Well, well, well. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? OK, a short while. But it seems like ever so much is going on, what with actual bike racing and all. Today’s big scary finish at the Tour de Suisse pretty much left me scratching my head. Mass sprints are always a dangerous thing, especially at the speeds ProTour riders go. I know the judges in Switzerland made the call that Mark Cavendish was to blame for the whole pile-up, but from the TV coverage, it sure didn’t look that way to me. I had the impression that Haussler was the rider who caused the whole mess, when he ran into Cav. A bit hard to tell whether Cavendish crossed in front of Haussler or Haussler ran into Cavendish, though. Water under the bridge, as my dad would say. Cavendish apparently is just banged up. I saw one report that suggests Haussler wasn’t quite so lucky.
Yesterday’s big cycling story was the uninvitation of the RadioShack squad to the 2010 edition of the Vuelta a España. Ah, the politics of cycling. Never a dull moment, to be sure. Johan Bruyneel was, predictably, a tad bit miffed by not getting the nod to send his cycle-bound warriors into action. Must have felt like a pretty big slap in the face, what with JB actually residing in Spain. Why on earth would they not invite one of the more powerful squads on the planet? Hmm. Let me think about that for a second.
There’s another story going on right now that might have a little something to do with the non-invite. Well, maybe. Nathaniel Vinton of the New York Daily News (and a bunch of other folks) reported last week that the Justice Department actually is looking into Floyd Landis’ allegations about doping at a certain squad in the early 2000s. Which makes me wonder: Is Unipublic (the promoter of the Vuelta) aware of something — a “worst case scenario” perhaps? — that the rest of us should keep our eyes on? After all, certain members of RadioShack are implicated by what Landis told various authorities. Perhaps the organizers don’t want to offer a coveted spot to a team that might be in hot water with the Feds (and I’m not talking about the former USCF) by the time the Vuelta gets under way in Seville come August 28th.
With a real, honest-to-goodness Federal prosecutor on the case, backing up BALCO-breaker extraordinaire Jeff Novitsky, there’s a number of folks who must be worried — and rightly so. They are sailing into choppy waters. Word on the street is that the usual suspects have lawyered-up, and the advice they’ve been given goes something like this: “Hey, if you want to lie to the fans, USADA, the UCI, or USA Cycling, be prepared for the negative publicity if you’re found out. But if you lie to the Feds, be prepared to meet the same fate as Marion Jones.”
Landis, himself, has lawyered-up, too, according to this article, with the same firm that has represented Greg LeMond in the recent past. Interesting turn of events, to say the least. No great surprise that Landis might have legal representation to help shield himself from the potential fallout from his cooperation with Novitsky and company. (Pretty ironic, too, that he received a “cease and desist” letter from the UCI for saying mean things about Hein Verbruggen. But it doesn’t appear to have been Landis who leaked the emails that started this whole ruckus in the first place. So, yeah, what he said about Verbruggen isn’t very flattering, but Landis wasn’t the one who put it out there for the media to latch on to, I don’t think. Of course, the leadership of the UCI never goes off half-cocked, do they Mr. McQuaid?)
Meanwhile, Barry Bonds actually caught a break from the legal system a few days back. Basically, the government was trying to get some evidence admitted in the perjury case against the former San Francisco slugger. The prosecutors were trying to prove, in a round-about way, that some samples which allegedly came up positive for banned substances belonged to Barry Bonds. Problem is, the person who supposedly took the samples from Bonds and took them to the lab won’t testify. As CNN reported on Friday:
[Greg] Anderson allegedly took urine samples and delivered them to a Bay-area lab known as BALCO. At issue in the appeal was whether the tested samples actually came from Bonds, and Anderson’s employment status at the time.
The appeals court concluded Anderson was an “independent contractor” — not directly hired by Bonds. Because Bonds also did not control the samples, the court reasoned, Anderson would need to testify in person on the material and the chain of possession.
The government said it would instead bring BALCO executive James Valente to the stand to testify Anderson told him the samples indeed came from Bonds.
