98 Giro

For Christmas I got the 98 Giro and Tour on DVD.
Before I started road cycling, I had always been a fan of Pantani. There was something I admired I guess, about the way he road. He was always seen as being and underdog for the big stage races, since he lacked the size for the flat stages and time trialing. He was an underdog and someone who would push himself to the limit in the mountains and always attacked as soon as the road went up. Pain was written all over his face, and as soon as the speed dropped he would stand and accelerate again, he would not give in .
Back in 98 I hadn’t yet touched a road bike, didn’t really follow cycling much except the occasional news I would hear from Eurosport. I remember seeing images of his climbing and attacking over and over again.. back then I was into rowing, where the more pain you could endure the faster you went, so how could you not admire a drive like Pantani had up those mountains….just hunker down and go!!!………..
As I was watching the first few stages this weekend I was surprised how I felt about the whole thing. There was a lack of enthusiasm to say the least. As the names of the rides attacking, and riding strong started to appear I realized that just about all of these rides have since been either ,caught, suspended or emitted using illegal doping products. Zulle was climbing like a motor cycle…yeah that didn’t feel right…he was new on the Festina team that year. Camenzind was attacking like crazy, Bartoli was flying…and Pantani… we all know he was on everything…it just didn’t feel like I was watching something real… I didn’t believe what I saw, gone was the feeling of admiration of pushing though the pain, fighting, hanging on for deer life.
Riders would shoot of in the last few miles of a stage and solo hold of the pack at 40mph..I just didn’t buy it.. I wasn’t sitting there cheering them on, sharing the pain they must be in..willing them to succeed.. Instead I was catching myself wondering what and how much they were on.
A few riders I haven’t heard any implications about were doing ok, a young Bettini was trying and trying to win a stage. Guerini ended up 3ed overall… But this was 1998, I don’t know how many riders really were clean.

Hopefully when I watch the 98 tour I will feel better… but I wouldn’t bet on it.