Matt DeCanio Press Release, Its long, covers old ground, but some may not have seen it Options

[Cowboy]

I hadnt realised your bike magazines werent advertising the David Walsh book - do you think they would accept the adverts if they were submitted? Id have thought VN was a good place to sell a book like that.

Deplorable Conditions.

So many cycling fans around the world are getting up to ride their bikes today and to check out the latest in the news about cycling trying to find something good to improve their mood and to take their minds off the stresses in their work and what do they read? More about doping in cycling. Many are saying just get over it, everyone dopes let me just enjoy my sport, and many are saying this is b.s. I am tired of cycling and things need to change!

What is really going on? Well the truth of what is really going on is getting through on a very limited basis. You have those on the outside telling everyone that nothing is changing and you have the feel gooders telling you everything is improving. Ask yourself, “If we could trust the cycling media, wouldn’t From Lance to Landis be sold on VeloNews?” No it can’t be sold there because we are being manipulated by the system. I spoke to VeloNews and they said that they were scared of getting sued.

So now we have a system that is controlled by dishonest rich dopers with powerful lawyers who will do everything to stay in power and they will sell everyone out, and it doesn’t matter of the next generation fall to the wayside in either their anti-doping education or protection!

Go ahead people and blame the next doping positive on that man who wants to keep you down. That man is Lance Armstrong, and let’s not forget Tomas Weisel the owner of USA Cycling who are basically one.

These are the ones who are doping, covering up doping, or know it exists and their only purpose in life is to keep the system going, financially productive, and to stay in power. They will do anything to remain on top, and they will do everything including making sure you are fired or homeless to be on top.

Lance Armstrong told Prentice Steffen that he was going to take his house and take down Vaughters’ team if he didn’t retract his statements for Christ’s sake! Prentice Steffen didn’t write a word of his retraction statement. Dr. Steffen was correct, the USPS was supporting the use of EPO and the firing of him is proof. The American public was manipulated by the corrupt persons, LANCE ARMSTRONG and MARK GORSKI.

The same man who fired him Mark Gorski was a member of the 1984 Olympic Team that was blood doping, and he fired a man who was against blood doping. Do the math, and if Mark Gorski didn’t support doping, why would he testify on behalf of Adham Sbeih who tested positive for the use of EPO?

And yet the cycling base will smile in the face of Gorski and sport the USPS jersey or Discovery jersey with pride. WAKE UP!!! Can you hear me?

The problem is the underlying reoccurring nightmare stems from the evil and corruption in humanity and those who will do anything for success. These are the same people who are doping and the same people who eventually come into power to tell you the system is improving.

Wake up America! Look at the situation with Rock Racing! Here you have Frankie Andreu who was fired by Toyota United after he testified against Lance Armstrong in the SCA Promotions Trial. Did you know that Sean Tucker who runs the Toyota United Pro Cycling Team has ties in the past with Armstrong? From 1994-1995 while racing as a professional cyclist, Tucker served as President of MG Sports Marketing, where he created and implemented various sports marketing programs for companies. In addition, he secured sponsorship deals and speaking engagements for a variety of athletes, including Indy car champion Scott Pruett and then newly-crowned world road cycling champion Lance Armstrong.

And you wonder why Frankie got fired while trying to clean up cycling?????!!!!!!!!!

So Frankie battles back and continues to oppose doping and joins Rock Racing only to be undercut again by another sponsor who is sympathetic to doping.

Michael Ball has knowing allowed Kayle Leogrande to continue racing even after failing an EPO test and after his rider admitted to the use of EPO to members of his team.

Rock Racing is secretly supporting doping period. So moving on to Toyota United, who also has doping riders on their team, as one rider has admitted to me in person that he is, “No angel and that he will be doing whatever he has to do in 2008.” So scratch off Toyota United for being some kind of model program against doping. They are part of the problem, just as many other pro teams are even though that is not what they tell you in the media.

Moving on to Kelly Benefit Systems and Slipstream, yes you have 2 clean programs or teams that are trying to be clean, yet they will not hire me, a rider who is obviously more than qualified to race as a pro cyclist either because of an anti-doping website as in the case of KBS or because I have been out of the sport for too long. Please keep in mind I asked to be tested in a lab and if my numbers couldn’t beat riders on the team, I wouldn’t ask to be added. Still I got no response and I am sidelined, unable to race to help clean up the sport.

