CyclingNews.com carried a story earlier today saying that the teams participating in this year’s Tour de France have all signed onto an anti-doping contract, in which riders who test positive will be required to pay a substantial fine to the French Cycling Federation (FFC). According to the web site, who cite the Belgian publication Sports Wereld, the fine for testing positive will be €100,000 (about $155,000 US at current exchange rates). Also:
As the race has not been sanctioned by the UCI, the rules of the international governing body do not apply. This has left the door open for the ASO, in conjunction with the FFC, to comprise its own set of rules and regulations for the race.
One would hope that the rules have been established by now, and that the teams are well aware of what the governing rules of the race will be. I’d certainly be uncomfortable showing up for a race not knowing what was — or wasn’t — against the rules. More than uncomfortable, I’d be nervous about inadvertently crossing a line which might cost me a huge sum of money. As pointed out at Trust But Verify earlier today:
The implications of these actions is inescapable, and with no strong union to protect them the riders’ rights may be in even more peril than they have been in the past. A news conference spelling out further details is expected today.
In a separate article at CyclingNews.com, which reports on the news conference TBV refers to, Christian Prudhomme is quoted on the subject of how many doping controls will be undertaken during this year’s Tour:
Prudhomme no longer believes in the high number of doping controls during the Tour de France, but rather a more targeted approach on suspect riders. “Last year I went to the Tour of Romandie for the announcement of 160 controls during the Tour de France,” he recalled of the pact signed with UCI president Pat McQuaid and the then AIGCP (International Association of Professional Cycling Teams) president Patrick Lefévère.
The disastrous experience of the 2007 Tour de France, with the positive tests of Alexandre Vinokourov, Cristian Moreni and the exclusion of Michael Rasmussen, has changed his mind. “Now I believe in targets,” he said.
This is exactly what the AFLD wants to do before and during the Tour de France. “Our priority is to be efficient,” said AFLD president Pierre Bordry, who had a constructive meeting with the UCI on May 14 and insisted that his agency works independently from ASO.
“We have the support of WADA and of the association of the national anti-doping agencies,” Bordry added. “We count on them to give us the necessary information for our targets.”
One other interesting comment to come out of the news conference has to do with funding and cooperation between the UCI and the French Ministry of Sport and the ASO. To hear French secretary of sports Bernard Laporte tell it:
“The UCI has refused a contribution of 700,000 euros from the French Ministry of Sports and ASO,” Laporte revealed. “We are disappointed to not participate in the biological passport anymore. We hope the project keeps improving and we’d like to take part in it with our 700,000 euros again later.
“We want to work with the UCI again for the interest of the sport, that’s all that counts for us. I’ve noticed once again, on a recent trip to China, that the Tour de France has a worldwide impact and we have to all work together to keep people’s interest high in the race and the sport of cycling in general.”
Laporte said he was prepared to offer his services as a mediator between the UCI and ASO once again. “I guess we’ll renew the contact after the Tour de France,” he predicted. “Cycling deserves better than this unfortunate tussle.”
Absolutely right, the sport of cycling does deserve better than this tussle for power or whatever. News reports that I’ve seen, however, don’t have any response from the UCI on M. Laporte’s comments, however, the UCI did release a statement deploring today’s development. Over at Bike Biz, Carlton Reid leads with the UCI’s threat to sanction riders and teams who take part in the race, and observes:
The Tour de France is cycling’s biggest race and the UCI has – again – shown itself to be powerless to stop ASO doing whatever it likes with the event it owns.
The current spat is all to do with ASO deciding to register the Tour de France on the national calendar of the French Cycling Federation (FFC) rather than on the UCI’s international calendar, which the UCI is now calling the “historical calendar.”
Citing, without a shred of irony, the “unity of the cycling family”, the UCI said it considers the FFC’s support for ASO’s registration “deeply regrettable for sport”.
What’s most regrettable is that the two sides can’t come to some sort of truce in their ongoing battle for power, and that they can’t figure out how to work together, rather than work at seemingly crossed purposes. Given the personalities involved, perhaps that’s not surprising.
