So what happens when the anti-doping controllers show up in the wrong place not once, but three times, resulting in “missed tests” for an athlete? Well, if it’s the UCI, they might grudgingly acknowledge that a mistake had been made, but the person running the random testing program (or whoever’s responsible for coordinating the testing) suffers no real consequences.
If Bram Tankink had his way, however, that person would get a two-year suspension, just like the athletes who genuinely miss three doping controls would get. Susan Westemeyer of CyclingNews.com had a brief writeup of the contretemps earlier today.
UCI doping controllers arrived at Bram Tankink’s home in Lanaken, Belgium, last week to carry out a random test, only to find the Rabobank rider absent. Tankink was, at the time, riding in the Tour of Austria, a fact which had been acknowledged on his whereabouts form.
Filling in the whereabouts form “creates a lot of stress,” said the Dutchman on his personal website. “I try to be as correct as possible, since errors can have serious consequences.”
Over on Tankink’s personal web site, he tells the whole story (in machine translation). If I understand the story correctly, his wife retrieved a voicemail from some neighbors who were a bit freaked out by the appearance of two Russian-speaking anti-doping controllers. Despite having correctly filled out his whereabouts form, the UCI were looking for Tankink at home, rather than in Austria, where he was competing in the Tour of Austria.
The neighbors were a tad bit suspicious, as there apparently has been a rash of break-ins in their neighborhood. And the whole experience left Tankink’s wife so upset that she couldn’t sleep. And, if I’m understanding things right, Tankink couldn’t sleep much that night, either.
To say Tankink was upset would be an understatement. As he said on his web site.
It was indeed auditors. A mistake, but there would be no consequences for me. Errors?!!!
… Three serious errors means that I will be suspended. But this is now their third error by failing to look at my whereabouts information. I am absolutely for this system … But with such information and breach of privacy, I also want there to be absolute accuracy and discretion. I am furious, and that’s putting it mildly. I suggest suspending them for 2 years.
It reminds me of another incident a couple of years ago, involving another Rabobank rider who supposedly wasn’t where the anti-doping authorities “expected” him to be. That would be a certain Dane named Michael Rasmussen, who was summarily drummed out of the Tour. Rasmussen actually had provided updated whereabouts information for the last test he supposedly “missed” shortly before the Tour, but apparently someone at the UCI hadn’t bothered to check their fax machine.
A couple of years on and the UCI still can’t manage to locate cyclists — even when they have the correct information? What kind of idiots are running their testing program, anyway? Tankink’s right. There ought to be some real consequences for whoever is responsible.
[Hat tip to Jeff and to Whareagle, who pointed this story out to me.]
thus liveth the invasion of privacy for the effort at enforcing some ‘law’. Cyclists have become poor minions, while their colleagues in richer leagues continue to grow more wealthy….
Yes, Tankink was worried for his livelihood and the security of the income that supports his family. Yes, the UCI came clean and admitted their error(s) this time. No, the UCI did not apologize nearly enough, nor did they explain how the subject riders are to be assured this will not continue.
Why was Tankink apparently worried for his livelihood and the security of the income that supports his family? Could it be that he has witnessed the UCI, and associated alphabet soup, previously cover up bureaucratic mistakes that led to serious sanctions applied to fellow riders? That’s the roughly 10 million dollar question (for another rider) and one which Tankink didn’t necessarily want answered in his circumstance.
In a related subject, I also question when targeted testing crosses the line from being prudent to becoming a form of harassment? Various outlets are reporting 30+ tests in recent months for several riders, including LA, Fabian C, and Cavendish. When does excessive testing start to effect rider performance and, as a result, alter the outcome of races?
This is starting to show exactly why it’s a bad idea to have strict no tolerance policies with not enough accountability. Which is what the UCI and alphabet soups have had.
Jeff, those are good questions. I’ve never had to put up with testing like that, but it sure seems to me like the type of thing that would make me say, “F it. It’s not worth it.” Quite a few instances have seemed to be what most people would call harassment. And I’m sure at some point it has to affect performance at least a bit.
I’m kinda still expecting them to find some minuscule thing in one of Lance’s samples just so they can say they knew he was cheating all along.
I meant to add to that last point that wasn’t there a discussion a while back about the odds of false positives and how the alphabet soup pretends they don’t exist? Maybe that’s kind of what some of them are hoping for. Do enough tests and one’s bound to show a false positive eventually.
I hate to think they’re really that bad, but they haven’t exactly earned my trust.
First, hello to anyone who still remembers me around here.
This does not sound like a big deal. The cops go to the wrong address all the time. Sometimes when they do, they break down doors and scare the hell out of innocent people, which of course is a bad thing. But here it sounds like the UCI cops went to the wrong address, asked questions of the neighbors, then left, without breaking down any doors.