The court ultimately agreed with the arguments presented by Bonds’ lawyers. “Because the government was attempting to use Anderson’s out-of-court statements to prove the truth of what they contained, Bonds argued that Anderson’s statements were inadmissible hearsay and that the lab results could not be authenticated as Bonds’ in that manner.”
Chain of custody? Where have I heard that before? I’ve got to wonder, if a CAS panel had been presented with the same evidence, would they have ruled in the defendant’s favor? I’m guessing not.
Meanwhile, there’s news that the International Olympic Committee is looking into whether platelet-rich plasma treatment (used by Dr. Anthony Galea on clients such as Tiger Woods) might unfairly enhance performance. The reason? The platelet-rich plasma apparently contains small amounts of human growth hormone. But it’s not entirely clear that the treatment actually speeds recovery or boosts performance. If enough athletes are trying it, and they believe it helps them get back in the game sooner, or perform better, I’d bet dollars to donuts that WADA will eventually add the treatment to their list of banned practices.
What? Me? A cynic? Perish the thought.
And finally, for tonight, anyway… Roger Marolt, writing in one of a certain cyclist’s hometown papers, points out that even if Lance Armstrong was dope-free in his record-setting seven consecutive Tour de France titles, that at least a few of those titles were won with a little “boost,” if you know what I mean. Interesting point he makes. With teammates who admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs during Armstrong’s epic quest, and given that cycling at the Tour is a team endeavor, one can hardly say that all seven victories are untainted by doping. Where I part company with Marolt is the distinction he draws based on whose name is on the trophy — an individual’s or a team’s. If a baseball player, or basketball player or football player doped during a championship run, I would be hard pressed to consider the championship untainted by doping. But fans look at the big leagues and they don’t generally trash an entire team for one individual’s choices. The individual athlete is usually the one who suffers the consequences.
Consider, though, that in track and field, when one member of a relay team tests positive the whole team usually gets disqualified for that individual’s indiscretion (assuming the others weren’t just lucky they didn’t get caught). Imagine what would happen if such a concept were implemented in the big sports. The pressure on each athlete to compete clean would be pretty huge. I’m not suggesting it would eliminate the use of steroids or other drugs, but peer pressure can be a wonderful thing.
Circling back to the whole RadioShack/Unipublic dust-up: With all the controversy swirling around in certain circles, I can well imagine why Unipublic didn’t want Team RadioShack at the Vuelta. Whoever said that there is no such thing as bad publicity didn’t foresee the problems in professional cycling. The Vuelta organizers just might not want all the drama that could come with a RadioShack appearance. Or it may be something much more petty. Who knows? The politics of cycling is never dull, that’s for sure.
[Hat tips to Austin Cyclist and eightzero for directing me to several of the articles I’ve linked to in this post.]
Maybe we’ll still see some team radioshack attacks during the Vuelta.. just not actually on the bike..
On the Cav vid.. they fined him for causing the crash? why would he cause his own crash? nobody threw their sunglasses at Cav after the fact.. so obviously riders didn’t blame him.. 🙂
Watching that Vid against the one where Keogh crashes out Bahati.. big difference.. primarily being Keogh got away with it and didn’t crash out himself.. Cav just seemed to be racing..
I would doubt that the good folks that bring us the Vuelta know anything that we don’t. They might have some suspicions, as do many, but I don’t think their on Novitsky’s speed dial. My guess is that they are insuring themselves against something happening between now and the race.
I’ve been thinking about what should be done about a rider who himself rides clean, but has juiced support on his team. As to the past, I think that it depends on what, if anything, the rules in effect at the time had to say on this situation. If the rules from 1999 thru 2005 say that if any rider om a team doped, then the whole team suffers, then by all means LA should be DQed. But my guess is that the rules of those times doesn’t address this situation, else UCI and/or ASO would already have gone after LA, as well as others in the same situation.
