“CVV, Zabriskie, Danielson, while all clearly have a past…” (Cyclingnews 9/5/12)

So did Vaughters throw VandeVelde, Zabriskie and Danielson under the bus, or what?

I think this is how the powers-that-be want things to turn out-

“If everybody doped, then nobody doped.” Basically, you get people into the thinking that it’s a foregone conclusion that riders of that era doped, so does it make sense to individually vilify people, or do you say that’s in the past, people have changed, time to move on? It also reminds one of the famous “I am Spartacus” scene-

In truth, if Lance had been a better-liked member of the peloton, we might very well have seen something like the Spartacus scene, as in “I am Lance.” But within the bike racing community, Lance may have had all the friendships he could buy, and when the racing ended, so, it seems, has much of the loyalty and friendships to one of the greatest athletes in sports, doping or not.

This could be just the tip of the iceberg. It could suddenly become a negative thing for your career to deny doping, but handled properly, especially early on in the process, outing yourself could be beneficial. The unfortunate part of all this is that those who actually did ride clean… well, they didn’t get any respect back then, and they’re not likely to now. A lost generation, as they say. The credibility of anyone claiming to have ridden clean back in the day has been strained past belief.

Lance may have opened the door on this (it suddenly becoming “in” to admit to doping); his absolute intractability lent itself to people seeking a way to forgive those perceived to be more reasonable about such things.