Is my non-hiring to Slipstream because I didn’t get along with riders in the past in the media such as David Zabriskie who was quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune Article that I was part of a group who were “Bitter Crackpots”, yet lets not forget after David bashed us in the media, his friend and training partner Floyd Landis tested positive and David’s teammate Ivan Basso were pulled from the Tour de France.

Or am I not riding because Christian Vandevelde doesn’t want me there who told me on the national team that I shouldn’t be talking about doping way back in 1997 when I was trying to write for USA Cycling about the doping that was happening on my team in Italy? Or maybe that Christian feels uncomfortable because in the past he told me that everything I witnessed in Italy was spot on and that he was going to see if riders were dying from the doping to make his decision. Christian is a part of that 1999 Tour de France team that we saw Frankie Andreu admit to using EPO because he couldn’t keep up and the same 1999 tour where Armstrong’s “B” samples still came up POSITIVE.

Then you have Tom Danielson on the team who basically came out of nowhere to dominate the racing scene from a struggling mountain bike racer to a grand tour rider with the help of Rick Crawford, a coach who has admitted to having his riders use blood spinners in the past in a heated email confrontation claiming, “Is that all you got?” When David Clinger told me in confidence that Crawford had asked him to purchase blood spinners to be used in conjunction with doping.

But still Tom is moving onto an anti-doping team to prove that he doesn’t want to dope and wants to prove that he is clean, now pointing the finger to Johan Bruneel, and saying to me at Interbike, “That is the guy you have to go after.” Bravo Danielson for telling us where to go but we already knew that.

Too bad Trek Bicycles which who hasn’t purchased one, is the first to jump on board to sponsor a team wrapped in doping controversy in the past with Vino testing positive for blood transfusions and Astana constantly turning a blind eye to keep doping riders on their team and competing.

But should we trust that Trek Bikes has the best intentions for the sport of cycling? Not when secretly recorded conversations involving Greg Lemond surface with Oakley Rep Stephanie McIlvain talking about Armstrong admitting to using 5 performance-enhancing drugs in the hospital room to hear about the phone calls Greg received when he made comments in the media about Lance Armstrong and him working with a doctor who was later found guilty of teaching riders how to use EPO. Yes that man is Dr. Ferrari, and Trek Bikes might as well sponsor him too. He would be a good guy to have on that bike, after he got out of jail for teaching riders to use EPO.

Was Greg wrong then? No, and he isn’t wrong now. Yet, everyone jumps on the Armstrong 7 tour band wagon and blindly supports a man, whose own cancer growth could have been caused by doping and accelerated by the use of EPO as new medical documents are proving. How quick everyone forgets the true tour champion? Or how quickly everyone lumps Lemond in with the rest of the dopers. Do you not know that Lemond had a VO2 max of over 90? Even Aerospace Engineering was quick to tell me that Lemond was a doper, and that the manager had Armstrong’s and Bruneel’s phone number in his phone.

DO I CARE?

Greg Lemond can’t sponsor me, because of a bind that he could lose his bicycle company because Trek doesn’t want anyone to talk bad about Armstrong because he sells a lot of bikes. Well stop buying the bikes people, because ultimately are the ones to blame for the sport being destroyed because now you know.

The industry is run by people who support doping period. The cycling fans are blinded by the industry and support doping by default. The anti-dopers are kicked out of the sport, and the sport stays filled with doping. The next generation grows up and gets an education behind the scenes that if you want to be a pro rider you must dope. Do you really think that the Olympic Training Center is teaching athletes to avoid doping? Do you really think their is really an anti-doping educational system in place now? HELL NO THERE ISN’T.

The USOC knows what is going on and in the past they have supported doping proven to us by Dr. Exum, who has gone against everyone including Travis Tygart believe it or not who once protected the lies told by the United States Olympic Committee.

SO DO YOU REALLY FEEL SAFE WITH USADA KNOWING THAT?

If you think things are changing guess again. Nothing is changing and nothing will until you see changes.

We need to see that USA Cycling is admitting their faults of the past and pulls Eddie B [who told a member of the SU team when asked if he is the father of blood doping in America, “Yes, I am” a week ago at a track in California], out of the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame.

Let’s see a public apology from USA Cycling for doping riders Erik Kaiter and Greg Strock instead of paying them off behind our backs to the sum of $250,000 each.

Not to mention offering letters of recommendation to Rene Wenzel who was one of the coaches giving the riders injections, and continuing to promote Chris Carmichael’s training program to every new rider to the sport when USA Cycling knows that Chris was a coach who injected Greg Strock with a substance he called, “An Extract of Cortisone.”

