Garmin bashing. Is there a valid point?
Four must be worse than three, some kind of tipping point in the blogosphere.
When Garmin-Sharp riders Tom Danielson, Christian Vande Velde and Dave Zabriskie admitted their past US Postal doping transgressions to the US Anti-Doping Agency, there were some howls of disgust but it didn't reach the fever pitch caused by number four, Ryder Hesjedal.
Maybe it's a Canadian thing?
Read the cycling forums and a vocal sub-section of fans seem to think Jonathan Vaughters is no better than Lance Armstrong, a cynic and ex-doper running a halfway house for former dopers while telling the big lie of clean cycling.
Ain't it sad that the world is just never perfect and human beings continue to exhibit human failings? When will we reach that wonderful place where nobody ever makes a mistake and tells even the smallest lie? Don't think I'll live to see that.
It's a gray world of compromise and the good people try to make up for past mistakes while the bad people intentionally keep making them. I put Mr Vaughters and four Garmin-Sharp riders in the good category.
How weary Vaughters must be of explaining that the entire culture was rotten from the UCI on down. That there was very little alternative to doping for a driven athlete with a dream. Very few of us have the moral integrity and strength to say no when the majority of the culture says yes. How many Bassoons were there in the pro peloton? 90% of the critics who rail at Vaughters and Garmin would never have possessed the courage to say no.
The Garmin bashing reminds me of a business analogy. I've had the good fortune to freelance for a company named IDEO, one of the best innovation companies in the world. They are filled with visionaries of every kind and their mission is to change the world through great design and creative problem solving.
That doesn't mean that they always succeed. IDEO has some big corporate clients that don't always listen or follow the vision. They have some conservative clients with deep pockets who pay the bills that allow IDEO the freedom and funding to put resources against other, better possibilities for positive change.
What I'm saying is two things: like Garmin and pro cycling, IDEO functions in a prescribed world of realities and two, while they don't always astound with their brilliance, they aim high and the goal never changes -- they believe they can make the world a better place.
Garmin-Sharp has made pro cycling a far better safer, cleaner, more visionary place and anybody that doesn't get that is a colossal and clueless fool.
No team has a stricter anti-doping policy than Garmin. No team pushed harder for a "No Needles" Policy. No team consistently puts clean cycling at the front of their agenda. This is what's happening now, not ten years ago. Vaughters continues to believe that people deserve second chances -- as long as they commit and stay clean.
Do they have some older riders who made bad choices in the past? Like every major team, that answer is, yes, of course. Is Vaughters and his team taking a huge PR hit right now. You bet.
Pro cycling's past is messy and the transition is ugly, too. We're getting there -- new UCI president, young riders like Joe Dombrowski at Sky and Andrew Talansky at Garmin. That's the new generation and shortly all those riders from the dark years will be gone.
In the meantime, a sense of perspective might be a true sign of intelligence.