I am sure that you saw Jon Chodroff got caught and fessed up to cheating. I know that he used to read this blog, and I hope he is not looking at any cycling stuff right now, because nothing good is being said about him.
Jon Chodroff and I raced "together" at the Tour of Ohio and for a bit after. I remember when John (forgot to off the ipod) Minturn was like "wait until you see this dude." Dude was Jon. He flew instead of driving, and we met up with him there. He walked up wearing SUPER short workout shorts. Not in a hipster type of way, but in a richard simmons type of way. That coupled with a 2XL T shirt and super crazy messy hair. The dude traveled with 2 laptops, 1 for his cyclingpeaks (wko) and one for just standard internetting. Weird.
Jon jumped into cycling a few months prior, and was trying to become pro. He was a cat 3 at this point and had been racing for a few months. The thing is, his power numbers were probably 1.5x what mine were. He was naturally talented.
The race became a battle between Dewey Dickey (lifetime ban) and Hekman. Chod was just hanging on, putting out the power of a pro, just to try and win the Cat 3 jersey.
I harbor very little resentment. He went straight from there to NRC level racing, and didnt screw over too many people close to me. In fact, when he did race local races, its not like he freaking won, unless it had a time trial.
Cynical me says:
Jon treated cycling like the kid from The Toy treated Richard Pryor's character. He wanted the black one, no matter what the price, and he got it. Being a Pro bike racer was another check on a long list of "give mes" that a privileged kid gets. There is no money in the sport, but he did steal a lot of experiences from people.
- Living in the national team house in Belgium and racing
- Tour of California
- Tour of Taiwan or whatever he crashed out of the first day
For every dude like Jon, there are a hundred bum amateurs (and probably other teammates) that would jump at the chance for any of those. Unfortunately the act of a selfish person took them all away. This selfish person is going to use his ivy league degree to go to grad or law school, get a job and keep screwing people over... he obviously has no conscience.
He is one of 25 - 80 dudes on "the list." Why are they waiting on the rest of them? They obviously have the fucking proof.
Empathetic me says:
Jon is a nice dude. He didnt screw me over directly. I cant imagine what gets into somebody's head to make them think actions like these are normal or acceptable. Maybe this will teach him a life lesson and he can find a new career helping people who are not as fortunate as he is. It is only freaking bike racing, maybe something good will come of a bad decision.
He is one of 25 or so guys who bought drugs. He is probably the only one I had contact with....
Time will tell.
4 comments:
Think of the bosos who take 'roids for no competitive advantage, just to get ripped and look buff -- the jersey shore types, if you will. Now add in a competitive advantage and it makes perfect sense why people continue to dope. Apparently many people just don't see doping as morally repugnant. To them, it's not an offense that is "evil" inherently, like murder or robbery. To them, it's only "evil" because we have agreed collectively that it is improper conduct in competitive sport. The folks who are inclined to dope have a thousand reasons why the rules should bend for them or why the rule is stupid in the first place. The two-year-ban paradigm clearly is an insufficient deterrent. Lifetime bans for willful infractions should be implemented. That will cause people to take a hard look at what they're about to do. And if they go through with it and get caught, good riddance. There's 100 guys waiting to step up.
I never doped...well,...a little...but it was fun.
good stuff steevo
Great look at this Steevo.
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