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Originally Posted by Coach McGuirk
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Ricco is an interesting case. This is an italian that has made no bones about idolizing Pantani (who almost certainly was so full of drugs they were coming out his ears) and has discounted publicly the problmes Pantani had with drugs and so forth. Isn;'t he also one of the riders that had a doctor's certificate staing that he has a very high hematocrit level as a natrual matter? I suppose some people must, but it is amazing how many do in cycling (OTOH, it would be an advantage so maybe it is a chicken or egg sort of thing). As someone said, when he rode away from everybody more than once it looked bad, to me, but not impossible. OTOH, he did look more human on Hautacam, but his two teammates dropped Schleck and all the other climbers like nobody's business, which seemed a little odd to me and Ricco didn't follow, even though he looked under no duress with the lead group. So Ricco tests positive and the whole team voluntarily pulls out? Hmmm. Perhaps not a clean team.
I don't know if cycling is dirtier than other sports or not. I know a woman that was a qualifier for the 2000 olympic track team and she has told me, in private, that she is convinced that all track stars are on something or another. She said she was pressured to take drugs as soon as she got to college and her team was an average college squad. Can there be any question that baseball and football players are taking drugs?
I do know that Cycling tests it athletes more rigorously than any other sport of which I am aware. Every rider in the TdF gave a baseline blood sample before the race and every one is tested periodically during the race, in both scheduled and random tests and stage winner tests and so forth. I think it is cleaner. I think it is better, but it is not perfect, and it may never be perfect. This year they seem more likely to catch peple, however, and that can only be good, in the long run.