cycling is screwed
The big local cycling news has been Kenny Williams’ post positive admission of DHEA use in preparation for the Masters National Championships. I’m pretty much past that part of the story. I get along fine with Kenny, and I hope he reforms and comes back post suspension to race clean and strong again. He made a huge, huge mistake that will follow him forever, and he’ll have to live with that, but per our rules, if he serves his time, he gets a second chance.
The reaction on a local and national level is what has been truly disturbing. A shocking number of people including multiple USA Cycling officials, have publicly commented in support of Williams and have made comments trivializing his offense, vouched for his character and integrity and insinuated since the product he allegedly used isn’t effective it doesn’t really matter.
I don’t know if anyone is paying attention, but cycling has a major credibility issue due to doping. It’s a big deal. One of the most frequent questions cyclists field from non-cyclists is that of drug use within the sport. However, the reaction to this incident has taught me many things. Cyclists aren’t all on the same page when it comes to the seriousness of doping within sports. People are suckers for post facto admissions. People are much, much, much more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to someone they know. People aren’t really familiar with the meanings of “honor”, “character” and “ethics”. People think that being a friend is accepting whatever your “friend” does. People think that they know people much better than they actually do. Masters racers and local cycling fans care far less then young local racers.
These people didn’t give Basso the benefit of the doubt when assuming his statements were true, and that he’d only tried to dope once. Americans didn’t care that Tyler Hamilton’s second offense was only for DHEA. But now, if I hear one more comment about how “we all make mistakes”, “life is in shades of gray”, “we all go through desperate times” I’m going to throw up on my keyboard. People will talk shit about Armstrong all the time, but when one of their buddies or coaches gets caught, it’s all time to sing kumbaya.
While we all make mistakes, there’s no part of that which makes cheating okay. It doesn’t allow us to minimize anything. And furthermore, when we make big mistakes, it does show our character. It shows that we have ugliness inside. We can accept offenders back into our communities, we can forgive, but we have to be informed by what has taken place.
For a decade, Kenny has been our most prominent cyclist. He’s the guy the kids and young cyclists want to be like. His cheating is important. If we can’t all agree that doping is a big deal, the sport is screwed, and history will repeat time and time again.