Burying The Lede
Yesterday, Jere Longman of The New York Times wrote an article about a Jamaican sprinter who is now learning what happens when one has a great athletic performance. As Longman notes:
Track and field has become so compromised by doping that any startling performance brings immediate suspicion.
Actually, that’s true for almost every sport these days, not just track and field. (Although, like cycling, track and field takes it on the chin quite a bit more than some other sports.) It takes quite a while for Longman to get to the real lede, which (to my eyes) is this:
If [Usain] Bolt is clean — and at this point there is no evidence that he is not — he already finds himself a victim of the most corrosive aspect of pervasive doping: the innocent can no longer prove their innocence.
To be fair to Longman, he does note that Bolt denies using PEDs and has never tested positive earlier in the story. But it’s the last point in the previous quote that hits home and makes it the real lede to the story. As he observes, “the innocent can no longer prove their innocence.” Later on, Longman does note one of the biggest ironies in sports when it comes to anti-doping:
Along with cycling, [track and field] tries harder to catch drug cheats than any other sport with stringent testing. Yet, the more drug users it catches, the worse its reputation becomes.
That’s the problem, in a nutshell, isn’t it? Being more successful at catching the cheats means more stories about cheaters, which in turn lowers the image of the sport in the eyes of the general public. The big question that I have yet to see answered is: How can any sport beset by doping scandals improve its reputation? These days, it seems all are suspected of cheating, so even if no one is caught, that’s not proof that doping isn’t going on. So what will it take to restore credibility?
Rant:
Is there some reason for the spelling “lede”? Since it appears at least twice, I am assuming it is deliberate.
I’ve been married to an English teacher too long 🙂
William,
Sorry, that’s journo-jargon. Eons ago, back when typesetting was done with actual lead type, the spelling “lede” was used by copyeditors and others to distinguish the opening sentence or paragraph of a story from “lead” the substance/element used to form the letters on the page.
“The disastrous experience of the 2007 Tour de France, with the positive tests of Alexandre Vinokourov, Cristian Moreni and the exclusion of Michael Rasmussen, has changed his mind. ‘Now I believe in targets,’ he (Prudhomme?) said.”
…all right, I’m confused…didn’t the positive tests during the Tour using their normal pseudo-random testing catch people? So, that demonstrated that it worked, right?
Oh, I get it, they caught the wrong people and let the right people get away with it just like they always have.
…”those dirty, rotten, stinking, bastards – I hate ’em. I hate’ em, I hate ’em, I hate ’em!”
Yeah, Prudhomme’s comments are a little strange. I’m not sure how to take his comments. Almost sounds like catching big names looks too bad for the tour, so they don’t want to do that. Unless it’s a big name they’ve decided that they want to catch.
Can’t say i think targeting people you suspect is a bad thing, but I’m not sure less tests is the answer. Especially when I think it’d be easy for them to let hearsay start to dictate all their testing.
Some of the comments made by ASO are baffling. Maybe somehting is lost in translation, but they always seem to focus on “positive tests.” This doesn’t always mean the athlete doped. Conversely, there are dopers that never test positive. Remember, a certain yellow jersey wearer last year was deprived of an almost sure win *never* tested positive. The win was taken away for lying.
When will we see lie detector tests used to accuse athletes of cheating?
To understand Prudhomme’s word, it’s important to know what was said during the closed meeting between teams and TDF at the beginning of last year.
Every team has agreed to stop blood manipulation…and we have seen since Paris Nice that the agreement was broken, not by only riders but by team management.
So Prudhomme is indirectly trying to scare the riders and their teams by covering the holes which are usually used by athletes to beat the testers.
Rant:
I sort of suspected something like that, but thanks for the explanation.
“One would hope that the rules have been established by now, and that the teams are well aware of what the governing rules of the race will be. I’d certainly be uncomfortable showing up for a race not knowing what was “” or wasn’t “” against the rules. More than uncomfortable, I’d be nervous about inadvertently crossing a line which might cost me a huge sum of money.”
According to a Dutch newspaper the teams have no idea which rules (or how) will apply int he Tour.
Knebel (Rabobank) said he has no idea if an unliked face of anyone might mean he is going to be excluded.
The teams, he continued, are not in agreement with each other so the ASO can do what ever it wants to do.
