MagillaGorilla said:You got it backwards. VDB became a headcase because he couldn't
win any longer. This is what the facts support. There is no evidence
(other than you guessing) that he became a headcase before he stopped
winning. Sorry, but "switching teams" isn't a symptom of mental illness.
The way VDB did it, it was a symptom of egomania or
lack of focus or something. Not mental illness, but the kind
of thing that gets in the way of a career or causes the rider to
wig out under pressure. VDB switched teams 3 times or
so _before_ he got bad.
Remember back when Frankie.com wrote those race diaries
on his site that were less boring than the usual (Probably because
many fewer people were reading them, so he didn't get in trouble)?
There was stuff in there from the Vuelta about VDB acting like a
jagoff. (I don't dislike VDB - I just think he's always been a spazz,
even w/o the pressure of having to ride without enhancers.)
Quoted message said:Same thing happened with Pantani. Had Pantani never been kicked out of
the Giro when he was winning or gotten his ass kicked in the Tour, he
would still be riding today and referring to himself in interviews in
the third person. Pantani imploded because he knew he would
never win again and his legacy was that of a doper.
I agree with you more on Pantani. Pantani did garden variety
egomaniac stuff like the 3rd-person thing, but he didn't go
downhill until the crash and getting kicked out of the Giro.
In fact, he came back and was at least a threat for another year,
which is more than VDB did after 1999.
Quoted message said:VDB imploded because he was viewed as a fraud and his wife was getting
laughed at when she went shopping. Kinda like Haven Hamilton, I would
imagine, except nobody in the shopping malls in Boulder or Massachusetts
even knows who she or her husband are.
You forget the possibility that the people who do know who
Haven Hamilton is come up and tell her how much they
believetyler.org, rather than laugh. Because, you know, he's
such an American baby face, it must have been a frame-up job.
I kind of doubt that Euros laugh at Sarah because VDB got caught -
they don't care. Maybe Sarah got [censored] because VDB can't
bring home the bacon any more. Or he was too much of a spazz
to do the Spinervals videos she keeps buying him for Christmas.
Ben