Beginning Of The End Or Wake-Up Call?

by Rant on February 19, 2007 · 2 comments

in Doping in Sports, Floyd Landis, Tour de France

In an article published over at Sportingo, Rob Parisotto asks an interesting and important question: Are all these ad-hoc anti-doping programs being implemented by various cycling teams part of a trend that could lead to the demise of the current anti-doping system?

On the surface, the current trend, including the new program being implemented by Team Slipstream (powered by Chipotle), appears more like teams covering their collective behinds with the sponsors rather than any concerted attempt to undermine the anti-doping agencies.

With all the doping scandals that have rocked cycling over the last several years, sponsors are getting very nervous about putting up millions of dollars to fund cycling teams that may be juiced. One scandal is enough to drag the sponsor’s name through the mud. Given the public outcry against doping, this is not the kind of publicity most sponsors would want.

So the teams are trying to have good answers when Daddy Megabucks calls and inquires as to what steps his team is taking to keep the stench of doping at bay. “Not hire any dopers, sir,” is not an acceptable answer to Daddy Megabucks. Neither is, “We’re depending on the anti-doping agencies to keep things on the up-and-up.”

Daddy Megabucks wants to know what real, concrete steps to eradicate the scourge of doping are being taken by “his” team. He wants to hear the answer, “We’re on top of it, chief. We’re going to find the cheats and eject them before the anti-doping authorities get their grubby little mitts all over them.”

Perhaps it’s just the fear the Daddy Megabucks will call and inquire. But whatever the case, the most obvious reason for all these programs sprouting up is a case of teams playing the CYA game.

It’s not just teams with something to hide that are putting together their own anti-doping programs, it’s teams with reputations for being clean that are doing it. The taint of Operation Puerto — which has yet to lead to the ban of any athlete from any team from any sport covered by the allegations — is everywhere. Even before the allegations against Floyd Landis emerged, Operation Puerto had laid low some of the biggest names in the cycling. Some directly, and some because so many members of their teams were implicated that the team couldn’t field enough riders for events like the Tour.

It was an ugly start to the 2006 Tour. The ugliest since the Festina scandal in 1998. And despite the storybook nature of the 2006 Tour as it unfolded, the allegations that emerged afterwards added an even uglier ending. Team owners and management are running scared. Sponsors are nervous. Teams are scrambling to ensure their very survival.

It’s against this backdrop that teams like CSC and T-Mobile have implemented in-house versions of anti-doping testing. Slipstream chose another approach, going with an independent agency to do the testing. But no matter which approach a team takes, the first and foremost reason for implementing these programs is simple: Self-preservation. It’s about protecting the team and protecting the sponsors’ investments.

Doug Ellis, the New York investor who owns Team Slipstream, was candid about this in describing the new program as “an insurance policy.” It’s an insurance policy, all right. Insurance for the sponsors. A way to prove to them that the team will do anything to stay clean.

The one thing these programs aren’t about is protecting the riders. In all of these programs, riders who fail the tests for banned substances face the possibility of unemployment. Slipstream’s may be a bit better, because it has riders sit out for two weeks while further investigation and testing is performed, but the underlying threat of unemployment is still there.

And during the two-week period the rider sits out, he faces the very real possibility that he’ll be branded a doper in the public’s eyes, even if it turns out he isn’t. Perception is reality. And if the public perceives that Rider X has been caught doping, they’ll have their minds made up long before the truth of the matter is known. Just like happened to Floyd Landis.

Regardless of the truth of his situation, many people made up their minds almost as soon as the scandal broke. And it wasn’t in Landis’ favor, either.

But in thinking about the ad-hoc programs, there’s this small matter of unintended consequences to consider. Will the programs somehow throw the credibility of the anti-doping agencies’ efforts into doubt?

Ellis, Team Slipstream’s owner, thinks of their new program as being complementary to the anti-doping agencies’ programs. His team has gone so far as to ask WADA to audit their program’s records over time.

But with all these programs beginning to sprout, one might ask, “Why go to all this trouble if the current system is good enough?” And the answer could well be, “Well, if they need to take such actions, the current anti-doping system must not be working.”

And that’s true, at least to some extent. The current anti-doping system has flaws that need fixing. Standards need to be, well, standard. Labs need to use the same criteria to determine whether a sample is positive or negative. There should be no cases where an athlete could argue that under lab X’s standards his test was negative, but under lab Z’s standard he was positive. And yet, that is exactly one of the arguments in the Landis case.

According to the standards at UCLA and at the Australian anti-doping lab, Landis’ B sample would be judged negative. Restated: No doping offense. Under LNDD’s criteria, the very same data results in a positive. For a system that’s supposed to ensure fair competition, these differing standards hardly seem fair. And they go against one of WADA’s own goals, which is the “harmonization” of all anti-doping practices around the world.

The pressure these programs create could also serve as a wake-up call. The current system, entirely implemented and run by the anti-doping agencies isn’t working to prevent doping in sports. If it was, we’d be seeing less scandals over time, and to my eyes it seems like we’re seeing more.

They may be catching cheats (and probably at least a few innocent athletes, too), but they’re not stopping the problem. In the public’s mind, at least, they’re not stopping the problem from getting worse. Daddy Megabucks sees it that way, too. Which is why he’s putting pressure on the teams to do something.