The ASO protects the TdF (and their money flow) but they destroy cycling like this.
It becomes clearer and clearer (to the big public) that the UCI can not stop the ASO. The UCI looses the already little credibility the body had (which is not good for the anti doping quest). Teams, riders and sponsors have no idea what to expect.
Etc.
Pfff
Karuna,
That’s what I suspected. Sounds like the UCI basically has no power anymore, at least as regards any races owned/promoted by the ASO. What the sport definitely needs is fair, consistent rules enforced fairly and consistently. Right now, it appears that cycling and those who organize the races are drifting away from that.
Karuna,
We all know that UCI has no credibility after the mascarade which followed Festina. The only credibility remaining inside UCI is given by Gripper and some opponents to McQuaid and Verbbruggen.
They are staying in place for money, apparently they are still hoping to build a cycling formule 1. But of course the most valuable piece is still TDF… they need to control it without destroying it, the value of their project is linked to it.
yo Rant,
Go to the FFC link I provide (you don’t have to parler français to try this)
wadawatchhttp://www.ffc.fr/com/imgAdmin/reglementation/2008/02_ROUTE_FFC_2008.pdf
it’s a standard pdf, on the rules ‘sur la route’… in the search-box type in UCI (in caps)… and click to ‘find’…
UCI is mentioned over 150 times (I stopped counting, with a third of document to go)…
Ask Bill Hue how a legal ‘framework’, which bases nearly every French rule on clauses in the UCI rules, will be viable without running under a UCI authority?
IOW: IS a rule a rule, if it’s basis is contested by the source from which it derived?
(sounds like I’m asking if torture is torture, when the President who authorized torture says it isn’t?)
The only way I see, based on my international law experience(s), for FFC rules to be viable, is if they are re-written, to expunge any mention of the “UCI”
Cheers from all-wet Geneva
Ww
Ww,
We’re similarly being soaked in Milwaukee today. The sky is kind of greenish right now … not a good sign. 🙁
So, if all of the rules are based on UCI rules, in this brave new world where the UCI isn’t sanctioning the race are there really any rules? (I supposed to quote a certain ex-President, “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” eh?) Of course, if the FFC’s rules incorporate the UCI’s rules, doesn’t that leave the FFC open to sanctions from the UCI, too? Interesting questions. Oh, the rants that could be written.
Thanks for the link. I’ll take your word on the number of occurrences, though I can see it’s a whole heck of a lot…
Hi mate,
I’ll admit that 2/3rds of them seem to be tied to the mundane issues (eg: ‘UCI Women’s race’ or otherwise ‘designators’…), but some are of the nature ‘as stipulated in UCI rule xyz’.
You want ‘scary’? (I should be writing this myself! Priorities are lying elsewhere though)… Bernard Laporte, Fr. Min for Sport, wrote ‘It is not a question, that France allows the Tour de France to be held hostage’ (that’s too literally a word-for-word translation: should be ‘France will not allow the Tour de France to be held hostage)… presumably by the UCI.
But that’s the small-fry: at the end of this month, FRANCE is ‘president’ of the rotating seat of EU presidential seat (it’s way too complicated to explain, how they do a three-country, eighteen-month ‘rotating chair’) for the next six months.
I’m totally wondering how and where France might bring forward the threat announced back in Lamour’s sour-grapes exit from WADA as he lost the candidature… of a separate, European-based ‘eADA’ …
McQuaid’s interview the other day, purports that the UCI is one week away from its disciplinary hearing on the FFC. If it takes forceful action against FFC, then FFC has no choice but to rewrite its FR rules…
UCI is hiring an attorney! Since they need a CH-law degree, three years’ minimum CH-legal experience, no chance I’d apply.
But it’s funny: when I sat at McQuaid’s table at the Madrid conference in November, and he asked me why I was writing/doing WADAwatch, I said “So you can hire me…”
🙂 his reply was ‘I’ve got too many attorneys already…’
I agree with him: he needs one less attorney, and one guy that can help him handle what the staff Attorneys are doing to UCI…
HINT: hello Pat…
Ww
Wadawatch,
I am not a lawyer, but FFC is still a member of UCI, so I suspect heavily that they can use a large part of UCI rules because that is as usual a implicated agreement with their members.
