Haben Sie sich heute schon gedopt?

[sid_day]

I really enjoyed that, although my GCSE German only yielded a few gems.

The guy in the PI baseball cap was genius.

Noch Nicht: Not Yet?

Muß Ich: Must I?

[jon avery]

Never did German so didn't have a clue what they were on about!

[adrian]

Worry nicht! Here's a translation (of sorts)

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicy ... 0c5316ec85

[richv]

In my view Darren Campbell made a very good point at the European Championships.

If you cheat with drugs and then want to race clean you should identify who/how you were supplied in the first place and help to stop future abuse. You shouldn't be able to keep quiet and then come back. How much has David "now cleaner then ever" Millar (or any of the other riders who cheated and then came back) done to help identify those who encouraged him to take, supplied him with, and paid for EPO?

Mind you just look at what is happening to Darren Campbell in the media and he seems to be the villain at the moment. How does that work?

[richv]

Sean your response is just what I'm getting at. Campbell says that drug cheats should not be allowed to race again without dobbing in their cheating mates and everyone jumps up and down about his connections with Christie.

Nobody bothers to consider whether he has a point but at least the fact he has the balls to stick his head above the parapet and make the point suggests that athletics is not completely dominated by drug-taking.

In pro-cycling if you were to stick your neck out you will never work in the business again. No great surprise then that most intelligent observers assume that the peleton is riddled with drugs.

[higg]

When DC gets to the start line he knows he can finish his race unimpeded. Whether he wins or not depends on his ability, the other runners ability and how many runners on the start line have doped. Whether the other runners like him or not is not a factor.

When a free-talking cyclist gets to the start line he has more chance of ending up in the ditch than crossing the finish line first. This is a problem Armstrong describes when talking about his early (and probably still clean) years in the peleton. Contrast that to his blatant bullying of Simeoni at the end of his career, so what's changed since.

I say this, not to defend the J Voigt approach but to make the point that just because DC can speak his mind freely doen't mean that athletics doesn't have a drug problem.



Now to answer Mr. Voigt,

If you get caught cheating on your wife she has every right to go mad and will probably leave you. If you get caught cheating on your employer, he/she will go mad and you will get sacked. If you get caught driving drunk you will lose your licence. Also you get caught doping in sport you will/should get banned.

It gets a bit more complicated when it is guilt by association.

If you go away for a holiday with a group of 5 friends, two of which have affairs and get caught, how do you think you're wife will react if you fail to answer any of her questions ?

If you blantantly cover up for your cheating colleageus at work at best you will get moved to a worse position but most likely you end up losing your job.

If a significant number of fellow cyclists (and the leader of your team) get caught doping I think it is only fair to expect that the supporters and the general public will be suspicious. Mr Voigt can hardly expect the public to be less suspicious about him if he avoids answering their questions, tries to shout them down and in the end just call them idiots and storms off.

What's most disappointing about this whole affair is not that the two main favorites and the eventual winner of the tdf were caught cheating but that none of the others riders seem particularly bothered.