'Contador: a perfect race car, constructed in the lab', 'The cyclists now are all robots'
Italian cycling legend, Moreno Argentin turned 50 years old today and used the occasion to criticise modern cycling.
"I thank my parents for letting me be born in that period. I was hungry. Cyclists today are already earning good money starting at the junior ranks. These are different times, they have it all already from birth," Argentin told La Gazzetta dello Sport.
"[Alberto] Contador. He is completely calculated, a perfect race car, constructed in the lab for one race only, the Tour. [Andy] Schleck is the same. They race predictably. [Miguel] Indurain, who dominated the Grand Tours in my time, I beat him in a Liège. I also succeeded at Milano-Sanremo, because I know the history of this sport. The cyclists now are all robots."
Argentin's career was not robotic and was at a time – 1981 to 1994 – when race radios were yet in existence.
Career highlights:
84 wins
1 World Championships (1986), Colorado Springs
9 Major Classics
- 4 Liège-Bastogne-Liège (1985, 1986, 1987, 1991)
- 3 Flèche Wallonne (1990, 1991, 1994)
- Giro di Lombardia (1987)
- Ronde van Vlaanderen (1990)
13 stages Giro d'Italia
12 days Giro's maglia rosa
2 stages Tour de France
2 Italian Championships (1983, 1989)
These days, he is busy building a sporting hotel with a velodrome in the Belluno province.
"In cycling today, you abide by the rules or you don't live. I answer only to myself. I am out of it by choice, and I am fine here, in San Donà di Piave, with my work," added Argentin.
"Only the UCI and its business count. Sponsors and cyclists don't have a right to speak. There is a false democracy in cycling, there is no willingness to change. It's all on the same level, the Grand Tours, the Monuments and races without tradition. But how is this?
"The Giro, the Tour and the major classics count, they are cycling's history, they bring people to the roadside. Now the UCI is levelling everything down. This is the reason why the organisers of the Giro and the Tour went to war.
"The [cyclists] have no personality because if they raise their voices, they will not race again. Take [Franco] Pellizotti. He lost the whole year for questionable value [biological passport - ed.], but says nothing, because otherwise..."
Argentin explained that cyclists need to work better as a group to confront the points raking system and anti-doping rules. However, in his opinion, cyclist are unable to come together to solve their own problems.