Cycling: Millar Time
Cycling is a filthy sport - riddled with dope and cheats.Anyone who doubts me can read one of a dozen books that will disabuse them of any romanticism they may still lend the sport. My favourite would be Paul Kimmage's A Rough Ride. Even our own Alex MacLemon, who admirably/foolishly showed his compassion for the English football team, is convinced that 7 times winner Lance Armstrong is a cheat.
Almost all of this year’s race favourites were withdrawn days before Saturday’s start - and the remaining shameful farce of a race is currently dragging its carcass through
Millar is no angel - an arrogant, out-spoken man guilty of injecting EPO...but he's served a 2 year ban and while he may not have found humility he's certainly looked it up in the dictionary. But that is fine - I’m Scottish - I’ll take my sporting heroes as I find them.
The absence of recognised stars has sent the markets into a spin. Betfair's Book % on a Top 6 finish was running at over 2000% at the weekend and David Millar was evens. Evens for a man who hasn't ridden a bike in anger for 2 years!? That may be fantasy land but perhaps he’ll give us something to cheer about over the next couple of weeks.
posted by Digbeth D'Marriotti at 1:55 PM
3 Comments:
Ihate people that cycle on the pavament. Hippy c***s.
You must have your head in a bucket.Cycling is the only sport that is trying to do something about doping and in a week when 2 riders out of 190 on the Tour de France were found to have cheated,8 others sportsmen/women were found to have taken illegal drugs,including a golfer was that headline news NO.A big Spanish drug bust (Operation Puerto.blood doping)did indeed find blood bags with well known cyclists names on them,but that was only one third of the bags,the others were Footballers and Athletes,but only cycling gets a kicking from people like you who havent got a clue whats really going on in ALL professional sport.
Roy Guttridge.
Roy,
Your argument that cycling is a clean sport because of all the cheats cycling catches is a non sequitur.
I still contend that cycling was (I made these comments over a year ago) and indeed still is a filthy sport. Have you read Kimmage's book? Or Rendell's 'The Death of Marco Pantani'?
Each time a scandal breaks the sport insists that it is doing something about it and then quickly gets back to sticking needles in its veins. They've been saying the same thing since Tom Simpson dropped dead in 67, through Thévenet, Zoetemelk, Fignon, Roche, Delgado, Riis, Pantani, Ullrich, and Landis and this years crop of idiots. 40 years on from Simpson and it is you sir who appear to be the one with your head in a bucket.
I made no comparison with other sports, but I agree that other sports are also dirty. At the moment athletics and American Football have a very big doping problem.
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