79pmooney
Posts:3180
 |
| 12/17/2013 01:15 PM |
|
Did you guys see this accusation against LA from 1993?
http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/12/news/ex-pro-gaggioli-says-armstrong-paid-him-to-throw-1993-race_311116
Not the same magnitude as his later exploits, but it does show where his mindset has been for a long time. (To be magnanimous, it could be argued that this was a noble gesture. Only he could win that $1M and he was sharing the spoils in advance with his fellow riders.)
Ben
|
|
|
|
|
ChinookPass
Posts:809
|
| 12/17/2013 01:31 PM |
|
what a wonderful sport and kinda glad my kids have shown no interest in bike racing. I couldn't take the pursuit of perfection in bike racing as a career seriously anymore. It can be done, it just will involve a lot of distastefulness along the way.
if that is what it was back then, so be it. sounds like no one thought of it as cheating so the reality is that it was not. earn more money in a day than the giro racers? take the dough!
it seems to me that now the big-time pro one-day scene in USA is completely gone. so we don't have to worry about cheating in million dollar races anymore. |
|
|
|
|
Cosmic Kid
Posts:4209
|
| 12/17/2013 01:37 PM |
|
This isn't a new revelation. Swart had already made this claim years ago and it was pretty well accepted as factual. It was also documented in Wheelmen.
Not certain why it is getting recycled now, other than another rider is making the same claim. If anything, it speaks to the media's need to generate "headlines" when there is no news. |
|
| Just say "NO!" to WCP!!!!
|
|
|
79pmooney
Posts:3180
|
| 12/17/2013 02:21 PM |
|
C.K., this isn't drug related, but it could be read as more evidence arguing for a lifetime ban for the rider in question. May not be new evidence, but it does remind us (and I am sure USADA is also noticing) that LA's behaviors of questionable ethics and legality involving large sums of money have been happening over a 13 year span (not counting his comeback).
Ben |
|
|
|
|
Cosmic Kid
Posts:4209
|
| 12/17/2013 02:25 PM |
|
No, I understand that it is not drug related, but my point was simply that this has been known for awhile. So why is it "news" again simply because Gaggiolli opened his yap?
I'm not excusing what he did in the slightest, but there is also a long history of similar incidents in cycling. |
|
| Just say "NO!" to WCP!!!!
|
|
|
Oldfart
Posts:511
|
| 12/17/2013 04:16 PM |
|
No one has ever fixed a soccer or boxing match eh. Or any other sporting event.
|
|
|
|
|
Dale
Posts:1767
|
| 12/17/2013 04:20 PM |
|
Sorry, CK, there are no other cases where a rider bribed another rider or team to win a million dollar insurance policy. There are plenty of of times when a rider gifted another competitor a win but the prize money remained the same-- it just went into a different persons pocket.
In the Triple Crown it was a million dollars if -7 won and nothing if Gaggioli or Phinney took a win.
Insurance fraud for a million dollars is not the same as a rearrangement of the podium with net zero dollars difference to the purse. LA is lucky the statute of limitations is up… this one is a felony with potential jail time. |
|
|
|
|
ChinookPass
Posts:809
|
| 12/17/2013 04:42 PM |
|
Just out of curiosity, why don't we see this brand of collusion in, say, the horse racing triple crown, where the prize only exists if someone fulfills a specific and unlikely requirement? I think if there were suddenly a bunch of triple crown winners, the prize would go away.
Which is what appears to have happened in cycling. They colluded to get the prize, and now it is no longer offered.
I was barely aware of bike racing at the time, but it seems natural. This million dollar prize drops out of the sky, someone may as well win it and spread it around in the process. It's obviously $4itty from a sporting perspective but it's natural that it may have gone down that way. |
|
|
|
|
Cosmic Kid
Posts:4209
|
| 12/17/2013 04:48 PM |
|
Money exchanges hands all the time in cycling. How about Vino's LBL wi as but one (recent) example.
Or how about the fixed finish for the 2000 OLY games w/ 3 Telekom riders up the road? |
|
| Just say "NO!" to WCP!!!!
|
|
|
Dale
Posts:1767
|
| 12/17/2013 05:01 PM |
|
Insurance fraud v. rearranged podium. If Vino dug into his pocket to buy a win the only people who had a financial disruption was Vino and whats-his-name. An insurance company didn't get fleeced
|
|
|
|
|
79pmooney
Posts:3180
|
| 12/17/2013 05:15 PM |
|
I also see a difference between deals made before the event starts and deals made as a race unfolds. Deals like "I won't drop you if you don't sprint" to allow both to stay away are as old as the hills and will never go away. That's bike racing. But spreading a few hundred thou $s to predetermine a race and rob a promoter of a mill? That's pretty different.
Ben |
|
|
|
|
longslowdistance
Posts:2881
|
| 12/17/2013 05:27 PM |
|
There was a "shocked! shocked!" NY Times article decades ago in the amateur days about combines in US crits. Riders would agree to work together who weren't on the same team. The Times was astounded, outraged, gobsmacked. Seems silly.
To be a devil's advocate, it's the insurance company's job to know the true odds taking all factors into account, so surely they considered a fix and wrote an exemption in the contract or figured that into the premium.
Like getting an insurance settlement, winning a Big Race creates money where money wasn't - in endorsements, bonuses, etc. |
|
|
|
|
Orange Crush
Posts:4499
|
| 12/17/2013 05:43 PM |
|
Posted By Frederick Jones on 12/17/2013 05:27 PM
Like getting an insurance settlement, winning a Big Race creates money where money wasn't - in endorsements, bonuses, etc.
As in this?
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/325230/sports/othersports/olympics-ioc-has-over-500m-to-split-among-governing-bodies
Big Name athetes winning draws in big money for respective sporting organizations. So lets make sure they win and don't get caught. |
|
|
|
|
Cosmic Kid
Posts:4209
|
| 12/17/2013 08:03 PM |
|
We can agree to disagree re: whether there is a difference in what he did vs Vino et al. I understand your guys' points, but don't necessarily agree. But I get it.
My main point really was that this is NOT news. It has been known for years. |
|
| Just say "NO!" to WCP!!!!
|
|
|
Dale
Posts:1767
|
| 12/17/2013 08:33 PM |
|
We're not going to 'agree to disagree' you're wrong and I'm right… simple as that 
As far as it being new news, Tilford talked about this a few days ago.
http://stevetilford.com/2013/12/14/gaggioli-tells-his-role-in-the-million-dollar-paydaypayoff-forby-lance/
"This is when I realized it was fixed. Coor’s Light put their riders at the front and were rotating “chasing”. But the deal is they weren’t chasing at all. That wasn’t the sign though. The sign was that Davis Phinney was rotating in the “chase”, even though 100% for sure they were going to be working for him if it came down to a sprint. I knew that they had been bought." |
|
|
|
|