Juniors are fine, but theres always some story about them in
the magazine.
What I’d
like to hear, is a rider who did a 50 or 100 mile ride with severe physical
handicaps.
For example: disk disease (cervical or lumbar) that destroyed their disks, but before surgery, they
finished, despite the pain.
Or,
Someone with severe degenerative
osteoarthritis of the hip which required walking with a cane 24/7 & did not
have surgery (which is worse than a knee, your knee could be cut off [I have
seen this], but if you lose your hip, you lose your “seat” on a horse).
Floyd Landis (who won the Tour de France bicycle race, this
year 2006), has a totally trashed hip. It is crumbling into bits. He finished
the Tour de France.
Now, theres questions that
he took testosterone at the end of
the race to WIN the Tour de
France, & maybe he did (which is a cheating
thing to do & of course WRONG!)
But, my point is, to ride for 115 miles a day up
& down 13,000 feet total or so (even if you came in last without any drugs!!!!!!!!!),
is an incredibly heroic achievement for someone who is crippled that badly (& he is, his hip is mush & trashed
– I will give links from Sports Illustrated
etc that talks about his hip if you
need them, but they are easily Googled).
That’s a
heroic thing to me (maybe not ethical, but certainly a heroic effort).
Do we have any endurance riders who could match riding 115 miles with a trashed hip for a week?
That’s inspirational to me.
Please read this entire post, before people start flaming
about ethics in sports, etc. As I said, if he is guilty, of course the drug issue
is wrong. But, that’s NOT my
point. Geez, if he came in last (without drugs which is certain he could), &
finished with that trashed of a hip,
that’s
incredible & heroic.
