The Giro, clean sport, and a hard race
This year’s Giro d’Italia has shown me some good racing, tired and inspired rides and what I think is a clean sport…and I’m going to say it, maybe one of the cleanest sports in the world. Yeah I just said I think cycling is one of the cleanest sports in the world!
But look at the racing of the 1980’s and 90’s. Then we had a group of riders that were far and above everyone else, they fought out all of the top races in the world uncontested by the rest of the field who were just happy to help and finish. And then there were the racers whom would not do well most of the season and then dominate in one or two races a year.
Now the cycling of today. Look at David Millar and Christian Vande Velde of Team Slipstream. Millar road to a strong 2nd place overall in February’s Tour of California, before struggling in his next big goal Paris-Nice in March. Then both he and Chirstian both helped the team take a strong win in the team time trial at the Tour de Georgia in April. Millar was part of the team time trial winning team in the Giro d’Italia and rode strongly in a break later the same week but has struggled through the mountains.
Image by Graham Watson
Meanwhile Christian won the teams first race in a time trial at the Circuit de la Sarthe in early April. Then he was part of the team time trial winning team in stage 1 of the Grio d’Italia and held the leaders jersey for the next day. He continued to do well in the next time trial on stage 10 and in the first mountain stage before blowing up and struggling in over 30 minutes behind the next day!
Image by Graham Watson
These ups and downs are making for exciting racing, and are being seen throughout the pelaton this year. Which to me shows that the sport is turning around and is now one of the cleanest in the world! And it makes for some captivating televesion viewing as well!
while i agree that they are clean, your reasoning is a little flawed. its been said multiple times by millar, vandevelde, etc. that they aren’t even in peak form right now and that the giro was prep for the tour. their goal was to win the TTT, which they did, and then after a few attacking days millar turned it off for the rest of the giro. vandevelde pointed out that he was going to allow himself to lose time on a few of the mountain stages (once he realized he wasn’t a legit GC contender) and maybe have a chance at a stage win later. although i also feel like they are clean, this is more a sign of form yet to come and tactical choices rather than their bodies not being pumped full of drugs
JB said this on June 5, 2008 at 9:40 pm