Yearly Archives: 2014

Lars Van Der Haar Is Better Sick than Nearly Everyone Else…

This entry was posted in Racing on by .

I read a Velonews article last Friday reporting that Lars Van Der Haar couldn’t race the World Cup in Koksijde, Belgium because he still had a fever and that his “doctor” wouldn’t clear him to race.  Then he went on to say maybe he would be okay to race the Super Prestige Race, SP Spa-Francorchamps, on Sunday.  That struck me as screwy.

I’ve personally never been sick enough to skip a race Saturday, especially race like a World Cup Cyclocross, a series Lars is leading, and say I hopefully can race the next day on Sunday.  I assume if I’m too sick to race on Saturday, I would be too sick, or maybe just too weak, to be competitive on Sunday.

So, I was really interested in seeing how Lars did on Sunday.  And really, not to my surprise, he nearly won the race.  Without a last 1/2 lap crash, he looked like he was going to win the race, but he fell and Kevin Pauwels went on to win the race by 15 seconds.

I love cyclocross.  I’ve competed in the sport for decades, way before it was “cool”.  I raced a season in Switzerland, back in the 80’s, when Switzerland was the current Belgium of the sport.  I like to watch the races on the internet better than any other discipline of cycling.   And it is better live.

But, stuff like this just makes the racing seem unreal.  And I’m not that big on trying to convince myself I’m not watching fantasy bike racing.  And that is pretty much what European cyclocross is, fantasy bike racing.

There were a total of 10 finishers in the Belgium Professional National Championships, with 4 DNF’s.  That was 14 guys on the start line.  It ain’t very big.

I wonder if Lars doesn’t think that his actions would be viewed as unusual to others.  Maybe he is one of those guys that recovers incredibly well from illness and that is his experience.  I have no idea when he was good enough to win on Sunday, he wouldn’t start the World Cup the day before to protect his World Cup lead.  Here is a link to watch the sick guy ride and run around in the mud.

Just last month, a doctor in Belgium was charged for treating the blood of a lot (19) of cyclists.  The article goes on to say “the majority famous and semi-famous road and cyclocross riders”.  I  don’t know what percentage of the 19 riders will be cyclocross riders, but even if it’s only 30%, then that is about 1/2 of the starters of the Belgium Nationals last year.

The UCI has turned a blind eye professional cyclocross in Europe. I say in Europe, because there is no professional cyclocross in the United States.  And, even if you classify as our cross as being semi-professional, for a few, we don’t have the issues that are going on over there.  At least, not in such an epidemic state.

Let’s not try to emulate European cross.  We’re doing okay here, having it be a participatory sport.  It is regionally healthy in many places and a blast to do, and a blast to watch.  When it becomes a job is when it starts bringing out the riff-raff.  Let’s leave them to their own little circus.

 

uciTwo down, 4 to go.

 

 

 

 

Lance’s Payment’s to Ferrari – Pretty Great Return

This entry was posted in Comments about Cycling on by .

lancepaymentsI saw this at Facebook on Besty Andreu’s page last week.   I guess it is from USADA’s report, page 107, that shows some or all of the payment’s that were paid to Dr. Ferrari from Lance.  Or more accurately, according to Besty, Lance’s mom.   I looked a little at the USADA Report and went to page 107, but it sort of creeped me out reading about how Kevin Livingston and Christian Vande Velde “signed” up to work for Ferrari.   It’s too early in the morning for that kind of stuff.

Anyway, I had never really thought about how much it might cost to have a systematic doping program, individually and custom made for an athlete.  It really didn’t seem like a million dollars was so much.  I very much doubt that this $1,029,754.31 was all the money paid.  There are a lot of years missing there, so the amount, realistically, has to be at least double that amount.  Plus, I’d assume, that there would be other doctors involved, so they would need compensation.

But whatever the real number, you would have to agree that it was a pretty great investment, financially.  I have no idea how much money Lance has made from being Lance, but the number has been estimated at a number of places on the internet to be  around $125 million.  So if that number is close to accurate, and my guess that he paid at least 2 million to doctors, then it was a 60 fold return.  Pretty great investment, really.  These numbers could all be off by a lot, but whatever the real numbers, it was still a deal.

When I saw this, I asked my friend Vincent how much he thought that Lance paid and he guessed 25 million.  I kind of laughed, but when you really think about it, paying a doctor a 20% fee for having results like Lance did doesn’t seem that outlandish.  There are lots of other occupations where services take a cut like that.  It would be a deal compared to what some attorneys  take for representing someone.

Anyway, I think the whole thing is really interesting.  Tyler Hamiliton only paid Dr. Fuentes $50,000 for three years of doping, so that would be a really great deal compared to what Lance paid.  I wonder how much Dr. Ferrari charged Christian, Kevin and George?