Thursday, October 9, 2008

Rules for Lance ...and rules for mortals.

Ok, I know Lance is Lance, and love him or hate him, he's a pretty superhuman individual, but should that superhumanness extend to there being one set of rules for him and one for everyone else? The UCI are letting him race in Adelaide in the Tour Down Under in January, two weeks before his mandatory 6 month period before he's allowed to race is up. How do the UCI expect to be taken seriously? Yes, it is only two weeks, but with the mess cycling is in at the moment, can they really afford to be seen to bend the rules? I mean it's a slippery slope, right. Would they have let Basso race in the World Champs if he'd asked, and pointed out that it was only 3 weeks before his ban was lifted? Why not? If it was another rider in Lancey's situation, would they be so generous? What's the point of having rules, especially ones that are designed to eliminate dope-cheats, if you bend them as soon as it is beneficial for the organisation to do so?

Right, that was my rant for the day ...and I am secretly going to go and watch Lance race when he gets down here, but that's not the point :)

...And here is something completely irrelevant and pointless, but it looks nice :)

6 comments:

Alexithymia said...

I know what you're saying.
There's no way they'd have let Basso ride, they hate him.
You can go poke him with a stick as he rides by :P

Sasha said...

Money makes the world go round...
I think there are some special rules for him because the UCI hopes that there will be more (positive) media for this sport.

Rose said...

Yeah, you're right about Lance...
But at least he's coming. And his coming will entice other cyclists to come too, so that they can buy T-shirts saying "I Rode Against The Master-Lance".
And hopefully some of those enticed cyclists will be certain somebodies... do you get where I'm going with this? :D I guess I'm not exactly being subtle, am I?

Anonymous said...

I like to imagine that Lance had his fellow Texan George W. Bush give the UCI an offer they couldn't refuse so Sir Lancelot can get his way.

Bridget said...

Haha bribery...
If I'm not forced to work every single day of the holidays I'll definitely make the trip to SA to see Lance! Hmmm... I'd love it if the Schlecks were enticed...

An unlikely survivor said...

Lance is beyond mere mortals. He can come and go as he pleases. He does not have to subject himself to what any other rider would have to because he is... Sir Lance.

I'm telling ya- he's going to buy the Tour and call it the Tour de Lance

Egomania to the nth degree