Giro D'Italia - where can I watch it?

wiganwill: Do you have a link to Kohl's interview? CN's search is being FAIL.

YouTube - Helmut Kohl selbstgefällig vor der Bundestagswahl 1998

Two days before he was finally kicked out of office. Ha.

And he was doped, too. So there.

Drug taking has always rewarded the risk takers regardless of the era or drug. The palmares of our own Tom "If it takes 10 to kill you, take 9" Simpson shows that. Compare it with that of Vin Denson who rode on bread and water. The perception is that Simpson was the 'cream' compared to Vin, and to be fair Vin would probably say so himself, but you just can't know for sure.

I've never quite understood the perception that the playing field in the sixties was somehow more level because the effect of speed is different to that of EPO. One rider might have taken no pills, one rider three, another five, another 9. Some riders may have bought the best speed money can buy (as did Simpson according to contemporary reports) others cheap and poor quality.

Cheating is cheating and its difficult to make distinctions because of the era. Who know's what talent fell by the wayside back in the day because they didn't want to get involved or couldn't afford to get involved with the drug taking. We can't be sure that the cream rose to the top back then, in the same way that we can't be sure it hasn't during the EPO era.

For me Riis and Landis occupy the same space as a Roger Pingeon or Lucien Aimar from the sixties. Every era has its 'average' champions. They occupy the space between great champions and its always been that way. Whatever you say about Riis and Landis, both had an immense capability and appetite for hard work and suffering, even when they were domestiques.

Cycling has never been fair or clean and it never will. It can be 'cleaner' or the 'cleanest' sport but it will never be clean.

I know what you mean about WWE, but unfortunately cycling is not alone and all sport is heading that way - its the sad fact of selling out to the cash and in real life its inevitable. Last night's Champions League final is case in point; one team built on massive debt, financial cheating if you want, the other team initially heavily implicated in Operacion Puerto. All forgotten in the corporate and media spectacle.

The physiological effects of EPO see an increase of around 20-25% in power output. Amphetamines have a psychological effect but not much, if any, of a physiological one. If two riders compete head to head and one is on bread and water and amphetamines and the other on EPO then the latter will win every time.

Look at Lemond. In 1990 he won the Tour for the second year running. The following year, despite being in what he says was the best physical shape of his career, he was 6th and riders who'd previously he'd wiped the floor with, like Chiappucci, were far superior. Chiappucci hadn't changed his training or lost massive amounts of weight, instead he'd teamed up with Professor Francesco Conconi and was benefitting from EPO. The landscape changed.

There was an interview with the Dutch rider Peter Winnen in one of the English language monthly magazines a couple of years back. He was an accomplished climber in his day, yet suddenly he was pack fodder and riders, whom previously he'd dropped without difficulty on a climb, were just riding away from him. He'd been no angel himself and had taken ampetamines, testosterone and steroids before but this was something else. His view, which makes sense to me, was that doping before EPO was using over the counter medicines that contained recovery products, medicines you and I can buy without prescription. The new doping required medical supervision as the doses and products being used could, if not administered correctly, lead to death. The deaths of around 15 Dutch and Belgian cyclists in the late 1980s and early 1990s are well documented and attributed to wrongly administered doses of EPO.

As for other sports, I don't care that they don't have their houses in order. I care that my sport, cycling, the one that I invest large amounts of physical and emotional energy into, is corrupt. If my child ever came to me and said that s/he wanted to take up cycling I'd be delighted but if they progressed to the point where they could make a career out of it then I'd be reluctant for them to take this option because of what they might need to take to be competitive. That is cycling's big problem, how can a sport which is meant to be about health and fitness endanger the lives of the participants at the highest level. That is unsustainable.

Agreed Andy, but again that leads back to my original post on all of this. Unfortunately cycling doesn't exist in a vacuum, its exists in the real world. I wouldn't recommend a career in pro cycling to my offspring now in the EPO era but I also wouldn't have done in the era of amphetemines and belgian mix and I wouldn't have done in the era of strychnine and 400 mile Tour de France stages.

The old riders logic that they weren't really doping because they were using products that restored the natural balance of the body is still used today. Its one of the justifications used by Patrick Sinkewitz for testosterone patches. You might even argue that, properly administered, drugs that increase the bodies capability to endure the training loads and races are better for you than drugs that make you numb to the punishment you're doing to yourself. I'm not sure whether I'd personally agree with that and I assure you that I'm not Michele Ferrari in disguise.

This is not a new thing and the situation will never change. The drugs or doping practices will change but people will always cheat. It is sad to say but if you look to the sport for something more than real life its always going to let you down. You have to enjoy it for what it is and hope for the best.

"ampetamines, testosterone and steroids" are "over the counter"?

Andy, where's your Boots?!?!

:)

Lower Marsh, SE1. Where I can get most of those on prescription. They didn't have EPO or HGH last time I asked. :-)

Lower Marsh, SE1. Where I can get most of those on prescription. They didn't have EPO or HGH last time I asked. :-)

Never mind, by the laws of supply and demand they'll have them the next time you ask.

