It has always been the contention of the occupant of this seat that tennis and cycling are the two most gruelling individual sports there are. Mostly due to the length of time it takes to complete events in either.
Granted, affairs of the saddle have been dragged through the mud tenfold by the nefarious doings of those once thought to be heroes. You think of those lines from David Bowie We could be heroes, just for one day but at what cost?
Having recently watched the Netflix documentary Lance it will be admitted that views on doping etc has altered somewhat. Not in terms of Armstrong being a liar and a cheat and a fruad, just that the doping culture within cycling was so rampant that the riders were getting their orders from on high.
Right, so they decided to go with the crowd of their own volition. But, as former rider Tyler Hamilton said in the documentary, “You either went with it (the doping) or you went home”. The problem, apart from the reputational and credibility damage done to those involved and the sport, what it also did was tarnish it for those who came after them as well.
The unforeseen problem with admirable attempts to clean the sport up, though, is that everybody therein gets tarred with the one brush. Innocent people getting caught in the crossfire of the war on drugs within the sport.
There are good people in cycling, droves of them. Doing great work to keep the sport going and bring a new generation along and leave the misdeeds of the past exactly there. Thankfully from an Irish perspective there are some fine riders in green at present too.
Headlined by Sam Bennett who has been making great strides in the pecking order of the pelothon in recent times, but also Dan Martin and Eddie Dunbar among others. Now, Cycling Ireland have put structures in place to ensure the conveyor belt of talent keeps ticking over.
Undoubtedly the headline story out of the latest developments is the appointment of Nicolas Roche to a coaching/mentoring role. Not surprisingly, the emphasis of Roche’s role would appear to be centred on the road cycling end of things.
Given the exploits of some of those mentioned above already, it can only be expected that there will be many more following in their tyre tracks. Eurosport might get more than its four weeks work per year!