// Why Cycling Fans Hate Doping So Much
Posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
So, I really, really, really hate doping and it’s prominent presence in pro cycling. Part of the reason is that I just don’t like it when people have an unfair advantage in any situation. But really, even more than that, is that the particular feat of winning a big stage race like the Tour de France is so physically demanding that we view those who do it, and do it well, as heroes. And we will remember the names of those heroes over time.
I’m not saying other sports don’t have heroes. They certainly do. And those athletes work hard to achieve what they achieve. But very few sports require the solo effort that climbing the Alpe d’Huez does. And that’s just one facet of stage racing. There’s also a team effort to get to the top. But unlike in other team sports, where a missed pass or a strike out can be remedied by a good run from another player; in cycling, if one person doesn’t do his job, the whole team suffers. It’s a tremendously challenging thing to be a pro cyclist, and those of us who are fans really respect the great riders.
The respect we have for such great performances as those of LeMond and Armstrong (to name just two) leads us to be comparison fans. That is, when I see how fast a cyclist can climb a mountain, I want to compare his performance to the greats of the past. We saw this happen this year with Contador’s really impressive climbing skills. He was compared to several great climbers of the past, and we saw him do better than any of them. Amazing. But it would be less amazing if we found out Contador was cheating by doping.
This also seems to be an issue with baseball fans. What great player hasn’t been compared to Babe Ruth at one point or another? But still, I think it’s a bigger deal to cycling fans. The difference, I think, is that baseball doesn’t have the intensity that pro cycling does. You might have to be fast to get to the next base, and you might have to be strong to hit the ball out of the park, but you don’t have to completely exhert yourself and burn through tens of thousands of calories for hours on on end just to get through one stage of a multi-stage race.
The point is that in a sport where being a hero requires true skill and physical ability, it’d be nice to know that all our comparisons to past heros are being made on the same basis. I would hate to insult the greatness of a past rider by proclaiming that what they did is nothing to a modern rider because unbeknownst to me, the modern rider was doping. It’s not just about cheating in the race, it’s about cheating history, and cheating the fans.