Who has a right to get upset about this? Absent more information, I don’t see why Tankink’s neighbors should be upset by the appearance of Russian-speaking UCI officials (where I live, about 20% of the population speaks Farsi, and you don’t see me getting freaked out). Even if the neighbors had some reason to be freaked out by Russian speakers, the fact is that UCI inspectors can be expected to show up at Tankink’s house (speaking any number of languages) at any time of year. It is hard to see why the neighbors would be upset that the inspectors were present when Tankink was absent … unless of course Tankink’s neighbors care deeply about world anti-doping and freak out when the ADAs fail to do their job correctly. If this is the case, then Tankink’s neighbors should be no more upset about this incident than you or I, and in fact they should post on this blog.
Obviously, Tankink wasn’t there, and it appears that Tankink’s wife was not there either, since she learned of the incident over voice mail. All things being equal, if someone knocked on MY door asking for me to pee into a cup, I’d just as soon not be at home, especially if I had a good excuse for not being home. Ken S., I understand your concern about false positives, but you can’t have a false positive without something to test falsely. If I were a cyclist concerned about false positives, I’d be overjoyed when the UCI cops knocked on the wrong door and failed to collect my sample.
OK, sure. I see the irony that the athletes are subject to strict liability when it comes to so-called performance-enhancing drugs, while the UCI and the ADAs get to make mistakes without consequence. Of course, that’s all this is: ironic. There’s no logic in arguing that rules should be lenient in proportion to how often the cops are shown to have screwed up.
In the meantime, the Tour de France anti-doping guys have been AWFULLY quiet. Or so it seems. I’m not paying close attention. To the casual U.S. sports fan, all we know about the Tour is that Lance is racing in it.
Larry,
What I find interesting/frustrating about this story is that it’s yet another case of the athlete giving the UCI the right information, but somehow the UCI winds up sending the anti-doping controllers to the wrong location even so. And, from what Tankink says, this is the third time it’s happened to him. Which makes me wonder how often it’s happened to others. And whether or not the UCI has owned up to those errors, too.
It seems like there’s a communication problem between the UCI and their sample collectors that needs to be addressed. Until it is, I’m sure this won’t be the last time the testers show up in the wrong place. Even with a “perfect” system, I suspect there would be the occasional mistake.
But on to that big race in France. It’s a bit too quiet, as regards doping stories. While I think it would be great if the Tour actually completed without a single positive test result (and when was the last time that happened), there’s a part of me that suspects it’s only a matter of time before someone gets popped for a violation — or alleged violation — of some sort.
Rant –
Regarding the Tour, they used to say it didn’t really begin until the riders reached the Alps. Recently, it’s more like the Tour doesn’t really begin until the first big name is carted away in a police car. One frustrating thing is, the anti-doping forces never tell us what’s going on. So, we might be watching a race where no one is testing positive … and we won’t know for sure until a couple of weeks after the race is over.
Regarding UCI and ADA errors … you’ve been discussing THOSE for years now. Everyone agrees that the ADAs can catch only a handful of dopers. The ADAs say that their standards give the athlete a fair amount of leeway, in order to avoid any possibility of error, and as a result some athletes can cheat and get away with it. We’ve long suspected that some athletes get away with doping because the ADAs are not very good at their job. This story is an indication that the ADAs make mistakes that cause their system to be less effective. But the system is ineffective even when run according to design, so it’s hard for me to get excited about proof that they’re running their ineffective system ineffectively.
I get more excited about false positive test findings than false negative ones, but the errors in the Tankink case can (at worse) result in false negative findings. I’ll lose no sleep over this.
People can get freaked out about all sorts of things – remember a few years back where a Japanese exchange student and his US host student were going to a Halloween party, knocked on someone’s door when they had trouble finding the place, and the Japanese student was shot to death by the man of the house. He got off too, claimed he was frightened for his wife’s safety, so it was self defense. Now remember that there had been some break-ins in Tankink’s neighborhood: someone could well be worried about stranger people showing up when the neighbors are away enquiring about there where-abouts.
Then there’s the question as to what do incidents like this say about other areas of competence of WADA/UCI? If they can’t even look at the whereabouts forms an athlete files when they decide to test him, where else might they be screwing up and we don’t know about. We did get some hints or more from the Landis proceedings.
Oh, and welcome back Larry!
Larry,
If the Tour doesn’t start until there’s a doping accusation and there’s no doping accusations, did the Tour really happen? (Sort of like, “If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear, does it make a sound?”) 😉
Hwy I remember you Larry!! Nice to hear from you again, and yeah the UCI is just one big clusterf***. >vbs<
str
Welcome back, Larry.
Thanks everyone. Nice to be remembered.
Waaooooo, the famous Larry is back with his usefull analyse.