Until the truth comes out and Armstrong and the rest fall to disgrace and the true heroes of the sport such as Lemond are allowed to speak freely about doping and what it takes to win the Tour de France clean, and riders like me are continued to be forced to the sidelines either by doping pro teams, or anti-doping pro teams with no courage, nothing will change.

As I said before the sport is suffering from Deplorable Conditions and I want to see a change. When is it going to happen, and who is going to lead the way? I certainly have tried but have failed so who is next to come forward and to make sacrifices for the sport?

We need to hold accountable everyone who supports doping.

We need to boycott their products.

We need to demand change.

We need to demand that truths including that of USADA and their history be made in a public statement. We need to demand that Tammy Thomas be allowed to be able to speak in truth of what she was allowed to do by USA Cycling, as well as all athletes who choose to come clean to receive amnesty.

Unless we do these things above, then we all might just might as well quit racing our bike forever. I am certainly on my last wind and am reaching my breaking point.

Ask yourself are you going to stand up to the system as an educated person and say, “I see what is happening and it needs to stop!” Or are you just going to continue to complain and watch for the rest of your life the same headlines on VeloNews forever, “So and so tests positive and claims that the labs are corrupt and faulty, and that the world is on a witch hunt against him?”

Chances are, this email will never make it past an inbox and the reason for that is because the system has control over you.

Lil’MATT
STOLEN UNDERGROUND
www.su13.us
“We Ain’t Rookies, We Veterans Main.”

P.s.
Anyone who says I am a bitter crack pot, or wants to oppose one thing in this release as not accurate I will challenge them to a lie detector test, and will happily see them in court. I will testify under oath and bring all parties to the table to prove I am correct and that I am not lying about one thing. I am 100% accurate and what you have read is the truest thing you have ever read.

[Christopher]

Wow, does this guy need some media training.

It's a shame. I pretty much believe most everything he's written here (hello, Mr. Armstrong! my, what effective software agents you've got!), but his message is so ineffectively delivered that he damages his cause and case by laying it out in the manner he does.

Not that I blame him. He's kind of like the anti-Chicken Little. Instead of shouting that the sky is falling while it isn't, he's shouting that the sky is falling while everybody else pulls it down.

[Kennf]

He's been doing this for years with his website. I think his intentions are basically good, but my god, he comes off as a nut job, and anyone who ever talks to him winds up being mentioned on his blog. I'm sure that a few years ago a lot of teams blackballed him because of his anti-doping crusade, but on the other hand, any team would be justified in not returning his calls 'cause he's so ... rabid?

He could be much more effective (and possibly employed) if he had more polish and political tact.

[formerlyfit]

Wow, does this guy need some media training.

It's a shame. I pretty much believe most everything he's written here (hello, Mr. Armstrong! my, what effective software agents you've got!), but his message is so ineffectively delivered that he damages his cause and case by laying it out in the manner he does.

Not that I blame him. He's kind of like the anti-Chicken Little. Instead of shouting that the sky is falling while it isn't, he's shouting that the sky is falling while everybody else pulls it down.

You're right. While some of his claims may be fairly wild, he could deliver an important message if his prose style didn't make him appear hysterical.



Now if only the UCI could only get those anti-anti-doping bots into the computer systems of l'equipe and the German press, why the doping problem would disappear overnight.

This post has been edited by formerlyfit: Jan 8 2008, 03:23 AM

[Steve in ATL]

He could be much more effective (and possibly employed) if he had more polish and political tact.

Aaaand that's it in a nutshell. The cycling world (from a team perspective) is a very conservative one from the standpoint of sensitivity to embarrassing the sponsor. Ask Dave Clinger. Decanio is a loose cannon. THAT is why teams will not talk to him. Simply put, HE is his own wort enemy, not his message. After the Sierra-Nevada mess, no one will ever touch him again, and it's his own damn fault.

The self-righteous shtick from someone who swipes images off the internet and then photoshops his company logos on them (and on half-nekkid women too - bonus!) just rings of a *bit* of hypocrisy, too.

[hakka_lugi]

After the Sierra-Nevada mess, no one will ever touch him again, and it's his own damn fault.

Please forgive my ignorance on this...but what happened w/ K-SN and this guy?

[Steve in ATL]

Please forgive my ignorance on this...but what happened w/ K-SN and this guy?

