What are you watching today

I had an email yesterday from Cycling.TV. In it they informed me that they wouldn't be showing Tirreno-Adriatico, due to the fact that they wanted to concentrate on Paris-Nice because 'Our objective is to deliver the best experience possible for our customers around Paris-Nice.'
Now all well and good, except, of course there is one small problem, namely when I clicked on the Paris-Nice 'On-Air-Now' button I got the message 'Piss off, we're not showing this in you're country' or words to that effect. So I went searching for alternatives and luckily for me Steep Hill TV and Cyclingfans have a good section of options.
So why did CTV send me a mail that was pretty much going to take the piss for anyone who lived outside (I assume) the US. Who knows, I mean they know where I live, they regularly stand outside the house and point. Ah well, just an observation, that's all.

As a result of the CTV piss take I finished up with three P-N feeds and one T-A feed, sometimes I had French TV with French commentary, sometimes Italian TV with an Italian commentary and on several occasions French with Italian and Italian with French. Adverts and cyclist intertwined, shouts of excitement as AC (that's Alberto Contador not AC from Operation Puerto) attacked overlayed pictures of Fiats and women with vacuum cleaners, the conversation of families sitting down for dinner was drowned out by discussion as to whether or not Liquigas and Quick Step had left it too late to go to the front (they had). In the end I shared Christian Vande Velde's victory with a song about pasta. So all in all it was an employable and entertaining few hours. Well done Cycling.TV (no longer in Beta!)

More morons.

Until yesterday you might not have heard of Gianni Da Ros. That is unless you study the lists of neo-pros signing on at the start of each season (something I no longer do). But of course you'll know about him now. Gianni Da Ros was arrested as part of an Italian police crack down / investigation on drug trafficking in gyms.
As Da Ros is 22 he is clearly part of the new cleaner generation that we are told is on the way and will be the saviors of our sport. So that'll be the new cleaner generation that included Kohl and Ricco as well then?

The problem with labeling a whole 'generation' of riders as clean is exactly the same as labeling a whole 'generation' as doped-up cheats. That is that exception's always make the argument a little weaker. The good generation / bad generation argument is too easy, we want a redemption for the sport and it's more convenient to label past = bad, present = good, it gives us a future we can all sign up to after the grim events of the last decade.
Of course the bad past / bad older generation will always rest uneasy with the fans (it is after all a construct of the media and the sports governing body). By accepting it we have to admit that to some extent we were wrong, that to some extent we were duped or willing dupes as we watched and cheered a generation we have been told we must now discard.




.