George Vecsey just wrote an opinion in yesterday's New York Times titled 'A Sport Can No Longer Peddle Denial,' claiming that with all the revelations about doping in cycling, it has as much credibility as professional wrestling. 'Bogus' was the word he used.
When will you understand, George, that the world is rarely a fair place and that even some of the smartest of us are duped from time to time? Don't take your bitterness about believing that Bjarne Riis (amongst others) was a clean rider out on the hundreds of riders who ride substance-free, or dismiss cycling 2400 miles in three weeks during the three Grand Tours (whether hopped up on steroids or not) as not being an achievement worth attention. You make it sound like sponsors are leaping off the sponsorship bus, when you have several adamantly standing behind their teams (like T-Mobile) especially because they have former riders coming forward and confessing their use of dope. You're a weanie, not for being duped like the rest of us, but for imagining that you couldn't be.
The argument simply doesn't hold water coming from a sports writer in New York City after one of its most prominent athletes was revealed to have taken amphetamines, even after they had been recently outlawed in baseball, and even after he had lied to a Grand Jury about his use of steroids. So, before we start calling cycling a 'bogus' sport, we should keep in mind that it has far more scheduled and random drug tests than any other professional sport in the United States.
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