Whether or not other sports are clean or filthy is irrelevant; if you're only going to watch one sport then it's bizarre that you'd tangle yourself in knots to avoid accepting that the one sport you are watching is a charade. Kohl was one of those young riders in whom hope was supposed to lie, one of a new generation that had made the break; it was all bullshit. Cycling may be changing but is hasn't changed yet and it is pitiful that anyone who is anti-doping would find any pleasure in this Giro which is being dominated by a gang of discredited and utterly shameless liars rather than taking it as further depressing evidence of how far the sport has to go. Kohl clearly states that he got his contract with that old con artist Lefevre not because he was clean but because he had managed to manipulate his blood profile well enough to *appear *clean. Cycling is in the stocks because it deserves to be there and to have it's fans trying to suggest that that is not the case, or that it's somehow unfair because other sports are just as bad, is even more dispiriting than seeing a hulking great bruiser like Menchov climbing as he has been.

Will, I assume that all moderate to big money elite sports are full of doping. I totally agree with you about the lies and deception involved, and I'm not trying to justify anything. But I want to watch one sport, and I pick cycling for that. I also enjoy basketball and baseball but don't watch those any more. I'm waiting for the doping problems to come out in these as well as in football, as I think it's worse for a sport to be considered clean when it isn't than for a sport to be considered dirty when it is.

I don't connect any higher meaning, or moral edification, or any particular function to inspire with elite sports. As others have said, it's simply a business aiming at providing entertainment. It is a reflection of how things are generally in society, i.e. pretty poor.

The athletic/Olympic/whatever blah ideal of sporting honesty, truly determining who's the best in a certain activity, is of course one that many people believe and on whose credulity much of the financial success is built, but I don't hold to any of those ideals, as I have other areas and ways of forming such ideals.

(This partial indifference is no doubt caused by the fact that I didn't grow up with cycling as 'my' sport, and so don't have massive feelings for it. I did grow up with commuting cycling as a favourite activity, and I'd probably be seriously aggrieved if it was found that commuters doped. ;) )

"..and I'd probably be seriously aggrieved if it was found that commuters doped. ;).."

The WADA list is pretty extensive Oliver. Anyone who uses an inhaler for a start. Add the lemsip brigade.

My advice to commuters is generally be very wary of anyone knocking on your door asking for some of your wee.

I've got release forms signed off by the UCI for all of those!!!

Loads of commuters dope Oliver, just not the performance enhancing variety......

A fall in the last kilometer of the TT?

Followed be a quick remount and still a Giro win for Menchov!

he was a bit stoked at the finish wasn't he :-)

excellent finish to a fantastic giro.

Kinda like the F1 championship for Hamilton last year.

Easy day expected, drama and tension towards the end of the race, then something unexpectedly devistating followed by last second redemption.

Couldn't write it any better.

Exciting!

Great Giro, really enjoyed it. Even finished with drama in a TT, not something they're normally known for (unless you're Lemond, Fingon, Ullrich or Rasmussen).

Great to see DiLuca giving it full beans from the start, and Menchov looked as though he would of smashed the winning time If he hadn't of fallen off

Enjoyed the Giro, have also enjoyed reading this thread, there are obviuosly some very knowledgeable folk on here. Hats off.

Yeah, or 'chapeau' even ;)

Well impressed with big Denis. Great stalking of di Luca on his own turf, very credible in the mountains indeed. Good drama at the end.

Lovely giro, lovely italy. Can't ask for more really.

This giro has been excellent this year with the highlights out weighing the low points. Whilst i am not a fan Dennis Menchov, preferring Danilo 'Killer' Di Luca. The final time trial stage was very exciting, and Menchov rode it solidly as predicted by his rival, and despite the last kilometre dramatic fall, i did think it was going to be much closer time difference. Huge bonus for the mechanic who whipped off the spare bike from the Rabobank support car, before Menchov slid to a halt. i was pleased that he made it to the finish, he look in pain. Di Luca's gamble to not ride a time trial bike was perhaps a last gasp effort which failed in the closing half, great drama though.

and LA getting very little media coverage in the final week. the Livestrong brand has a set-back me thinks.. what is his next move i wonder, surely a promotion from water carrier? haha what is there left to say about him?? he needs the press more than ever if he wants people to be interested in him..

When Danilo came out and pulled back some seconds, I thought Menchov was a goner. Then he pulled it back.

When he came off I really thought he'd blown it, but that support mechanic was well on the ball, props to him.

well lance the chancer was 12th so not too shabby.

shame wiggo didn't take the stage. if it hadn't rained and a team car not been in the way he would have gone quicker by the extra second

coverage of Menchov's crash/victory briefly here

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/video/31052009/58/giro-menchov-seals-race-victory.html

Finally watched this. Exciting finish.