Thursday, July 17, 2008

More EPO: Ricardo Ricco

From L'Equipe: "Les urines de Riccardo Ricco présentent des traces d'EPO."

Hincapie on Ricco via CycingWeekly:
“I was definitely shocked. He's one of the big riders in peloton. It's a disappoint for sure. It's a clear disappointment but you got to look to the future and say we're catching the cheats. Maybe other sports aren't, I think our sport doing more than any other sport to clean up its act.”


I think Hincapie's statement that cycling is doing more than other sports to clean up its act is a pretty accurate. Ironically enough, I believe that the crackdown on doping in cycling will lead to cleaner riding but that it also strengthens the general publics perception of the cycling-doping link. While I don't want to come off as a cycling apologist, I think that there are sports in which doping is even more widespread but because the testing protocols are not as rigorous and dopers are not caught, those sports are not perceived as having doping issues.

Congressional report or no, I'd bet a dollar that there are more drugs in professional baseball or football than there are in professional cycling.

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