But why not institute this rule? In high school and college athletics, if you use a ineligible play, and are caught, you forfeit the game (unless you’re in Lawrence). Doesn’t matter if it’s the 3rd string left guard who you put in during the final seconds of a 72-0 blowout of Podunk State, you forfeit. Put the onus on the teams to enforce anti-doping. Kind of a strict liability for them.
AC,
Interestingly, on today’s TdSuisse show on Versus, Paul Sherwen said he thought the responsibility was about 60/40 (Cav/Haussler). Sherwen made the comment that Haussler had his head down (a big no-no, got to keep your eyes where you’re going, that part of Bike Racing 101). In seeing the video again, and looking at how the two riders swept around another rider, both of them should have kept a straight line, and neither did. I can see Sherwen’s point.
William,
I don’t really think Unipublic knows much more than we do, though who knows what rumors they’ve heard and what they’re expecting. Given where the Miller/Novitsky investigation could lead, I think they chose to avoid any potential problems by just not having RadioShack there.
I like the idea of team consequences if an individual decides to dope. Regardless of sport, the peer pressure to race clean would be pretty huge. Other people’s paychecks and reputations would be on the line. It’s one thing to be willing to risk your own. But messing with others? Only those “blessed” with a huge amount of chutzpah would risk the wrath of the colleagues. Strict liability for teams. That’s a great way of summarizing the idea.
And while we’re planning how to run things, we should include a clause where a team could avoid punishment by turning in a rider. For example, suppose Team TVHut discovers during the first week of the TdF that, despite all their warnings, rider Spear Legweak has been doping. So the team dismisses him and notifies the UCI what has happened. They could then avoid team consequences.
Of course, details would need to be worked out and I think that the nature and extent of any team punishments would need to be decided on a case by case basis. For example, we wouldn’t want a team to “game” the dispensation by waiting to the last few days of a big stage race to turn in a rider, maximizing any benefit of his enhanced riding. On the other hand, if you have a situation where a team would face certain DQing for turning in a rider, the pressure would be for a team to hide the fact that a rider had doped.
A carrot and stick approach: run a testing program on your own and turn in riders promptly and we will work with you; but hold out on us and try to cover up things and you will get punished.
Lance is dirty to be sure, the bigger they are the harder they are to bring down. But I am awaiting the day watching all this unfold from the peanut gallery 🙂
str
NYTimes article has speculation on why Radioshack was snubbed from Vuelta: http://goo.gl/E3ib
Or, could it be as simple as this:
At the 2009 Tour Lance and Johan were disrespectful to Alberto. Alberto is currently Spain’s top road cyclist. Therefore, Unipublic excluded RadioShack, Lance and Johan’s current team, because they weren’t sufficiently respectful to Contador in the past.
It would be petty. But that’s never been a problem in the world of cycling politics. Welcome to this week’s episode of “As the Wheel Turns.”
Heated debate this morning between Betsy Andreu and Bill Strickland in the comments section he-ah: http://bicycling.com/blogs/sittingin/2010/06/14/what-i-know-about-lance/
While the strict liability for team sports solution might seem appealing, there is no chance it could ever work. Never forget that sport is all about Money. All about it. When sport puts on a show, the product they promote is one of image, excitement and connection to a fan base. The fans then spend money in ways the sport producers wish to control. When the producers can’t control that, they will cease to be producers and sponsors.
No one, anywhere, will understand that “cycling has a special team rule for dealing with dopers.” Not a chance. Heck, just try to explain the GC concept to anyone outside Europe. Now try to get WADA and the IOC (much less the UCI) to sign on to such a thing. Fairly, to most of the sporting world right now “cycling” = “dopers.” Period. The only chance cycling has to regain any respect (and thus any Money) is a zero tolerance policy. And they are failing miserably with that, if for no other reason than their testing and adjudication methods are designed to save Money. Wanna stamp out doping? Test every rider, every day, and have the results available before the podium is presented, and before the next stage starts. Now try to stop laughing.