For what it is worth, it is entirely possible for FFC or any other body for that matter, to tell UCI to take a flying leap and still reference there rules, especially the rules sur la route. FFC/ASO can say “A legal bike for the TdF is one that conforms to UCI rules” even if they are not under UCI sanction. Why re-invent the wheel?
The disagreements between ASO and UCI are more related to organizational issues anyway.
Kind of off the topic, brain doping: http://www.reason.com/news/show/126727.html
Should make one think a little.
Michael:
If you’re thinking, obviously you must be brain doping. 🙂
Hi Jean and William…
First, I understand your points in reply to mine…
Second: let’s envisage that next week’s ‘hearing’ against FFC for ‘renegade Paris-Tour’ activities ends with the FFC being found in violation, as a NF, of the ‘charges’ that the UCI is alleging.
IF: the UCI takes disciplinary measures, what could those be? Suspension as an NF? Revocation of its membership?
Perhaps my essential point wasn’t made obvious: would FFC be able to prove competence as an isolated organization with no jurisdiction outside of France, to run a race under ‘its’ rules, when those rules are not “100% homegrown”?
To me it’s not a question of ‘reinventing the wheel’, it’s riding the wheel that has 2/3rds broken spokes…
An analogy could be: if the Denver Bronco’s owners wanted to stop playing under NFL rules, yet play against the San Fran 49ers and still have a TV contract with whomever, can they use ‘Denver Bronco’s Rules 2008’ which refer to ‘the legal size of a football is the same as found in the NFL Rulebook’?
An easy answer is ‘yes, of course’, and my analogy isn’t perfect, but this Tour route does NOT stay within France: what about a rider that gets hurt in Italy, on Stage 15 (my bro’s b-day: July 20), due to some infraction by whomever?
What liability to UCI, if something happens that invokes a rule under FFC Rules, which article invokes the UCI? How can FFC say that ‘well it’s okay, it’s the fault of the UCI rules we are still using, even though we’ve been disciplined for not following UCI directives.’?
I just think their level of confidence far exceeds their level of competence, and their hors-le-loi (outlaw) regime is on the verge of imploding all over FFC, ASO and the second-rate Tour…
And Why is the French Government backing a private (ASO) company that is ‘running away’ from the IF that controls (via more than Rules: Commissaires, ADO activities, etc) its cycling sporting-events?
PS: AM hoping to be watching the Tour somewhere near l’Alpe d’Huez, wearing as much ASTANA gear as I can find… “hello Johan??” (and if by car, buckets of paint to write ‘Mais où est ALBERTO?’
(“but where is Alberto”)
PS2: Rant, I just bought a book in FR, by author Philippe Bordas, called ‘Forcenés’ (don’t know if it’s been translated): he contends that, just as NOVELS died after Joyce and Faulkner (becoming farces, repeating endless attempts to ‘re-invent the wheel’ (thanks William), so to has Cycling died, as a sport, ever since the era(s) of Coppi and Anquetil… I’m on p. 8 (it starts really slow, as does most FR Lit.)
Ww
UCI’s job as International federation is to harmonise the different rules around the world to have a set fitting the purposes of international competitions.
Everyone of its member benefits of its. UCI is not owner of cycling and it’s rules, UCI is just the regulatory body for UCI competition!
By running TDF under FFC control TDF became independent of it.
TDF don’t need UCI to go in ITalya, they just need an agreement from Italya. In case of civil problem, Italia laws would be used for event on their soil.
TDF is greater than ASO, that is a big event for France. It’s the 3rd sport events of the world. Why don’t protect it when UCI is putting it in danger?
( In France the government supports private companies, but in US private companies are running the government! ;D)
Is Floyd next????
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/sports/sports-doping-gatlin.html
Jean:
All too true, I’m afraid. 😉
WW:
Interesting you use the Denver Broncos in your analogy. Of course, they were charter members of the upstart AFL. I am sure the AFL had its own rulebook, of course, but I am also sure a lot of the rules were pretty much identical to the NFL rules. I can think of a number of situations here in the US where various competitions are held and refer to rules of an organization other than the one the competition is held under. High School football in Texas is a prime example, but quite often park and rec level sports are held using HS or college rules with some modifications.