No doping case on TDF but Italian police just has arrested 30 riders, trainers, doctors and put in jail the EPO supplier of a trafic ring. Good job.
http://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme/breves2009/20090716_113115_le-coach-de-la-serbie-arrete.html
Jean C, good to see you.
Interesting article! I’m not the strongest reader of French, but it sounds like the Italian police have named the ringleader only, and the other 29 are unnamed and free for the moment. It would also appear that none of the 30 are presently racing in France.
We are now about half-way through the race, and there does not seem to be even a hint, a rumor, of a pending positive doping finding in this year’s Tour. This is a major news story in the making. However, it must also be said that no one has decided to make a news story out of this yet. Perhaps it’s too early. Perhaps there ARE rumors of major positive test results about to be announced. Perhaps no one wants to announce how “clean” this year’s Tour appears to be, and then be made to look foolish if there are positive test results.
In the meantime Jean C, are you distressed that Astana is dominating the race so far? Yes, the placement of the top Astana riders is pretty much a factor of the TdF’s decision to bring back the team time trial without placing limits on time gains and losses from that event. But if you look at the remaining race and ignore Ventoux, where are the opportunities for the others to catch up with Contador, Armstrong, Leipheimer and Kloden?
The remaining individual time trial is very short — not much time can be lost there. The climb to Verbier is a short Cat. 1 9 km climb — again, I can’t see a GC contender gaining more than 20 seconds on the field on such a climb. If I’m Evans or Sastre, I might consider something heroic on Stage 16 — just attack like crazy on Grand-Saint-Bernard like a Floyd Landis, and hope to hold the lead the rest of the way. It’s a desperation strategy, but where else do you see an opportunity to gain a few minutes on the field?
The race was clearly set up for Ventoux to decide the winner. It’s the perfect place to decide a winner between the top guys on Astana. It’s also possible that any one of the Astana guys could crack on Ventoux (particularly an old guy like Armstrong). But it’s inconceivable that all 4 Astana guys will crack. How much time could a Sastre, an Evans, a Vande Velde, hope to gain on Ventoux? I think that the rest of the field is too far back to benefit from Ventoux. In 2002 Virenque won the stage ending on Ventoux by 2 minutes, but if memory serves he gained that time before he hit Ventoux. In 2000, Armstrong and Pantani beat Beloki, Ullrich, Botero and Heras up Ventoux by less than a minute.
So unless I take Nocentini seriously, and absent something crazy, can’t we award the Maillot Jeune to Astana? And what do you think of that?
Jean,
Thanks for the link to the article. Interesting development.
Larry,
Good analysis. If you’re right, then it’s going to be very interesting to see how the various Astana riders race the penultimate stage. Will this be the day when the team spirit cracks? Or … ?
Which major news story are you referring to? The one that Jean has pointed out, or a situation involving Tyler Hamilton? I’ve got more about Hamilton for later, but I have to work the day job right now.
Rant –
I was referring to Jean C’s cited article, but in the world of anti-doping stories, there’s the news about Tyler Hamilton, and also the strange story of NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield.
Oh, and on the subject of the news-worthiness of there being no positive doping test results announced (so far) see the article by Bonnie Ford at ESPN: http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/tdf2009/columns/story?columnist=ford_bonnie_d&id=4332418. For those who do not know, Bonnie is one of the top 2 or 3 cycling journalists in the U.S., and I have a mad secret crush on her.
Oh. Now it’s just a mad crush.
Larry,
I don’t have yet changed. We all know that doping tests can just caught a few doped athletes, Marion Jones, Montgmery, Kohl, festina, Oil of Drugs,… are a proof of that.
We can have good hopes with biopassport, but still it is used no real case have been prosecuted, should we believe that no rider were using CERA on 2008 GIRO?
For the current TDF, we have to wait the power output of riders. If they are still at the same levels as the last 15 years, we will know that doping is still effectively used. No one could believe that doping is massively used by athletes and ineffective.
http://www.sportsscientists.com/2009/07/tour-de-france-2009-power-estimates.html
( old article http://www.cyclismag.com/article.php?sid=2500 )
Maybe it was not quoted in US press but Bordry was not satisfied by the work of UCI chaperones that were too relax with Astana. A second case was mentioned by german press, after TTT all the Astana riders go into their bus for a quarter leaving the chaperon outside!
Jean C, the U.S. press is completely focused on Lance. If Lance wasn’t in third place, we couldn’t be sure that there were even two other riders in the race!
Nice cite to Science of Sport. I read their stuff from time to time. I tried to post there once, but they’re not all that interested in discussion or in having their conclusions questioned. Still, I respect their work, though I don’t always agree with it.
As for whether doping is rampant … there’s no way to know. I don’t share your opinion regarding power output readings being the last word. I base my own opinion on my own assessment of the current state of the science of anti-doping. My personal opinion is that the science is not that good … and if it’s possible to cheat without being caught, then that’s what a lot of folks will do.