And here’s one for the grist mill: I have never understood the NCAA’s policy for penalizing schools for violating their rules. An alumnus decides to give a football player a summer job at $100k/hr, and when the NCAA finds out about this 3 years later they take away a scholarship from the school. Exactly how does that punish the wrongdoers? And doesn’t it punish the then-existing team? They get less Money for some highschool prospect to come to their school, the team is weaker, they get less NFL visibility. And then they make less Money.
Nice to see Betsey Andreu back. Wonder when she’ll get an interview with Novitsky.
8-0
Re the NCAA, they can and do do more than just take away scholarships. Ask Bobby Bowden. I do see you point about the take away scholarships (as well as bans on post-season play) hurting the current (and presumably non-violating team). Part of the problem is the time it takes for investigations to proceed: NCAA becomes aware of potential violations, investigates, informs the institution, waits for their response, etc. And part of the problem for the NCAA is that any athlete who might be in violation will probably have moved on by the time this all comes out. What can NCAA do to Reggie Bush now? Absolutely nothing! What can NCAA do the USC now? A lot! The idea is that everybody in the athletic department is supposed to run things cleanly and be aware of possible violations and either avoid the situation or report it.
I work on the event staff at the athletic department here. We had a situation this winter, one of my co-workers working an early season basketball game recognized a couple of football players, and invited them to sit on the front row in the section he was working. The arena was only about 1/3 full, so what’s the harm? Turns out, the NCAA might consider this as giving those players “special consideration” and that’s a big no-no. So the rest of the BB season, we got notices during our pre-game briefings about potential violations we might inadvertently commit.
But the question here is: “What should UCI/WADA do about the situation where the team leader is clean, but his support has doped? Does the team and/or the team leader get a pass? De facto, at least, I guess that’s the way things are now, since I haven’t heard any noises from official sources about taking TdF wins away from LA, even thought we have know that some of his supporting riders have doped for some time now. If that’s the way they want to go, then let’s at least put that in writing. But could that encourage the situation we are speculating about: a team ensuring the leader remains clean while doping up the domestiques? Could be. Do we want to discourage that? Then let’s put something in place to sanction against it.
Doesn’t necessarily need to be strict liability. Maybe a case-by-case basis: if it looks like the team knowingly encouraged doping, the team leader’s result owed a lot to the doping, etc., then a sanction is in order. Does it look like maybe only one or two domestiques doped, and maybe did it on their own, without the knowledge of the team? Then maybe little or no penalty. And penalties could range from total disqualification, reduction in placing, fines, bans from future races for a period, etc.
eightzero,
No doubt, follow the money. All sports are about putting on a show. It’s entertainment, after all. Why do we, as a society, take it so bloody seriously? Wherever there is big money, and big money to be made in sports, the money dictates the real rules. So no sports federation is likely to enact such a policy, certainly not the big league sports — not even cycling, which is big league elsewhere, but not in the States.
Ah, but if the sporting world did enact a policy like this, it could be a sea-change in how players play the game. Or not. Perhaps the only thing that would change would be the incentive to cover up. If an athlete tested positive, the teams would want to bury the result and keep it out of view. Which means the unintended consequence would be to drive doping even further underground. And to make it more of a team-organized affair than it may already be. That way, the teams could control what the athletes used, and do so in a way to minimize the risk of getting caught.
Argh. I must be feeling especially cynical tonight. 😉
Plea bargain w/ Ivan Basso’s sister in drug ring: http://bit.ly/bgB392
Also, if you read the cyclingnews doping forum (the clinic), there is an interesting pic of her posing with LA
“Also, if you read the cyclingnews doping forum (the clinic), there is an interesting pic of her posing with LA ”
Yeah. Right. Find LA in that picture. Talk about performance enhancement. Blood…rushing…from…brain…
We now return you to your normally scheduled rant.
🙂
I think you need to page down to see the pic I was talking about..
I’ll 2nd what 8-0 said Yeah. Right. Scroll down to another picture. WHY?! Blood…rushing…from…brain…
Got my TdF Velonews issue. Was thinking about counting the number of times the word “Armstrong” appeared in it, but I simply decided I’d make up a number. It was 7,462. I used my experience to arrive at that.
