Dick Pound...

Yeah, it's not what it appears to be (when the title of this entry is "Dick Pound" - you can all get your minds outta the gutter). Dick Pound is the head of WADA, or the for those of you not in "the know", the World Anti Doping Agency, and let's just say, he's opinionated, and loud about it as well. Lately, as in this week, he has called out cycling, again, as being a sport rife with doping, and essentially saying that entire teams do it en masse to great effect to get good results, and you know, I don't think that he's really all that wrong, or all that out of line. Over the years, doping in cycling has been going on. Hell, greats of the past basically, well, not basically, but did just come out and say, yeah, I do it, and I'm going to continue to do it (sort of like how Bush has said he's wiretapped without warrants and will continue to do so) because I need to do it to continue in the sport. I'm thinking that cycling since the first time someone put on a race, has probably had doping within the sport itself. A lot of people will tell you that it's just too hard to do day in and day out with some outside assistance, especially at the highest levels of the sport that we have today. Dick Pound though, I'm fairly certain that he's a mad man. He's the Howard Dean of the anti doping world, just letting loose whatever is in his head, and you know, for the most part, I think that he should.

Here he is, the man most responsible for taking down illegal doping in all sport around the world, and here he has what might be one of the dirtiest sports going. I love cycling, but let's be realistic, there is a ton of cheating going on in it. We all know it, we all talk about it, we all give the old wink, wink, nudge, nudge, and then when someone gets busted, we're never really surprised are we (well, maybe with Tyler, but nobody else who has gotten busted over the last 10 years or so that I've paid attention to the sport has surprised me)? I think that the people who compete in cycling, even at an amateur level like myself, can see how people would dope in cycling, and would take drugs to succeed. It's very easy to see actually if you've ever pinned on a number, straddled a road bike, and entered a race. I don't recall too many races in my time that were actually "easy". And that's going up through the ranks from cat. 5 up to the Pro 1-2 ranks that I race in now. I think it was Greg Lemond actually who said it best didn't he? "It doesn't get any easier, it just gets faster." Yeah, well, Greg is right. I think if we are to make the world of professional cycling better, and drug free we need these assholes like Dick Pound out there giving people hell, calling them out on their bullshit. We need guys like that. Jesus Manzano was another guy that was a professional racer and still is, who told it like he saw it. Or at least, that was his story about what went on, and really why would he lie about it? He didn't make any money out of it, in fact, most teams then shunned him and cast him away for it, and wouldn't talk to him again, and I'm sure that he lost friends because of what he said, but I'm thinking most of it was true. I mean even on the very local scene that I race and ride in, I've seen guys in the parking lots before races chugging down caffeine pills, taking stimulants, and hell, 2 guys in my neck of the woods got busted for doping. One for EPO use, and one for use of Phen Phen I think it was. And those were just 2 average Joe's. Doping in the American pro scene I'm betting is even more distinct. Why? For the simple reason that there are few and far between races in the US, even the big NRC races, that there is a doping control at. I've been to several NRC races, raced in some NRC races, and there is no doping tent. There is no random selection for someone to come and piss in a cup, there is really no control over it in the US at all, unless you are at the top end of the sport and happen to be an American. Armstrong is one guy like that. He was on the ramdom control list where they can come and knock on your door at any time of the day or night and ask for some urine. But those controls are few and far between really. They just don't exist for your basic run of the mill US pro road racer. And I think that they don't exist much for the run of the mill Euro pro either. This is why we need Dick Pound out there harrassing people about this. It's his job, and he's a bulldog. The rider's association is looking for an apology from him because of the statement that he made, and he's just told them to go to hell about it. He's not retracting anything (Dick Pound tells 'em to go Hell!!).

Now here is what I'm really paying attention to. The Abramoff scandal and how and wide this thing is going to reach. Already we have Tom Delay saying he's not going to run for the House Leadership position again because of it, or I should say, isn't going to seek the Majority Leader position he once so coveted. And now we have Bob Ney of Ohio being asked to resign his chairmanship in the House because of his ties to Abramoff. How far is this going to go? How many Republicans might fall because of this? How many democrats? I say if they're dirty, then whoever is dirty needs to be shown the door. I don't care who it is. Republican, Democrat, either of them need to be kicked out on their asses if they are found to have done something illegal and or unethical or against the rules of Congress. Of course, because Abramoff had such close ties to the Republican party, I think we can stand to reason that there might be a lot of fallout from the GOP side of things, and as I said, we're seeing that already, and he hasn't even started talking yet. My guess is that he's going to sing like a damn canary when they get him in there, if he hasn't already, to save his own ass from federal "pound me in the ass" prison (see the movie Office Space, you'll know what I'm talking about here). The big question is how high up the food chain does this go? Could be interesting, very interesting, and I for one, am not sad to see a lot of Republicans get their come uppence on this front. It took them a very short amount of time to go from the people who wanted to bring you smaller government, and less intrusion, and fiscal responsibility, to the group that brings you all time deficits, tax cuts for the wealthy, wars, and big brother looking over your shoulder to a frightening level. And this only took them what? About 10 years of being in power in Congress before they were really corrupt? Well, one might argue they've become increasingly so since Bush took office, and there really hasn't been much of a "check" with the Congress being majority Republican and the President being Republican and all. For the most part since The Shrub has been in the front office, Congress has given him a rubber stamp. Send us what you want, we'll get it passed through even if we have to change the rules and procedures to do it. Such as leaving open floor votes for hours instead of the customary 15 minutes. Ending debate on issues in minutes instead of days. Strong arming people who want to vote against things, and so on. Don't think for a minute that had this been the Democrats doing it (which they probably did back in the days when they ran things) that they wouldn't be crying foul, but amazingly, for the most part, most Democratic Congress members have remained eerily silent about these things and not made a big deal about it. Anyway, I can see a large contingent of Republicans being brought down because of their ties to Abramoff and his cronies. Maybe they didn't do anything illegal, and maybe they didn't do anything "technically" un-ethical, but popular opinion and the voters back home might just think that they did, and out on their asses they go. I can only hope so. Mid term elections in November of 2006, going to be interesting to watch and see what happens. You can bet that. If Bush has to deal with one of the branches of Congress or worst case scenario for him, both arms of Congress being Democrat, he'll have a freakin' meltdown. His legislative agenda is so bogged down now, imagine what it would be like if the Democrats were in control. He'd flip his lid for certain. I'd love to see it. And maybe just maybe we will.