Regarding liability for an injury, I don’t see how UCI could be held liable for something that happened outside there jurisdiction, any more than the NFL could have been held liable for a injury to an AFL player in pre-merger days. In fact, I can’t think of a case where the NFL has been held liable for a player injury in any case.
This is the most pathetic & idiotic thing uttered by the ASOles yet. “Targeted testing”? What a freakin FARCE. Where’s Austin Murphy when you need him?
If I just wasn’t so plain disgusted, I would be guffawing/snorting Diet Pepsi all over my keyboard. So they actually CAUGHT some dopers in last year’s Tour & what do these paragons of logic & virtue believe should be done to combat doping in their beloved race THIS year? Why, have FEWER tests! THAT will “solve” the Tour’s problem of cheaters quite nicely. No tests, no positives. The Tour looks “clean” & the ASO can crow how THEIR system “fixed” the problem “caused by the UCI’s” handling of things. I wouldn’t even put it past the ASO to conspire with the FFC in “hiding” postive tests this year to ensure the Tour looks clean. Couldn’t pull that off with the UCI involved.
This outrages me ALMOST as much as Astana being kept out of the race while Rabobank (& the other teams with riders connected to doping in last year’s Tour) is included. BTW, since I’ve never read that Chicken & Menchov are exactly buds, how & why did Menchov meet up with him in the Italian mountains to train last June if his TEAM didn’t set it up? Rabobank knew EXACTLY where Rasmussen was at all times & Ras should win that court case. Right before the Tour starts. Did he lie to the UCI? Sure. But he wasn’t fired for that, he was fired for supposedly lying to his team. Do I think Rasmussen doped last summer & has been a doper going way back? Absolutely. Did I mind that he didn’t win last year’s race? Not at all. But what was hypothesized last year became OBVIOUS this year – that the ASO got Rabobank to do their dirty work & get Chicken out of the Tour & lied, lied, & is still lying about it. That deal is why Rabobank will be toeing up at the Start line THIS year. How IRONIC that “lying” was what got Chicken thrown out of the race when that is ALL Rabobank & the ASO have done since.
Every single journalist, newspaper, blogsite, & TV network that covered last year’s Tour should be loudly & repeatedly calling this ongoing FARCE for what it us. If you really want to help make the Tour clean, you hold MORE tests, not less. And proclaim it repeatedly. Everywhere. To every media source. Again & again & again. Make every potential doping rider at least think twice. There should be 15 tests on EVERY stage : the yellow, top 7 on every stage & another random 7. THAT will cut down on the doping or at least catch the ones who believe they can once again trick the tests or who hedged their bets against getting tested. And of COURSE, send the samples to 2 DIFFERENT labs, NEITHER being LNDD.
I actually watched a lot of the Giro Live-online this year for the 1st time & while I am suscicious of several results in that race, it did get me excited for the Tour. What the Giro inflamed, the ASO has put asunder in one friggin week. Never did I think I would be HOPING for positive dope tests in the Tour de France. I do now.
I detest the ASO. I detest that the French government does nothing to stop or at least control them. I abhor that this lying bunch of hypocrites have seemingly wrestled control of this sport from the only org committed to the sport as a whole & not just the commercial interests of a company who owns select races. And I HATE that the cyclists, team managers, team owners, & sponsors let it happen.
Jean and I have in the past tried to understand the huge cultural gap that separates those in the US from those in Europe on the nature of sporting rules. He comes from a world where the word of the National Federation is effectively law; American’s come from a world where anyone can start their own league with their own rules, and quite possibly receive subsidies from various independant local governments in the process. It’s organizational competition, and usually considered good with two unique exceptions: Major League Baseball, which has an anti-trust exemption in statutory law; and things related to the Olympics, which has similar statutory protection. The MLB protection doesn’t legally prevent anyone else from starting their own league(s), it just makes it economically unlikely to succeed; With Olympic sports, there is nothing to prevent independant organizations from running events except the fears of competitors who might want to go to the Olympics and be excluded because of their participation in things not underneath the umbrella. There’s Olympic wrestling, there’s NCAA wrestling, there’s the WWF, and now “Ultimate” and “Mixed Martial Arts.”
