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Monday's Mailbag: What is fair? Who is 'disgraced?' We have a winner

Published: Oct. 9, 2006

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

Due Process?
Dear Mark Bertram,
You are not alone on this(see "TheUCI is gonna do what?")."Guilty until proven innocent” is a terrible way for the UCI, or anyoneelse, to conduct business. Just ask Botero, Vino, Vino’s teammates and(apparently) Basso how they liked their forced vacations. Maybe someoneshould just accuse Pat McQuaid of something so we could suspend him fromhis job for a few years while we investigate. Hey, why not? He thinks it’sfair to do it to the riders.
Dan Thomas
Raleigh, North CarolinaMillar's moniker?
Editor,
Can we stop considering Miller a "disgracedcyclist?"I think what he did was horrible, but I give him huge credit for admittingand trying to help guide the youth of the sport away from doping.I'm in the U.S., not Britain, but I watched many high school football playersdo steroids while I was in high school. Maybe had they had guidancelike his they wouldn't have done these drugs.I think what David Miller did was horrible, but at least he had theguts to admit it and expose the problem. I have a ton of respectfor him now, and I do not consider him a “disgraced cyclist.” Lets saveterms like that for people like Jerome Chiotti and Tyler Hamilton.
Brett Luelling
Salem, OregonFair enough, although we have to disagree with you as far as Jerome Chiotti is concerned. In April of 2000, Chiotti decided to “come clean” completely on his own, without police present or a positive doping test hanging over his head. His was simply a fit of conscience. Unprompted, Chiotti announced that he had cheated on his way to winning the 1996 World Cross-country Mountain-bike Championship. Before the UCI or anyone else could respond, Chiotti, personally handed his world champion's jersey and medal to Thomas Frischknecht and stood up to take his lumps. If we can stop referring to Millar – whose confession only came after his arrest and a police discovery of empty EPO vials in his apartment – as “disgraced,” then we can certainly agree with those who say that Chiotti is a “hero.” - Editor

The Contest - a winner
Dear Readers,
We received a few hundred e-mails from readersoffering a guess of just who the mysterious pro' in the following photomight be:
We must have made it too easy for ya, because the majority knew thatit was Ron Kiefel and that the former 7-Eleven/Motorola/Coors Light pro was working on the expansion of his family's bike shop, Wheatridge Cyclery, in Wheatridge, Colorado. (We had smudged out the "Wheat Ridge Grange" sign in the background.)We got quite a number of cycling celebrity responses, including those from Sean Petty (no fair, Petty. You were the marketing manager for 7-Eleven back in the day), former Coors Light director Len Pettyjohn and film-maker Scott Coady (of "The Tour Baby!" fame). Interestingly, it was a group of current pro's - Will Frischkorn and Lyne Bessette included - whose entries were among the few wrong answers, suggesting that the man at the controls was none other than Trent Klasna, since Klasna runs a business involving back hoes and other heavy equipment. Of course, Kiefel was at the controls of a rental, as many of you noticed.After sorting through a host of interesting and amusing theories as to who it was (Klasna, Lance Armstrong, Bob Roll, Greg LeMond), a couple of suggestions that the guy leaning on the shovel was Floyd Landis and many suggestions as to what the back hoe was for (building a velodrome, burying syringes, digging up Jimmy Hoffa), we randomly selected Todd Mallow's name from among the correct responses. Drop us a line, Todd, and we'll get you a 2007David Brinton Heroes of Cycling Calendar.
Editor
The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.