The Threat Within

Pat McQuaid is concerned about what the future holds for competitive cycling, especially in light of the scandals that rocked the pro cycling world in 2006 — Operación Puerto and the Floyd Landis case. From an Agence France Presse article quoted on Yahoo Sport, comes this:

“If we continue like this, we run the risk in four or eight years’ time of no longer being an Olympic sport,” UCI president Pat McQuaid said in an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt Friday.”If the International Olympic Committee had to comment on our Olympic status after the Floyd Landis and Fuentes affairs, I don’t even want to think what it would have decided.”

Whether cycling will continue as an Olympic sport is not McQuaid’s only concern. He also worries about how recent scandals may impact sponsors’ decisions to support professional cycling, saying:

“I don’t think they’ll again accept another similar crisis,” he said in reference to the positive doping test provided by Landis, the winner of the 2006 Tour de France, and the dismantling of the blood doping network organised by Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes.

Christian Prudhomme, director of the Tour de France, has other concerns. Like how to make sure the 2007 Tour de France can completely escape the taint of doping. A number of articles in the last week have noted that Prudhomme will try to block riders who have been accused in the Operation Puerto investigation from riding in the 2007 Tour — even if no charges have been filed against the riders.

According to an Associated Press article:

Cyclists like Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso could be expelled from this year’s Tour de France even without evidence from the Spanish doping investigation, race director Christian Prudhomme said.

Prudhomme said the Spanish investigation known as Operation Puerto, in which 56 riders were allegedly given performance-enhancing drugs at a Madrid clinic, isn’t likely to be wrapped up by the July 7 start of this year’s tour.

“We reserve the right to take away riders’ invitations — their names won’t mean a thing,” Prudhomme said Saturday. “We are prepared if riders that are not permitted to race want to take legal action.

Professional cycling is under attack. Make no mistake about it. Doping is a scandal that the cycling world just can’t seem to shake, no matter what. But it’s not just the doping scandals that threaten the very existence of the sport. The actions of specific individuals in positions of influence threaten to do as much or more damage than any rider caught doping ever will.

McQuaid worries that two cases — neither of which is settled — could have an impact on whether Olympic cycling will continue to exist. And he worries about how these scandals can affect sponsorship of the sport.

But shouldn’t he also be concerned about the fact that so far no charges against any cyclists have emerged from the Puerto investigation, and that many of the riders implicated have been cleared to begin racing again? The impact on all these riders, famous or not so famous, has been pretty huge. For some — perhaps most — it’s meant that they’ve been unable to ply their trade for the last six months.

It’s quite likely that many — if not all — of the riders implicated in the Puerto investigation will never be charged with a doping violation. The exception may be Jan Ullrich, whose DNA is being tested to see if it matches DNA of some stored blood seized from Dr. Fuentes, the physician at the heart of the scandal.

And the Landis case is far from clear-cut, and far from settled, despite McQuaid’s comments to the contrary. From where I see it, there’s an even chance (perhaps a better than even chance) that Landis may ultimately be exonerated. I would hope that were the IOC to reconsider the status of cycling as an Olympic sport, they would look at all the evidence. An accusation is not the same as proof.

But the behavior of people like McQuaid, on the other hand, does its fair share to put cycling into disrepute. Constantly crowing about the latest doping accusations, and proclaiming the accused guilty (as a number of highly placed officials have in the past) tars and feathers those accused. But it also tars and feathers the sport as a whole.

When information is leaked to the press, despite rules to protect confidentiality, a perfect environment is created to damage both the accused individuals and the sport. The more people hear about supposed cheats within cycling, the more people will think that the sport is dirty. Perhaps it is, but is the problem as endemic as those in power would lead us to believe? I think not.

The people who could tell us just how many confirmed cases of doping occur during the year (WADA) don’t even include one of the most important statistics for gauging the problem in their annual report. That would be the matter of how many B samples confirm the A sample results. Dick Pound and others would have us believe it’s virtually always the case. But without the numbers to back that theory up, we really don’t know, do we?

Barring riders from competing based on unproven accusations, as Christian Prudhomme would do, harms the sport, too. Imagine how the 2006 Tour would have been different had riders accused, but not found guilty, been allowed to race. Should riders who have been proven dopers be sanctioned and barred from racing? Certainly.

But accusations aren’t proof, and keeping riders from competing who haven’t been found guilty hardly seems sporting. That basic unfairness doesn’t escape the notice of fans, who may well decide the sport is a farce and turn their backs on cycling. So Prudhomme’s own policies and actions may, in the end, be detrimental to cycling as a whole.

Christian Prudhomme, on the other hand, inadvertently offers up a suggestion on how to eliminate one’s competition, should the Tour de France organization persist in continuing with the idea of keeping riders accused, but not found guilty, of doping out of the race. And that is this: Accuse your rivals of being dopers, or accuse them of being the suppliers so that others can dope.

Remember: Almost 60 riders suffered from the accusations by being barred from various races. Some riders couldn’t compete at the Tour not because they were accused, but because so many riders from their team were accused that there weren’t enough riders for the team to race. So if all it takes is an accusation to keep riders from racing, what’s to stop unscrupulous teams from smearing the names of their rivals just to keep those riders out of races?

It’s not like we haven’t seen officials smearing the names of riders without any evidence — or at least, any admissable evidence (second- and third-hand hearsay probably doesn’t count as admissable I would guess). Let’s see, who could’ve done that in the last year? Not Dick Pound. Not Pat McQuaid. Not Christian Prudhomme. No. Not at all.

Is doping a threat to cycling? Yes. Is it the only threat to cycling? No. There are those on the inside who, by their own behavior, do as much to damage the sport as anyone found guilty of doping. For the good of the sport, they need to change their ways. If they can’t, they should be replaced.