In the midst of an early season already swirling drug accusations and the tragic death of Marco Pantani, Sylvain Chavanel, one of the most promising young talents in the French peloton, has expressed his frustration over assumptions that all cyclists are doping. We're not all dopers. Do they give us the clean riders the chance to talk?
Do they look for clean riders to let them express themselves? Chavanel also bemoans the hypocrisy of those who do speak out about the current situation, where affairs such as the recent police investigations into past and present members of the Cofidis team prompt quick comparisons to the Festina affair of He forgets to say that he returned his rainbow jersey [from the MTB World's] after admitting to having doped, but he never gave back the money for a title that wasn't his.
When someone like John McEnroe admits to doping, it gets a day of coverage. Does someone like Rutkiewicz, who barely anyone knew, deserve months of headlines?
Ultimately, Chavanel hopes others who are clean will become more vocal. When I look at all the sacrifices I make for cycling, the work and the lifestyle of a monk that I have to lead in order to make myself credible, the idea that we're all taken for dopers makes me crazy.
But I still have hope Bartoli will also race the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen, which was not initially part of the team's plans. Although it's officially winter on the calendar until the day after Milano-San Remo, at last Tuesday's Trofeo Laigueglia on the sunny Italian riviera, the official opener of the Italian road race season, it might as well have been spring.