S-N hired him right after he cleared his suspension, and then fired him two weeks later. They asked him to take down his website (or, actually, I think they asked him to *tone* it down - remove accusation against specific riders, etc), and he sent around a (typically) unhinged e-mail, and then published all the e-mails that flew back and forth between S-N management and himself. It was like watching a train wreck in SloMo.

This is a decent summary, although it lacks the unhinged goodness that was published on SU.

[zekeydekey]

Seems like a guy who is pissed off. As he has first-hand experience, he certainly might just be telling it like it is. Obviously career limiting, and probably not the choice most would make, but certainly doens't mean anything as to whether what he says is true.

I think as adults we can get a little rattled by uncompromising personalities. Not always a good thing.


This post has been edited by zekeydekey: Jan 8 2008, 04:14 AM

[shag]

When will DeCanio realize there is (or at least should be) a difference in how you write a "press release" as compared to how you write a "text message to my homies"?

[D-Queued]

...just rings of a *bit* of hypocrisy, too.

Well, then he clearly does not pass muster for posting on this site as he would need a lot more than a bit to belong.

I used to think the guy was a little out there.

I think one of my first posts here (?) commented on his poor messenger abilities.

As I read this, however, I am astounded at how current it is and how factual it is. Now we know how much the payoff from USA Cycling was. What that underscores is just how many people out there are willing to share information with someone that is a clear telegraph.

Quoting Eddie B from a week ago? Amazing.

Cowboy -- the only controversy you cite was over the lack of advertisement in VN? Understated, or what?

Dave.

[Cowboy]

Cowboy -- the only controversy you cite was over the lack of advertisement in VN? Understated, or what?

Dave.

!

I've been an admirer of Matt DeCanios ballsy stance for a long time now, had read a lot of his postings and had assumed many others on here would have done the same so a lot of it is stuff he mentioned previously - bikemagazines not advertising Walsh's book was something new to me though

I'd love for him to be a regular poster on here, someone with more inside knowledge and not afraid to spill the beans. The moderators might not be so enamoured of the idea though!

This post has been edited by Cowboy: Jan 8 2008, 10:06 AM

[sundaymorning]

DeCanio has been through the wars before, he's had to tone down his site in the past. He can put it out there and and have a good idea of any retaliation that will come. The Race Clean site went through the same thing, it collapsed under the pressure and the gossip has never come back.

I don't see why his writing style would hurt him, that seems to me to be of no consequence. He runs into problems when he makes it personal. I agree with the above sentiments, there are a few things that are keeping him from Slipstream. Hell, Slipstream cut loose talented riders this offseason. Anyway, I understand that DeCanio is feeling cut out of the scene and sees Slipstream as his only hope, but that ain't gonna happen.

Velonews has not been afraid to publish doping allegations, witness the Whitney Richards allegations they published against Rasmussen last year. I don't think anyone would be surprised that they treat the L-Factor (as Steve likes to call him) differently, though.

He'd never make it here, Cowboy. I'd say Cyclingforums.com would probably work, though, from what I've read there recently.

[jimmypop]

Great message, horrible format, and he loses some perceived credibility because of it. Also, the message would be strengthened if he'd separate the persecution bit from the rest of it. Campaigning for martyr status is a surefire way to get ignored.

Seeding him info (as opposed to a more mainstream mouthpiece such as Walsh), though, is clever. I'm not sure if he's ever been debunked, but if one of his sources does happen to get outed, then the source can claim that he's a nutter.

[CAMPYBOB]

what a whiner.

[jimmypop]

what a whiner.

You're more clever than the average troll, but a troll nonetheless.

[Steve in ATL]

what a whiner.

"And that ain't nothin'"

[Hombre]

I am sure that kids like VandeVelde will NEVER speak to Matt again. If you say something offhand and interbike and then find it all over the internet, courtesy of Mr DeCanio, as if Christian KNEW and Wanted his words, impugning someone else's reputation, geez.

DeCanio is a nutter. Nuff said.
Like the fool in King Lear, there may be truth in what he says, but that doesnt make him not a fool.

[CAMPYBOB]

You're more clever than the average troll, but a troll nonetheless.

whiskey tango foxtrot? over.

[Velo]

what a whiner.

Nah, Lance, Floyd, Roberto, and Tyler are whiners. This guy's entertaining. Might or might not be right, but entertaining nonetheless.

[jimmypop]

Nah, Lance, Floyd, Roberto, and Tyler are whiners. This guy's entertaining. Might or might not be right, but entertaining nonetheless.

Also, I'd rather be pegged as a whiner than a fraud.