Ricardo Ricco (winner of 2 TdF stages this year) popped for EPO. Shocker. So, Ricco, this is for you (NSFW, if the speakers are up):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqxnm6t3QMw[/youtube]
Credit to PdC for the video inspiration.
Update: So, why is it that I (and so many others) have such contempt for this guy, considering the doping ways of cycling heros past? A commenter over at Podium Cafe put it very well. Hit the jump for a slightly edited version of it (and expect the kind of language you’d get moments after learning that someone just screwed the Tour):
What exactly did Ricco do that heroes of the past didn’t?
I’m no apologist for the fuck-brained little cunt, but why does Ricco earn our ire, yet others don’t, despite doing the same drugs?
Is it because he got caught? Is it because he was an asshole even w/o the drugs?
I suggest this: Ricco is a motherfucking-fuck-assed-fuck because he cannot say what his idol said. “I can look all of my rivals in the face.†The reason Pantani is still remembered as a hero is that blaming him while lauding his rivals – like Armstrong, Ullrich, Zulle, Tonkov, Rominger, Garzelli – ignores the reality of the time. Pantani had the class to point out that he wasn’t doing anything his rivals weren’t without being a lowlife little snitch.
Ricco earns our tirades because for the first time since 1990 we have a reason to believe that someone who got caught CAN’T use that explanation. Ricco can’t look his rivals in the face (I hope) and thus we feel that he cheated.
When we look at Ullrich, Basso, Armstrong, Heras, DiLuca, Pantani, etc: can we really say they cheated? We know that the major favorites were all on the sauce. Ricco seems more like cheater than they did because, well, we don’t believe all his rivals were juicing.
So Ricco, you are a shit-eating little cheater. For once, I don’t feel like a hypocrite for blaming someone for cheating. Asshole.
Indeed.