There is no upside for him to dope during his comeback. His legacy does not require any more victories to be fully sanctified. The only true harm to his legacy will be a positive doping test, a shocking outcome I reckon he will not risk.