Now that we know it wasn't real, we can begin to move on. Photograph: Getty Images
October 10, 2012. Fourteen years and three months after we got stung in the face about the reality of doping within cycling at a systematic level as the Tour de France opened in Dublin, Ireland in July 1998, we finally hear the chilling truth about how the supposed 'new era' as it was presented to us after 1998 was as dirty as any before it.
That isn't to say we didn't have a fair idea for some time now, but yesterday was the confirmation ... the evidence we've been waiting for. And not just against Lance Armstrong who dominated the seven years after the '98 Festina Affair, but the testimonies of those who fessed up publicly about about what went on. It only took those fourteen years, but maybe now the illusions we had so many times that the sport was turning a corner can now become a reality and with the lid coming off hard on the past, we can allow the present day of cycling which has itself moved on a lot, to truly start pointing towards the future.
After thinking about, reading about and talking about the Armstrong saga for the past twenty-four hours, I took a break from focusing solely on the cycling angle for just a moment while sitting in a Starbucks over lunch and passing the half hour I had before returning to the office. I posted the following comment on Facebook in relation to other sports and the Lance Armstrong investigation: I asked, 'Will Fifa, Uefa and/or national FA's go after teams employing doctors named in the Lance Armstrong investigation with investigations of their own or continue to bury their collective heads in the sand?'
I said it mostly because, while guys like Armstrong bring on the abuse cycling takes as a result of these scandals themselves, I know all too well that other sports such as football, baseball, hockey, tennis, and so on and so forth, have skeletons in their closet as well yet only cycling seems to be held to a higher standard when it comes to performance enhancing drugs (and willingly so by it's fans I might add) while other sports pretend there isn't a problem.
Sports I love like hockey and baseball have no out of season testing in place which seems surreal if there is indeed a willingness from within them sports to be seen as drug free, yet my attention in this case was directed at football because I have read that some doctors named in the Armstrong investigation have been employed by football clubs as well. Barcelona being one (cue the jokes about a need for human growth hormone there!). And it disappoints me no end that football will get little to no mention in the mainstream media off the back of this because nobody, the media included it would seem, wants to bite the hand that feeds them.
These other sports need to step up as cycling has. Cycling's went through the mud in order to clean itself up but I think the fear of the financial hit that may be incurred is stopping other sports from doing the same.
Someone, knowing I was a cycling fan but curious perhaps as to where the average cycling fan might stand on the whole thing when watching his sport hit by another drug story, albeit one from years before, and clearly seeing my frustration at cycling's position in the media when it comes to drugs by comparison to other sports, asked me what my stance was on the whole Armstrong issue? With nothing else to do for my remaining twenty minutes in Starbucks, I lashed together the following subjective critique.
I've thought Lance was a doper -- like almost all in his era -- for years now. I was in two minds over whether it was worth bringing him down long after he was gone, but he was still competing in triathlons so was subject to investigation. Now its done, I'm glad and I'm certainly glad the evidence has been made public. He cheated, he lied, he all but forcibly pushed team-mates into it, he vilified and chased out of the sport anyone who spoke against it, and he thought he was above investigation or challenge.
This stuff yesterday is another black eye for the sport in the short term, especially in the mainstream press, but in the long-run it's a great thing for it truly exposes that generation without the 'never failed a test / no evidence' excuse being credible anymore, and it forced 11 prominent riders to come clean as part of their witness testimony.
Next up the sport needs to get rid of some of the old guard currently running teams who are still suspect. Men like Bjarne Riis and Johan Bruyneel, the later of whom continues to deny and the former who admitted he cheated as a rider, but denies he's dabbled in dirty practices as a manager. Then there needs to be change at the top of a UCI that has defended and covered for Armstrong way to long. Whether that happens though I don't know, sports governing bodies seem immune to scandal.
As for those who have admitted their doping pasts in recent days, weeks and months -- even if those admissions did come by way of a failed test or enforced testimony that might otherwise have seen them still denying -- I figure good can come from it if they stand behind their words to promote a better sport for the future and for the young riders of the future. Their admissions can hopefully lead to others doing the same and cleaning the sport up once and for all. History is important and it's crucial that the fans know just what kind of a fool they were taken for for so long and how much of their time they wasted watching athletes that were not natural. Ideally Armstrong himself will take that step to admission and guiding of young cyclists rather than living a lie he has been living with so long that I think he actually believes it, but given what we now know, I don't think the sport needs it.
Cycling in general has moved on however. It is much cleaner now (Wiggins is staunch anti-doping and times on some climbs of the Tour now are minutes slower than 10-15 years ago), and it continues to test often and for a lot more than almost every other sport.
This Armstrong thing will run for a few days yet in the media and probably a few weeks yet in cycling circles. Perhaps it will run for months for those who have had a particular obsession in the bringing down of Armstrong above and beyond current affairs on the racing circuit, but I do look forward to talking about modern day cycling again and I sure hope we're back to that come next years spring classics and grand tours.
Of course, we're probably a long way out before the entire doping cloud that continues to hang over -- or on a good day, linger near by -- the sport clears away for good but this weeks revelations only serve to point the sport on the right track. That won't be complete until record books are sitting empty, new faces are in charge of both the sport and some of its teams, and there's a culture that no longer accepts any form of an Omerta with past sinners standing as a reminder, as well as an encouragement, to young riders that doping isn't the answer and that you can get to the top without it and if not then it's better to have failed clean.
Good for you cycling; we're moving in the right direction. At last ... we're out of the headwind.