A number of commentators have referred to the current anti-doping system as being like an employer drug screening program. That’s not exactly true, as it’s not the Tour de France organization (or any other race organizer) that employs the cyclists, it’s the teams. The penalties under the current system mean that someone found to be doping will be banned from all competition in their sport, not just from competing on a particular team.

These new programs actually are employer drug screening programs. The condition of employment on CSC, T-Mobile and Slipstream is that you submit to the program, and if you are found to be positive, you’re out. The important difference is that (in theory, at least) a rider dropped by one team could then go ride on another team. So if the rider was an innocent victim of a bad test, he could still ply his trade.

One problem with the team-based programs, as Parisotto notes, is the issue of transparency. Will these programs be completely hidden, with their results unknown and unknowable, or will the programs be conducted out in the open? If the programs are not open, that raises the question of whether or not they are being run fairly, and whether or not they are being run to cover up wrong-doing or to find and get rid of cheaters.

Parisotto notes that the East German system, which was well-known for its doping prowess, had an anti-doping testing program that rarely produced positive findings. And the few that were announced were most likely sacrificial lambs to keep the IOC at bay. So just having a program in place doesn’t ensure that the organization isn’t cheating. In Parisotto’s example, the point of such a program would be to give the appearance of addressing the problem while covering up a systematic, team-wide doping program.

The ADA programs are part of the solution, as they address the need to protect the sport, in general, by protecting the interests of the national and international athletic federations. The ad-hoc, individual programs implemented by various teams are geared towards protecting the team’s interests, which is to ensure that no one tarnishes the team or their sponors by testing positive. That can be complementary to the mission of the anti-doping agencies, as Slipstream owner Doug Ellis noted. It doesn’t have to be an either-or situation.

But the wake-up call is real. Change does need to happen. The steps taken by Team CSC, T-Mobile and Team Slipstream (powered by Chipotle) may be part of the overall solution to the problem of doping in sports.

In the end, I don’t think they’re a real threat to the anti-doping programs implemented by WADA, USADA or any other anti-doping agency. But what’s missing from both the ADA-based programs and the team-based programs is something important: real safeguards for the rights of the athletes. And it won’t be until those safeguards are in place that the anti-doping system will be fair and complete.

ORG February 19, 2007 at 10:37 am

Rant:

Doug Ellis, the money behind Slipstream, was intervewied by Velonews and said this:

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/11667.0.html

The ACE people come out of the Don Catlin lab at UCLA . They have come up with an innovative and solid, complementary approach to the way that anti-doping controls are done by the sport itself. I think that’s an important aspect – we’re not trying to take on the establishment and say you are doing it wrong. What we are trying to do is come with a way that enhances what [WADA and USADA] are already doing, because they themselves probably feel they are at a disadvantage because they don’t have the resources or money to test as much as needed to make the sport 100 percent clean.

We’re trying to carefully construct a program that they can be behind, officially or unofficially, and not feel like we are doing something that is slapping them in the face.

—–

Tygart said this in his recent DP interview:

http://195.5.122.46/displayarticle.asp?pk=10343

We have been investigating this concept for some time now. While the end goal of guaranteeing athletes that they are clean is a dream of ours, we are realistic enough to be candid about the complexities of this type of program.

We held our annual research symposium this year entitled “Intra-Individual Reference Ranges” to further explore the practical implications of this type of system based on personal parameters not simply whether a person passed a test or not. We will continue to fund research into this area and hope to establish a foolproof system that will not only allow athletes to say they have passed drug tests but to truly demonstrate that they are clean.

Of course, we are skeptical of most of the current models out there. Like BALCO, many of these programs essentially are pre-testing programs where riders do not compete when their parameters are off so that they are not detected by traditional drug testing. And, those whom it shows have doped should receive more of a consequence than merely sitting out of competition for a few days.

—-

Finally, Don Catlin said this about the Slipstream program:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/sports/othersports/13cycle.html

“I see this as a baby step, but an important step, in trying a new approach,” said Don Catlin, director of the U.C.L.A. testing lab.

————

Rant, stop me if too cynical … but is sure sounds like the ADA’s are all for doping testing to the nth degree AS LONG AS THEY DO IT. Otherwise, their purpose for existing, not to mention their budgets will be questioned.

Also, reading between the lines, their appears to be a bit of arrogance among the ADA’s (image that!)… the dopers are devising anti-doping programs!! How dare they!

What Pound, Tygart, Caatlin, et al, are afraid of is the sponsors will clean this up and they won’t be needed. Then, god forbid, they will have to get a real private sector job. You know those awful jobs, the one’s that often come with expectations of results and accuntability.

Better to have doping and a need for ADAs, then no doping and no need for the ADAs

How long until Dick Pound bashes these programs done outside his sphere on influence? And When he does, I’m sure he’ll remind us that East Germany had an anti-doping program in the 1970s/1980s and ask “how did that work out?”

Will February 19, 2007 at 2:04 pm

WADA appears to me as a for-profit business that outsources its services to nations around the world to detect (but not cure) drug abuse in sports.

I’d like to see the governing body of professional cycling take this service back in-house (as some professional sports do) where it can solve any abuse problems while also protecting the riders and sport as well.

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