Danilo Di Luca supposedly did an interview, that is airing today, that says that 90% of riders in the Giro d’Italia were doping and the other 10% weren’t because they were preparing for other events. So, Danilo is saying that 100% of the peleton in the Giro are doping. He went on to say that it is impossible to finish in the top 10 of the Giro without doping.

I was going to try to avoid this subject until Garmin’s Andrew Talansky decided to do his twitter thing and call out Di Luca. I bet Jonathan Vaughters is super stoked that Andrew decided to go public with his view. Talansky tweeted –

I feel genuine hatred towards Di Luca. He’s a worthless lying scumbag making false statements that hurt the sport I love.

Thankfully his statements are delusional. I wouldn’t be in this sport if it was not possible to succeed at the highest level and do it clean.

Now the question, who to believe? They are pretty far apart on their views, pretty black or white.

I dont’ know Danilo Di Luca, so I have no idea of his intellect. Most guys that are as successful as he has been in cycling aren’t stupid, but a few are. I have to assume that Di Luca has a knowledge of the dirty side of the sport from an inside view. I’d bet he knows a ton about doping and the prevalence of it. But even he admits, a ton of the doping has been driven underground and is now performed more in secrecy.

Now to Andrew. Let’s just start with the premiss that Andrew is clean. I think it is very hard to prove his observation that the rest of the field is clean. It is much easier to know that the rest of the field is doping, if you have personally observed that, as Di Luca says he has.

Andrew has been pretty vocal in the past throwing his views out there. He tweeted – “don’t care what you think of @lancearmstrong, USADA really shouldn’t repeatedly accuse someone of something with ZERO hard evidence.” That was a beauty, when there was already realms of public evidence out there. I’m not sure to know, as Andrew states, that Di Luca’s statement will “hurt the sport”. Maybe it will be the catalyst to really make some dramatic changes, who knows?

During his dramatic rise to a top ten grand Tour GC rider, Talansky has used his team mate, Ryder Hesjedal, as an example how you can win Grand Tour without doping. Oh, then Ryder comes out and admits doping way, way back in his mountain bike days, then stopping to race on the road clean. Bad example Andrew.

Anyway, it would probably be safe to say that both of these guys are off. The sport isn’t close to clean. Andrew must of missed the current positive doping cases the past couple years. So if I had to pick one guy’s side, I’m very sad to say I’d have to go with Di Luca’s view as more accurate than Talansky’s. Hopefully it’s not as bad as Di Luca says.

Put your own caption here.

Neal Rogers wrote an article for Velonews a couple days ago about how the Pro Tour guys racing in Argentina are having to endure bush-league tactics. I thought the article was mostly likely accurate, but not really fair for picking out a few isolated instances, out of a week long stage race and saying it is beneath the level of these Pro Tour riders.

Come on, none of this stuff is new to bike racing. Team cars running into riders, riders punching other riders, riders holding onto cars on the climbs. It’s all been done for over a century, nothing new. All of these things have happened, historically, in the Tour, Giro and Vuelta. And the only reason it doesn’t happen now, or isn’t reported now, is because of the popularity of these events, thus a much, much higher chance of being caught. It still happens all over the rest of the world.

Maybe a lot of these guys haven’t raced in South America much. I have, a ton. Central and South America. And this is just business as usual. Actually, it is business as usual in bike racing in nearly all the 3rd World countries.

I’ve seen guys hold onto vehicles all over the world, South America, China, Europe, and the United States. I was passed up a climb in the Coor’s Clasic by two cars with 5- 10 riders holding on. Bob Roll went by the whole groupetto, on the road to Squaw Valley, in the Coor’s Classic, holding on to a highway patrol motorcycle going at least 60 mph. He finished minutes ahead of me. I thought it was pretty bad etiquette at the time.

The best I ever witnessed was racing in Shanghai, China a Mongolian rider passed me on a flat open stretch, going about 50 mph. He was holding onto the rear wheel well fender, down low, on the opposite side of the car of the caravan and officials. There is no way he could have been spotted. It was brilliant. But, still cheating.

And cheating is cheating. I think it is strange that people, including the media, think that holding onto a car up a climb is a worse offense than taking EPO or other drugs to go faster up the hill. In my mind, both get the rider from the bottom of the hill to the top, much faster than he would have otherwise. Tell me that there weren’t Pro Tour riders competing in that race that aren’t currently doping. I think not.

In the Velonews article, it quotes Taylor Phinney as saying – On stage 1, when the breakaway stayed away, we were all sprinting for seventh place, I was just kind of sitting back, watching these [local] guys taking massive risks in front of me to sprint for seventh place.

“I understand that this race means a lot to them, but it gets to a point where you have to ask: Is it worth it for us, as pros who are trying to build up for bigger races, to come here, to take big risks in preparation races by being involved with riders who can be quite dangerous?”

I don’t get it. There are always guys willing to take risks for a result. Taylor said it himself, “it means a lot to them”.

I just looked at the results from that stage and Taylor finished 14th, so 7th in the field sprint. And there are only Pro Tour riders, from Europe and the US, ahead of him, other than Luke Keough, who rides for Unitedhealthcare.

Taylor didn’t have to participate in the sprint. He could have just sat back and watched the “local guys” take these massive risks and made sure he would be fine for the “bigger races”.

In fairness to Taylor, I don’t think he was really calling these guys out seriously. I think they needed a quote for the article and just put this in to back up the premise of bush-league racing.

Obviously a lot of guys felt like field sprinting. And why wouldn’t they. Don’t they field sprint when there is a break away at virtually all races. And in field sprints, some guys take what others consider unreasonable risks. It is once again, just bike racing.

Anyway, all races aren’t the Tour. And the Tour isn’t really any different than a local race. It is just much, much more important. There are much more risks taking and much more of just everything, happening there. And it is justified, because of the importance. But for riders that have virtually no chance of ever riding the Tour de France, this was their Tour and they did exactly what the Pro Tour guys do when they deem importance. They took risks, they cheated, they punched their competitors, etc. When Mark Cavensish does something stupid, it’s just fine because he’s Pro Tour. When Joe Blow, South American does exactly the same thing, it’s called bush-league. To me, it all just bike racing.

At least the riders weren’t punching the spectators. I love this photo of Bernard, with Phil Anderson watching in the background.

And, how about a little head butt action from the Tour.