Food for thought.
The sport of cycling is going through a terrible time at present.
The Grim Reaper has exacted a disproportionate toll on our sport
in the past 12 months.
This toll has culminated in the passing of Marco Pantani last weekend.
What can one say about all of this ?
My own feeling is that there is something terrible wrong in our sport.
No other sport that I can recall, has suffered the same amount of fatalities in such a short space of time.
Our sport isn’t inherently dangerous like other sports such as F1.
The safety record for it’s participants is excellent.
The reason for the spate of fatalities is more resonant of a culture that has permeated the sport of cycling in more recent times, where success is everything and losing is nothing.
The pressure to win, was always there in our sport.
Cyclists and cycle racing is an endurance based sport.
In recent years, the pressure to perform, the pressure to get results, has expotentially increased.
Therefore, cyclists are required to be able to endure vast levels of physical stress in order to be in a position at the end of a race where they might get placed – and if they’re really lucky, win.
They have to be able to endure more than their competitors in order to win.
Media coverage and more sponsorship have increased the pressure on cyclists to win.
What does this increased level of pressure do to a cyclist ?
The men and women that we watch, as fans, have great natural ability and strength.
They all make huge sacrifices, they train like devils and they put up with a lifestyle that is hard, despite the rewards earned by the top 1% of professional cyclists.
They have a short lived professional career.
Given all of this, what more does a cyclist need to do to meet this increasing level of expected performance ?
How does a cyclist meet the expectations of his fans, his managers, his team, given all these pressures ?
When you’ve trained as much as you can – when you’ve sacrificed as much as you can – when you’ve had the media camped on your doorstep to talk about a result –
where is the safety valve ?
If everyone is training as hard as each other – and only one can win – what does this do to a cyclists morale ?
Let’s consider for a moment the pressures outside of direct racing.
The demographics of our sport have shown that the sport is contracting.
The pressure to get employment contracts renewed, within teams, is ever present.
Shortages of sponsors, mean that the opportunities to participate in the professional peleton are contracting for all cyclists.
Those adjudged not to have performed, are disregarded like yesterdays newspapers.
This pressure at the lower level of the sport, permeates it’s way up to the top.
So team leaders in the bigger races need to be seen to be winning in order to show a return for their sponsors money.
It’s real pressure.
Just as in physics, pressure can create a diamond or it can create a piece of coal.
It is understandable that some cyclists will use artificial means in order to protect their livelihood.
The pressure to perform compels cyclists, at all levels, to consider the use of artificial means in order to protect their status and their livelihoods.
Some cyclists give in to this pressure.
How many of them use artificial assistance ?
How many of them have compromised their core beliefs, and have taken drugs,
in order to satisfy the demands placed upon their bodies ?
How many of them risked their health in order to satisfy this pressure ?
I don’t know the answer.
What I do know is that the bar is being pushed higher and higher each year.
This problem in our sport affects all of us – fans, sponsors, national associations,
UCI and, most importantly of all, the cyclists themselves.
We’re all part of this problem.
We all seem to accept that speeds have to increase, that the person who wins is the only one who is important.
We have all been part of creating the monster that is professional cycling in 2004.
And the cost of creating this monster ?
The cost is human life – human lives.
Men, who should be alive and well today, are lying cold in their graves, at tragically young ages.
Why did they die ? For what did they die ?
Are those dead cyclists to be burdened with total responsibility for their own deaths ?
I don’t think so – I don’t think that they are, solely culpable in all of this.
Yes, they may have physically ingested the drug but they were put in a very, very compromised position.
Or they may have put their bodies under such stress as to cause their bodies to say enough is enough.
Who is to blame ?
I’ll put my hand up and say yes, I too only respected the man in first place, regardless of the cost.
I too will admit that I wanted them to cycle faster and faster, regardless of the cost.
I too will admit that I enjoyed watching cyclists crack until one man was left standing, regardless of the cost.
I too will admit that I was wrong BECAUSE OF THAT COST.
Until our sport – fans, sponsors, team managers, UCI and the cyclists themselves admit that the cost has been too high, I fear that the Grim Reapers toll will only increase.