Lots going on these days in the cycling world. Lots to catch up on. So tonight’s post is going to be some short observations on a few of the stories hitting the news since last I wrote.
Tour of California To Do More Testing
There’s a certain irony in the fact that the title sponsor of the Tour of California happens to be one of the biggest (legal) manufacturers of EPO, a drug used by some endurance athletes to boost their bodies’ oxygen-carrying capacity. In an article posted on ESPN.com, the organizer of the Tour of California said:
“We want to ensure that it’s clean and fair and that the best rider wins,” AEG Sports president Andrew Messick said Tuesday in announcing a new testing protocol for the Feb. 17-24 race that begins in Palo Alto, Calif., and ends in Pasadena. AEG is the race’s presenting sponsor.
You can see some of the details about the enhanced testing program in the ESPN.com story. The article also quotes a written statement from last year’s winner, Levi Leipheimer.
“I’d like to say that, as a professional cyclist, I was enthusiastic to know that AEG has made a further commitment to ensure that this year’s race is fair,” Leipheimer, who finished third in this year’s Tour de France, said in a statement.
“It is the development and implementation of stronger anti-doping programs such as this that will allow us as athletes to be respected as champions and I think this is another step in the right direction.”
One of the best ways to root out doping is to test everyone, rather than just a select few. The UCI has their targeted list (which, I understand, they will no longer be publishing). The last time I looked at their list, it ran to more than 300 names. I have a PDF of it around here somewhere. It read like a who’s who of the cycling world — both amateur and professional, the larger number were men, but a sizable number of women turned up on the list, too. How they decided on targeting these individuals — other than the fact that they’re accomplished riders — wasn’t mentioned in the document I saw.
But in a world where many more than 300 riders are competing at the pro level, going after just a few “special” riders all but ensures that the riders not targeted have a better chance of getting away with doping. Fewer (if any) tests during the course of a year means these riders, if they’re cheating, are less likely to be caught.
That said, the more extensive testing at this year’s Tour of California is a good thing. Race officials are showing the way to a more rational testing program. One that could, if consistently applied across the board, give everyone better insight into just how many riders are cheating and how many riders are clean. It would be great if the UCI, WADA and the various anti-doping agencies around the world would take this approach. Yes, it’s costly, but it would establish a real baseline for knowledge.
And it would make it much more likely that cheaters will be caught. That’s a strong disincentive to cheat. But, even so, some will be tempted. It’s a pity that the situation has gotten to the point where so many fans (and others) suspect the vast majority of athletes in any sport are competing with chemical enhancements. The way to cleaning up this mess just may be the direction the Tour of California is taking.
RusADA Pays USADA A Visit
Word is that the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RusADA) is paying their counterparts at USADA a visit to see how things are done in our part of the world. Could it be our scrupulously fair arbitration system they wish to see? Or to discuss safeguards to protecting innocent athletes? Or perhaps, they’re looking for pointers on how to use all their new equipment to catch the cheats.
I’m puzzled. Here’s a country that was very good at doping their athletes during the Soviet Union’s heyday, with people who are expert at beating the tests. They would be a good resource to convert over to the testing/anti-doping side, don’t you think? In Steven Ungerleider’s book, Faust’s Gold, he recounts how the East Germans used their anti-doping facilities to ensure that athletes who competed outside of the home country would test clean. I would have thought that similar efforts occurred in other East Bloc countries, too. But perhaps I’m wrong on that assumption. Anyway, back to the story at hand:
“It’s a very urgent matter, and it hasn’t been properly solved in Russia,” Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of the Moscow Anti-Doping Centre, told The Associated Press during an interview Wednesday.
I’m afraid it hasn’t been properly solved here, either. The story goes on to say:
“It’s definitely not a crisis, but we still have some very important issues to be solved,” said Dr. Alexander Derevoedov, head of the Scientific and Medical Anti-Doping Department in Russia.
In Russia last year, about 8,500 doping tests were conducted, about even with the number done by USADA. Rodchenkov expects the number will rise to 12,000 in 2008 and go as high as 30,000 by 2014, when the Olympics return to Russian soil for the first time since 1980.
Still, detection is difficult for several reasons, some of them dating back to attitudes shaped during the Cold War era, when stories of steroid use among Eastern bloc countries were common.