While it may be unusual in Europe for a National Federation to fail to supplicate to an International Federation, it seems perfectly reasonable in principle to those in the US.
I see no reason France can’t decide to have it’s own Federation sanction an event outside the scope of an International Federation, with whatever rules it likes. Potential participants will either choose to compete under those conditions, or decide the risk of offending the international body is too great.
As with Landis, I’d be perfectly happy to have road cycling absent from the Olympics and organized under a completely different structure emphasizing commercial viability — maybe like NASCAR.
TBV
Rant,
About private companies and government, (that is likely the same in most countries) maybe that is a never end fight between the first republicans and federalists, and which began with Jefferson and Hamilton.
@Susie B
I agree, I agree, I agree, with absolutley everything you said!!!!
Okay, maybe I would have liked (and still do) that Rasmussen would have won the Tour. I think that under the circumstances he doped (or didn’t) as much as others and he certainly didn’t lie more than others.
Compared to the ASO etc he is probably a saint.
By the way. I think it is not so difficult why the French governemnt protects the ASO so much. The TdF is the number ONE export product of France.
The ASO does not give a bit about cycling they care about money.
It may very be the case that the ‘money rules the world’ is even worse somewhere else, I just don’t like it.
Of course people will think ‘that’s the way it is’. True.
Or ‘it is not realistic’ to expect anything else. Also true.
But from ‘an indidual point of view’ it is very realisitic to ‘not like it. Because the individual gets crushed.
@Susie B
Sorry, the following is a little off topic.
Thinking a little more about it, the Rasmussen case is a pretty good example for how idiotic the cycling world works.
I think that the truth in that case is that Ras just did what a lot of riders did and that the Rabobank just lived with that reality.
What I mean to say is this.
OF COURSE did the Rabobank know at some point that Ras was not in Mexico. He might not have said it out loud to Breukink or de Rooij, but on the 29th of June they knew. Just knew. In the letter coming from the UCI on the 29th it was clear that Ras had said (to the UCI in his where-abouts) he was in Mexico while Breukink had an meeting with him during that period in Italy, de Rooij faxed Alpes routes to Italy, Breukink had sms contact with him and there was a training organized with Menchov in the Pyrenees.
There is really nothing they can say to successfully deny they knew.
Okay,
and then: why did Ras lie?
Of course maybe because he wanted to dope. His bloodlevels give rise to the possibility that he is given the benefit of the doubt but who knows.
There were other reasons possible though.
-It might be also possible that Ras knew there were many riders who tried to duck the system.
An UCI list that was on the internet for a short while supports that. That list contained a large number of riders who were suspected of trying to avoid a dopingtest. How did they? Disarranging their where-abouts is probably a good guess.
-The Rabobank riders that were questioned by Vogelzang all said they didn’t take the where-about system very serious. Since” the Ras incident” the Rabobank riders suddenly had to be a lot more secure than they ever had been, so they said.
-Ras was targeted by the DCU (Danish cycling federation) for doping test. The DCU used a far more strict policy than the UCI. No explanation was good enough. Example: Ras went one day early to a race, the DCU showed up at his house, he wasn’t there obviously, he got a recorded warning from the DCU although they knew where he was and easy to test. The UCI was not half as strict. No other federation goes to such length to test riders. No other federation rapports their warnings to the UCI etc. Ras probably really didn’t want the DCU on his neck.
So if Ras wanted to avoid the DCU, he knew that Mexico was probably a little too far away for them.
-Besides that: the einzelgänger Rasmussen is probably not keen on being followed and he certainly wasn’t keen on being told what to do. And comes from a time where he could do what he wanted.
So there are a good set of reasons why Ras lied other that for the use of doping which all start with: the system was not taken seriously.
The Vogelzang rapport comes up a few of these reasons. It showed convincingly that the where-about system was not introduced seriously, organized seriously, sanctioned seriously or taken seriously.
The idiotic part is that although all of that was in the Vogelzang rapport nobody comes to a conclusion what that means for the position of Ras.
Because nobody wants to speak the truth Rasmussen can’t speak the truth.
