Are You Living It?

It’s been interesting the last couple of years, watching the sport of professional cycling come unraveled and lose almost all credibility due to performance enhancing drugs. It’s actually quite sad!! When you peruse through the cycling websites such as www.cyclingnews.com or www.velonews.com you are almost overwhelmed with article after article about the latest of the latest doping scandals.

I think when people first start to read about the doping problem in cycling it’s interesting and ads for a bit of TV type drama. However, anyone who follows cycling on a daily basis and is passionate about the sport inevitably begins to feel desensitized to the true beauty of the sport, or at least the beauty that once was. Suddenly, you can easily find yourself profiling professional cyclists as dopers, almost as if all are guilty. You begin to forget that to get to where the pros are takes year after year of hard work. Of course I know not all are guilty. In fact some of my closest friends are professional cyclists and their incremental success has been a result of hard work and perseverance. A large majority of cyclists ride clean, but it only takes a few bad apples to ruin the bunch.

The thought occurred to me today while I was out on a nice run that the true tragedy behind doping in cycling is that many of these pro’s who have made the wrong choice to dope, have essentially ruined a dream and ruined something that started from having the courage to pursue their passion. With the exception of a select few genetic freaks, most of these guys all had a dream that probably started with one of there first bike rides as a young kid. Current World Champions had moments as children where they watched a race on TV or saw a race come through their town–possibly at that moment they decided that cycling is what they wanted to do when they grew up. Kids riding bikes thinking of their cycling heros, aspiring to someday be just like them. Solo training rides pretending they’re off the front in a stage of the Tour De France. All great champions had a moment when they decided that they wanted to pursue their passion.

Even the dirtiest dopers in the sport have had to work unbelievably hard to reach the professional ranks. It’s no easy endeavor and takes many years of incremental steps. It’s a mix of training, passion, genetics, finances, luck, etc. that enable someone to enter the highest ranks of the peloton. Through year after year of blood, sweat and tears people have clawed their way to the top, staying true to there deepest passion, to achieve goals and realize dreams and then to throw it all away to doping. How sad.

Imagine being that cyclist who worked for 20 years living out their passion, achieving a childhood dream that only few can do and then watching all 20 years come crumbling out from under them. Hmmm? That’s a real tragedy.

by: Shawn Raley