"It just goes to show what a team can accomplish for an individual", said Jacob Nestersmith the USPS's mental conditioning coach. "We really have come a long way in what we can convince people to do for someone who's famous."
While it is well known that the international cycling community has been plagued for years with performance enhancing drug problems, many are starting to worry about the use of mood altering drugs as well.
"We really have to step back and ask ourselves why this team continues to work like slaves for someone else in what is still considered an individual sport", sports psychologist Andrea McMahon noted in a phone interview today. "It seems very strange when you think of the many endorsements and book deals Lance Armstrong will get, while no one will remember the name of that other guy who keeps finishing second in the mountain stages because he was breaking the wind for the last 20 miles of the stage."
The use of mood altering drugs has been suspected, but according to McMahon the drugs would have too many other side effects. "Drug makers are constantly coming up with better and better common sense reducing drugs for use in the Marines, but many of them would cause serious performance issues in a professional sports application. I think a much more likely answer to this question could be found at the US Postal Service's cloning lab", said McMahon, referring to the well known cloning lab that the Postal Service was forced to create to avoid the violence that a job at the Post Office instigates in normal people.
The Gallup/SI poll shows cycling well ahead of many of it's competitors such as gymnastics and high school swimming, but far behind the number one team-like individual sport, professional basketball.
"The NBA has really taken it to a new level. We have definitely taken a page from the 90's Chicago Bulls with this year's USPS team", says Armstrong. "And even though I hold the yellow jersey right now, I could never have gotten this far without that Spanish guy on our team".
