Meanwhile, last night I went to see the movie "The Flying Scotsman" about Graeme Obree, the eccentric bicycling record setter.I'm not much of a movie critic, but this is no great movie. It is interesting enough, but given that one always knows the outcome in these kind of pictures, the movie must work harder to build the emotional tension. The movie "Miracle" comes to mind, in which the characters and the motivations of the folks involved in the Olympic Hockey upset of the Russians pretty much had me cheering and in tears. Nothing like that for the Scotsman.Relationships are superficial, even the protagonist, though ably acted, seems superficial. On the other hand, the cycling scenes are great and there is enough of an inherent story to have carried me along. And the story itself is one of the "Highs," the indomitable spirit that cycling can articulate.
That is one end of the bicycling world: the heroic, the eccentric, the appreciation for the pure love of the machine and the extraordinary feeling of release that I've come to love despite being anything but a champion. The other side of the bicycling world become more and more dispiriting. That dispirit carried today on the news that Ivan Basso now does admit to having been a participant in the Operation Puerto drug scandal.
Good for Basso for finally having come clean. but it took to long and there are too many others out there who haven't. My only complaint is that there surely was/is a culture of "performance enhancement" in the sport for a long time and it had to have been abetted by the teams themselves. They seem to be going Scott free. The Director Sportif, the doctors and the trainers on all of the pro teams should be punished when and if one of their riders turns up dirty. Now that Basso is in the open, can Floyd be far behind? and dare one say it: Lance?
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