DISASTER ARTISTS
Professional cycling is forever lurching from one scandal to the next. John Whitney asks if its ability to absorb punches is finite?
What sort of scandal does it take to bring a sport to its knees? To leave it irredeemable to fans and untouchable to sponsors? Pro cycling has never been shy in trying to offer an answer to this question. Yet the sport comes through the other side of its scandals, bleeding profusely but not mortally wounded. The cycling-watching public have a pretty strong stomach by now.
However, the day after Chris Froome was revealed to have been twice over the legal limit for asthma drug salbutamol after a stage at the Vuelta a España, I received an email from Cycling Plus editor-in-chief, Rob Spedding. The gist? That should Froome be found to have cheated it would see he and professional cycling parting company. He’d had enough of the sport lurching from one calamity to the next and anyway, he got everything he needed from cycling by simply riding his bike.
Rob’s enthusiasm with the sport has been tested before - he’s written in the magazine about being scarred by David Millar, a rider he admired, when he was banned for using EPO in 2004. He has been to the brink before with this sport and walked back from the edge, but how much more scandal will he put up with? Will there ever be a time when, as a collective, we say enough is enough?
Every scandal has its casualties, people for whom red lines have finally been crossed, but there’s little to suggest we will abandon the sport en masse. When Froome’s news broke, sides were taken. His Twitter posts drew plenty of critics, but there were as many backing him. Countless others will have just shrugged their shoulders at the whole circus, by now fully inoculated against cycling’s offbike dramas but still unable to look away.
Doping scandals illicit a rush of emotion early on in their life, with contracts terminated and sponsors jumping ship, desperate to avoid being tainted by association. But with apologies and the passage of time often comes swift redemption.
Even at the height of the maelstrom during Lance Armstrong’s downfall, it was easy to see a route back for him. His 2017 comeback to the Tour de France - albeit in podcast form from a Colorado studio - was one of the most talked about things of the race. In 2018, he’ll be at the Tour of Flanders as a guest of the race organisers. He’s got charisma in his favour, but the list of reprieved dopers with far less personality is a long one. Years on from his ban for clenbuterol, Alberto Contador retired in 2017 to rapturous acclaim, the memories of his doping ban no match for the thrills he gave fans with his nose for attacking racing.
Cycling keeps its support largely intact. For those who care deeply about fair play, cheaters deepen their resolve for change. For those with blinkers on, nothing will spoil the image of their heroes. And for those who see sport as entertainment first, the spectacle will trump indiscretion.
Will there ever be a time when, as a collective, we say enough is enough?