There’s a charming cycling expression, to “spit in the soup.” Virtualinguist describes it: “There are hardly any mentions on English Google pages, but there are a lot for the French equivalent ‘cracher dans la soupe’ on google.fr. It is usually translated into English as ‘bite the hand that feeds you’. In this cycling and doping story, Joe Papp admitted his guilt, didn’t try to fight it, and co-operated with the authorities, even though this turned his team-mates against him. He turned his back on cycling and his team mates, even though these had supported him and given him his livelihood in the past. This is ‘spitting in the soup’.
That’s a longwinded set-up to say that retired pro Phil Gaimon didn’t just spit, he crapped in the soup. In his new book, Draft Animals, he brought up again the suspicions that Fabian Cancellara had a motor in his bike when he dropped Tom Boonen on the Kapelmuur to win the 2010 Tour of Flanders
“When you watch the footage, his accelerations don’t look natural at all, like he’s having trouble staying on the top of the pedals. That fucker probably did have a motor,” wrote Gaimon in his book.
That is one large steaming, odiferous dump on one of the icons of the sport, a man revered for his strength and power in Classics and time trials, a legend that earned the nickname Spartacus. Fabian Cancellara was a superstar but Gaimon questions the validity of the effort.
“I’ve heard it talked about and I’m not going to name names but in pro cycling, everyone’s like, yeah, Fabian Cancellara probably had a motor for a bit,” said Gaimon. “Motors are not a thing, they never were a thing, but my feeling and the prevailing feeling was that it was him for a couple of races, then when it became half a scandal it was over.”
SO there you have it — a large turd right in the middle of Fabian Cancellara’s soup bowl. With some spit on the side.
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