By the way the Associated Press writer describes things, RusADA is going to be operating some state-of-the-art equipment. And if they take the time to meet with the folks at the UCLA anti-doping lab, they could probably get some good coaching on how to use that equipment effectively. Methinks their time would be better spent in Los Angeles, rather than in Colorado Springs.
If they came here for ideas on how to run a program based on a real “search for truth” approach, however, they’d be better advised to head down under for a chat with the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency. They’ve got a better handle on that, as evidenced by how they handled the Ian Thorpe case last year. If they’re looking for pointers on running a “win at all costs” prosecution model, the trip would be pretty much a waste of time. There’s bound to be a few veterans of the Soviet justice system available in Moscow who could teach them everything they need to know about winning cases in a rigged game.
An Athlete’s Bill of Rights
ZENmud has put together an Athlete’s Bill of Rights, which I read earlier today. Something of this sort is sorely needed in the anti-doping arena in order to make sure that those who are charged with policing sport operate fairly. Right now, we have a case of “no one’s watching the watchers.” And that leads to potential (and real) abuses of authority and power. As the old saying goes, “Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The Athlete’s Bill of Rights is well worth the read. I’ll leave it to the legal eagles to comment further. From a layperson’s perspective, ZENmud seems to be onto something good. This is an article that should be required reading for anyone who cares about the fight against doping in sports.
Re: the testing at the ToC. Increasing the number of riders tested is a good thing. However, there is a question whether riders are getting away with doping simply because they are seldom tested, or whether riders are devising (with the help of unscrupulous medical practitioners) doping strategies that are not detected by the tests currently used. If the latter is true, than simply testing more riders will do little to stop such doping, nor will it do much to improve the image of cycling, at least among those who hold to the theory that riders has secret ways to dope and remain undetected. The Dynepro thing is certainly, at this time, a situation where a rider could use this product without fear of being caught by testing. To what extent others ways exist to dope and avoid detection, I don’t know. I wonder if anyone in the anti-doping community is looking into this. Certainly, if riders and unethical doctors (or whatever) can devise such methods, there must be people in the anti-doping community who also can figure out such methods, which would be the first step in figuring out ways to detect this sort of thing.
I doubt that the Russians, for former East Germans would be of much use, as the methods of both doping, and the testing for such, were quite different in those days.
Once again, I point out that it is relatively easy to show that an individual rider, or team, or even a whole race or sport is using PEDs; however it is close to impossible to prove the opposite. As many times as Armstrong points out he never tested positive (or should I say, “non-negative”), there are those who say he simply used doping methods which were not detectable. But while he can pretty much now ignore this and ride off into the sunset, the sport cannot.
William,
Of course the anti-doping is trying to find method to detect PED but when they make a step forward, cheaters adapt their method too.
So when you put strong protocols to have “homologated” testing, you understand that the time and delays play against anti-doping crowd.
Today the most efficiency methods are the Out of Competition testing…
It’s easy to recognize the most doped athletes by their incredible performance, especially in sport like cycling or Track And Field, but it’s very difficult to prove by the current homologated methods.
I finally figured it out…the reason I was a “C” student is that everyone else doped.
Regards,
William,
No matter what methods are used to try and catch cheaters, there will always be those who will find ways around those methods. I think we can count on that. The trick is to make it more likely that those who are inclined to cheat will get caught, and more testing means fewer will slip through undetected. But those with the means to afford the latest ways to beat the game will slip through — at least for a while, until new methods are devised to detect those methods, too.
Jean,
I don’t know how easy it is to detect doped athletes based merely on their performances. If you can point to their own efforts and show that they’ve made a miraculous improvement in a short span of time, certainly one could be suspicious of doping. Out of competition testing certainly improves the effectiveness of the anti-doping program, in that it makes it more likely that an individual will be caught when actually doping. Anyone who’s read Faust’s Gold can attest to the creative ways that the East Germans found for beating in-competition tests.
Dragon,
LOL!
Dragon,
I thought the reason I got C’s was because /I/ was a dope — at least in those subjects.
Mrs. TBV sends her compliments on that one, which had us both LOL, ROFL.
TBV