Meanwhile, it’s getting to be That Time Of The Year. Shall we set an official number for the Over/Under on the number of Tour Positives? We need the total number and the cutoff date. Just the “A” samples, I think. No one cares about the “B”s.
Rant, want to set the offical number and date, and the rest of us can bet over or under?
Eightzero,
3 and July 17th
I’ll take the Over.
I have not posted here for some time because I’m attempting to patiently wait for for events to unfold in the wake of Floyd’s accusations. And at this point, I’m not prepared to even venture a guess as to how that will play out.
However, I’m still interested in the anti-doping issue and found this quote curious:
“WADA was reluctant to let the AFLD carry out these tests itself, mainly because of legal issues: France’s anti-doping code does not recognize the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) as the final instance of legal appeal.”
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/no-additional-tests-by-afld-at-tour
If this is accurate, I’m wondering how it came about that France is an exception to the rule?
Haven’t seen our ami Jean here either in a while, but as I recall he says that the French have incorporated anti-doping into their legal system. So I’d imagine that any appeals would have to go through the French court system.
It makes me wonder if France actually is the exception to the rule. For other countries that incorporated WADA’s code into their legal systems, did they recognize the CAS as the final arbiter of sports anti-doping cases? In some ways, that would be a bit odd if they did. I’d think that each country’s legal system would handle cases and appeals, and that whatever the final authority within each country would then become the court of last resort. (Which, of course, means that the whole system wouldn’t necessarily be “harmonised” as per WADA’s mission statement.)
Anyone who lives in a country other than France that actually did make the WADA code part of their law, feel free to chime in and let us know how things are set up regarding appeals.
I can look for some authoritative cites if need be, but the USA Cycling, through USADA via UCI rule dictated by WADA Code, seems to recognized the Swiss courts as having the final say. The Spanish certainly don’t get the special treatment attributed to the French anti-doping system in the article I cited and Valverde is just one of many examples. Same for Italy (pick any number of Italian riders suspended in the past 4-5 years, including Basso), same for Kazakhstan (Vinokourov & Kashechkin), same for Germany (Jan U) and same for Monte Carlo (Rasmussen)….. All (except maybe Jan U?) had legal teams that would have loved to face their own court systems rather than having CAS and/or the Swiss Courts be the final word. I don’t know of any exceptions, except France. That is, if France is, in fact, an exception?
Looking back, Floyd’s defense team(s) sought a U.S. court venue, but couldn’t make that work around happen. Regardless of Floyd’s admissions of guilt, the system is still stacked and rigged in the ADA’s favor by a wide margin. Just because they got it vaguely right (they were correct that he doped, but were likely wrong about the specific product and the timing is likely off as well), doesn’t mean that a more accurate and equitable system should not be sought. In my estimation, the baby was thrown out with the bath water, but because the baby doped, the system claims vindication. Doesn’t sound right or smell right to me. YMMV……..
The CAS arbitration is an artifact of the contract to obtain a national license. In the US, the NGB of cycling is USAC, so the only way to get a cycing license is to agree to their contract…and it has a CAS arbitration resolution clause.
I would believe the French NGB has no such provision.
Jeff:
I agree with you that the baby may have been thrown out in regards to FL. His credibility might be lower than a snake’s belly right now, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to his continued denials of T use are false, just that (some) put little if any faith in those denials.
Lynch mobs probably got it right every now and then too; doesn’t mean that lynch justice is a good system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/sports/cycling/29cycling.html
“Novitzky, the lead investigator in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative steroids case, is in charge of the fraud case and is trying to determine whether Armstrong, the owners or managers of his former cycling teams and his teammates had conspired to defraud their sponsors by doping to improve their performances and garner more money and prizes. Specifically, authorities want to know whether money from the Postal Service, the main sponsor of Armstrong’s team from 1996 to 2004, was used to buy performance-enhancing drugs.”