posted Oct 12, 2007

Honestly, if one is talking about presentation, the (former?) Mennonite lad's demeanour could be a bit better at times, I've read the interviews with him and then there was that mishap with Lemond.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Oct 14, 2007

A good assessment by omgidbi on why sponsors are currently shunning top level cycling - it is after all understandable as cycling gives neither the publicity or the right image at the moment.

I do, however, disagree wholeheartledly with his proposal to charge fans to bring more money into the sport. Part of the allure for fans is that cycling is not constricted by stadia, tickets gates, preferential vip treatment or the lack of tickets. Yes people have to get there early to experience something as special as the alpe d'huez time trial in '04 but they do not have to pay. likewise belgians have been flocking to the cobbles for years for the classics - making them pay would take away the sense of partcipation for many and turn them into paying drones the same as those who are fleeced every weekend by premiership football clubs.

Keep cycling free for the punter - it is the beauty of the sport which has no boundaries.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Oct 15, 2007

hockers - i can't knock your view at all. And in an ideal world....etc. However, the reality is different these days, especially as it is now a very professional sport. So, you either embrace the money and do good with it, or you try to ignore the money and have selfish people and institutions corrupt the sport (kind of where we are now in my opinion).

i deliberately focussed on the tour as the flagship event. obviously there are translations to other levels of the sport, but i'm not advocating fees for all levels - instead i'm advocating a sensible level of inward investment in a sport that has a flagship event followed by hundreds of millions of people annually. Capitalism may be the very thing that can save the sport.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Oct 15, 2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/cycling/7046045.stm

I now want to see Landis have his appeal found in his favour, if only to see ASO et al have to mount another presentation.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Oct 15, 2007

Looks like this thread is drying up now, and not that I like having the last word or anything but I must come back on the above issues.

I agree road cycling should be free to watch - impossible to do otherwise, even on the Alpe - walkers etc.
In any case, how would any new money be used in the fight against doping?

My very early post highlighted the vast amount of money going into this area of sport in general, world wide, and questioned it's morality and effectiveness.
Surely it is now high time that grass-roots sport attracted some of those monies for education and prevention.

The STI chlamydia (not some shimano designed gear system!) was in the news today, with researchers highlighting the need for screening of both men and women - but not a single comment was made about prevention and it reminded me of the antidoping systems in place at present.
Prevention is where the true fight against doping will take place in the future.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Oct 16, 2007

rondinella

good post. i'll leave it you to start a new thread of interest, because this one has as you say all but run its course. the off-season for road cycling will require some ingenuity i feel with repect to posts in order to keep interest - unless we have a constant stream of scandal that is.

However, I can't agree with you that elite road cycling should remain free. It is logistically possible to charge (how can Stuttgart post a loss given the number of spectators who saw the 6 main events over the course of the Championship week! What would they have lost by charging for access?). It may not be palettable to traditionalists, but it is the way things should go. Plus it strikes me as illogical that you can expect to charge the public to watch track cycling, and yet have road cycling free - ie. you create assets in the form of young track cyclists (let's face it that is the UK model) but then once they are marketable you lose all revenue rights to those assets. A poor business model - but then again i have referred to cycling as a peasant sport many times before.

As for the drugs and prevention. All very admirable. But we are dealing with human nature here, and drugs are just like cycling tactics with respect the fact they are dominated by the prisoners dilemma (classic game theory). ie. If all cyclists are clean, then the best riders/teams will win more. However, should one choose drugs over all the others he has a better chance of winning. End result, (nearly) all are motivated to cheat, even if the risks to each in the form of detection and penalties are high they are clearly still considered worth taking. How is this like cycling tactics? Floyd Landis won stage 17 for the primary reason that the pursuuing teams got their tactics wrong. If all relevant protagonists had worked together they would have caught (and passed) Floyd. CSC (Sastre) believed by chasing they would be working to the advantage of the other teams, who equally had similar beliefs. End result - they all lost. And what has followed has been a shambles, and we, the (unpaying) public are now the unhappy prisoners to the sport we all love.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Oct 16, 2007

like a sea-side cut out....

http://www.cyclingnews.com/newsphotos.php?id=/photos/2007/news/oct07/oct16news/PodiumTourdeFrance2006FotoAbarcaSports

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Oct 16, 2007

Oh lord! Is that just terrible judgement or an ironic/sardonic comment on the value of being crowned over a year late?!

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Nov 10, 2007

Oscar Pereiro is the real champion people like Floyd Landis are bad for image of sport and should be given life ban.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Nov 10, 2007

ninad - what i can say for a fact is that pereiro rides with the aid of steroids EVERY day. it is still to be proved whether landis did the same on just one day. i still admire both riders....

add comment | complain about this comment