<p>Maybe they should have tried professional wrestling? </p>
<p>Most of the pro cyclists are wonderful mean nd women. Cycling is their passion. The fact that they chose to use performance enhancing drugs like their competition was doing says that they were willing to take tremendous risks in order to level the playing field. </p>
<p>I would have a bigger problem with it if they were drugging to win college football games!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In the context of LA being a huge jerk, that’s an amusing typo.</p>
<p>How about distance running, triathalons, iron man, marathons, cross country skiing and soccer to name a few.</p>
<p>I am married to a competitive cyclist. I am not making generalizations about every cyclist. I am giving my opinion about the people who choose to compete and then lie and cheat in the highest levels of cycling.</p>
<p>I read that fans don’t care about the enhancing drugs.</p>
<p>I look at the popularity of track and field today compared to when I was growing up. Looks like the popularity of the sport has plummeted. Is that correct? I don’t watch track and field events anymore. Track and field used to be my favorite part of the Olympics. Not anymore.</p>
<p>Baseball seemed to do fine when Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Sandy Koufax were the stars.
The guys that are caught as drug users today are tainted.</p>
<p>Football…I thought the sport was fine in the 60’s. I am not watching it<br>
today because the guys are bigger. In fact, I watch it much less today.</p>
<p>Speacking of track and field and football, is Bob Hayes really the fastest human ever? All these sprinters over the last 30 years are suspect. Bob Hayes is looking faster and faster to me. Ironic, considering what happened to him.</p>
<p>This idea that the fans like steroids, Epo, and whatever crap is out there is nonsense. </p>
<p>Cyclling is in big trouble if it doesn’t clean up its act.</p>
<p>Deega123, I like your posts.</p>
<p>Yeah, sorry. Men and women. My iPad typing is a little off sometimes.</p>
<p>^^^^^Oh, I knew what you meant. It was just kind of funny.</p>
<p>
So what? That rationale also excuses the worst excesses of Wall Street. MOWC, are you as understanding of the miscreants who almost destroyed our financial system? Most of them gave a lot to charity too, and many were good parents.</p>
<p>There have to be at least a few people out there who, upon figuring out that they have to toss aside all ethical considerations to get to the top of their field, would choose another field.</p>
<p>I don’t watch or follow any pro sports at all anymore. It is remarkably freeing.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think nostalgia may be influencing your opinions. I don’t know how old you are so I don’t know when you followed track and field. Back in the 80s there was plenty of doping. And out of competition testing wasn’t used at the time so passing drug tests was far easier than it is today. I don’t know the comparative popularity of the sport though.</p>
<p>Yeah… I was trying to be generous to the guys in the 70’s, early 80’s.</p>
<p>Mays, Aaron, Koufax… Were more like the era of the 60’s.</p>
<p>And Bob Hayes was a star in the 60’s. That anchor leg in the 100 relay at the Olympics is probably the real fastest 100 in history.</p>
<p>I am sure nostalgia does play a role. I am still a SF Guants fan, but I can’t name the players. There is Posey, Cain, Lin… Who else?</p>
<p>MommaJ- Your logic is very flawed. This bears no resemblance to the Wall Street scandal. The drugs didn’t put them at the top of cycling- all of them were doing it. You don’t seem to understand that part. The talent and hard, hard training put Lance at the top.</p>
<p>MOWC-</p>
<p>Were “all of them” doing it? Really? And therefore, that makes it right? And you are willing to step up and defend that? If everyone cheats, it’s therefore not cheating, and it’s okay?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So they were ALL doing it? </p>
<p>Doesn’t seem so.</p>
<p>Mercier left the sport rather than dope. If you wanted to stay in the sport at an internationally competitive level, you doped. That’s the way it was. I am sad about it, but to say they should have all just quit is unrealistic. I honestly thought-for YEARS- that Lance was just that good and was clean. I was being stupid. None of the top cyclists were clean. None.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your assumptions are not without merit. If your analysis is correct, however, I would expect a greater number of Russian and Chinese athletes caught cheating at the Olympic Games. Since China did not enter the Games until 1984 which was, of course, one of two boycotted games, I decided to start counting with Seoul, and ends with the games in London.</p>
<p>Counting only the summer games, I have the US and Russia/USSR tied with 6 athletes caught doping with China lagging far behind with 1. If I were to add the winter games total to the list, again starting in 1988, I have Russia/USSR leading with 9, US in second place with 6, and China with 1. My tentative conclusion is that there is a stronger doping culture in Russia than in the US. China, surprisingly, does not seem to belong in the same league.</p>
<p>It is right here, in black and white:</p>
<p>[Doping</a> at the Olympic Games - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Olympic_Games]Doping”>Doping at the Olympic Games - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>
Again I say, so what? No one ever said doing the right thing is easy. And it’s not as if Armstrong has ever stepped up and explained it that way, much less offered any ideas to clean up the sport. He still denies everything. He’s a cheat, fraud AND a liar.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Xiggi, I can always count on you to express your anti-Asian sentiments in your posts on CC throughout the years.</p>
<p>^^Yipes, that’s kind of harsh, cbreeze. Though I don’t know any history of what you talk about. But is the statement, " Russia and China would not only not devote a cent to such stupid and misguided group such as USADA, but would actively seek to hide the organized cheating it has maintained for generations," untrue in some way?</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>Sportspeople in Doping Cases by Nationality (Top 21)</p>
<p>People entered in this category have either:</p>
<p>A. Been suspended by a sporting body (an international governing body, national federation, professional league, or government agency) for illegal performance-enhancing drug, and/or banned drug, use;
B. Publicly admitted such use;
C. Been found to have taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs by a court of law;
D. Been suspended by a sporting body for failure to submit to mandatory drug testing.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>American sportspeople in doping cases (145 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Russian sportspeople in doping cases (45 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Australian sportspeople in doping cases (1 C, 36 P)</p></li>
<li><p>English sportspeople in doping cases (30 P)</p></li>
<li><p>French sportspeople in doping cases (28 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Brazilian sportspeople in doping cases (25 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Bulgarian sportspeople in doping cases (21 P)</p></li>
<li><p>German sportspeople in doping cases (21 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Turkish sportspeople in doping cases (20 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Jamaican sportspeople in doping cases (19 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Moroccan sportspeople in doping cases (18 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Spanish sportspeople in doping cases (16 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Ukrainian sportspeople in doping cases (15 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Dominican Republic sportspeople in doping cases (14 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Finnish sportspeople in doping cases (14 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Nigerian sportspeople in doping cases (12 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Canadian sportspeople in doping cases (1 C, 11 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Chinese sportspeople in doping cases (11 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Kenyan sportspeople in doping cases (11 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Romanian sportspeople in doping cases (11 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Iranian sportspeople in doping cases (10 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Italian sportspeople in doping cases (10 P)</p></li>
<li><p>Norwegian sportspeople in doping cases (10 P)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>C= Subcategory, P= Page dedicated to each offender.</p>
<p>[Category:Sportspeople</a> in doping cases by nationality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Sportspeople_in_doping_cases_by_nationality]Category:Sportspeople”>Category:Sportspeople in doping cases by nationality - Wikipedia) </p>
<p>Also please refer to Canuckguy’s message #135.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I guess that pretty much sums it up. What a shame. I really thought he was an amazing person in addition to being a God on a cycle. Couldn’t have been more wrong.</p>