The teams (Rabobank) and the UCI don’t want to admit that the where-abouts system was a mess and was interpreted by the teams and the riders as -it looks good to the outside world-.
The UCI didn’t even have the manpower to really get it off it’s feet.
So now Rasmussen is accused of not taking something seriously that wasn’t introduced seriously, not organized seriously, not sanctioned seriously or taken seriously by anyone in the cyclingworld (besides the DCU).
Now Ras his carrier is destroyed and when he wins the lawsuit against the Rabobank (which I hope) the Rabobank finds itself in the position that they appear untrustworthy (maybe too untrustworthy for a bank).
It’s ridiculous to my opinion, it was just the way it was. All parties had their own role in it with just as much responsibility but it is put on the neck of Ras and might endanger the sponsoring of the Rabobank in the future.
Karuna,
I don’t doubt that many if not all of the other contenders doped and lied about it, just like Rasmussen. But this whole system (ie, omerta re. doping) is exactly why the media is so hard on cycling. The reason I tend to support the ADAs is they are the only ones with any honor in this whole mess–while almost all of the major DSes and the leadership of the UCI are proven liars, again and again. The cyclists say doping is cheating and deception but continue to use drugs in secret. This is too good a story for the media to pass up–they will never let up, they will never go away. You can curse and fume at the organizers and the drug testers all you want but that won’t solve the underlying problem–omerta endures.
I don’t doubt that Rabobank bears some responsibility for the Rasmussen debacle. But what’s clear to all is Rasmussen is himself responsible–he lied, he cheated, he is paying a price. And as long as he remains silent on where he got his dope and what he knows…it’s a just price. If what he did can be excused as “normal”, obviously we are looking at a pretty sick and twisted world.
If you want to fix cycling, you have to either FIX THE DOPING CULTURE or TOLERATE THE PEDS. Those are your only 2 choices. Obsessing over the intracicies of the WADA code is next to pointless–what’s necessary is figuring out how to make the cyclists and the teams behave honorably. If declining sponsorship is the only way to achieve that goal, then so be it.
Re. targeted testing, it’s a decent deterrent given scarce resources. Obviously it would be best if their were more resources for more testing…but surely the most egregious dopers and the guys at the top should bear the brunt of targeted efforts. What’s essential is removing the impression that doping=success in cycling–so you need to bust the successful. It’s a start.
karuna and Susie B, I agree with you completely.
Thanks for the fine work again Rant! Always a pleasure to read your posts! 🙂
Ludwig,
If you want to FIX a race, target ALL the contenders who ARE NOT on your permitted to win list. ADD, a lab which WILL make a “positive” to order. It’s really quite simple, particularly if the old rules make this end more difficult to achieve.
Regards,
Ludwig
Of course am I not trying to say that Michael Rasmussen is not responsible for his actions even if everybody around him was doing it too.
I am talking about the prize he is paying. That is in light of the circumstances ridiculously high.
Yesterday I heard a story about a Italian soccer player who was caught for steroids. He was suspended for 4 (or 5) months!!! As I recall correctly he is still playing for the same team!!!
Compare that with Rasmussen who LIED and is NOT caught for doping.
He was fired from his team, lost the win of the TdF, is waiting already 10 months for a hearing with the federation of Monaco and the UCI that is threatening that when the federation from Monaco will not suspend him until May 2010 they will go to CAS.
In itself that might not be bad for Rasmussen (CAS) but it will take even more time. His carrier is over.
With these measures who wants to lift the omerta??
What the UCI, ASO etc are doing now, is pushing the riders further and further into the omerta.
Besides that, the omerta is not just something from the riders. The organizers, UCI etc did the same thing.
The whole sportsworld is doing the same thing. I don’t think I have to explain that.
The compromise between scandals and money. The condoning for the sake of commerce.
As the ASO can do now since they have the rules into their own hands.
It’s a complete French party now.
The French want no scandal this year, that’s for sure.
So they could also decide NOT to target the big names. When you don’t test them they can’t come up positive. I would not be surprised.
My whole point was and is that the riders are suddenly the “˜bad guys’ that need to be punished severely.
It’s too much for my taste.