The change, it had to come
We knew it all along— The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
And on the eleventh day, they rested. Well, the riders participating in this year’s Tour de France did, anyway. Meanwhile, at a meeting in Pau, France, the 17 ProTour teams participating in a certain grand tour got together and decided that they’d had enough of the whole UCI ProTour scheme.
In a unanimous decision, the teams declared that they would not renew their ProTour licenses for 2009, effectively killing the botched experiment by cycling’s governing body to create a sort of Champions League on wheels.
Also in attendance at the meeting, according to a report at CyclingNews.com, were representatives of the three Grand Tours.
“This is a big occasion to put an end to the disputes,” Prudhomme told CyclingNews.com. “There is a project to involve all the families of cycling. the UCI is most welcome to be a part of this project. We don’t want to go outside of the sporting institution.”
Well, in principle it might be an such an occasion, and perhaps there’s a new project in the offing. But something about not wanting to go outside the sporting institution rings a bit hollow, doesn’t it? By the sounds of things, a whole new cycling league is coming into being. And given the bad blood between the Grand Tour organizers and the UCI, how could Prudhomme say with a straight face that they don’t want to go outside of the existing structures? The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
The UCI certainly isn’t happy about this turn of events. In a statement, the cycling federation said it “notes that the teams have once again succumbed to pressure from the management of ASO, whose aim for the last four years has been to destroy the UCI ProTour.
Pat McQuaid, true to form, certainly does not seem to be in a mood to compromise. According to the BBC:
UCI President Pat McQuaid said the dissidents were now facing exclusion.
“We’ll deal with that according to the regulations”, he said.
“They face exclusion from the international federation, and that’s something we are going to discuss.”
McQuaid believes Tour de France organisers Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) want to create their own private league outside the governing body’s regulations.
“It is obvious they are going to join ASO’s dissident federation,” he said.
However, at least one team manager sees today’s actions differently.
“The problem is that we were sold a product (the ProTour) which is not the one we got,” said Bouygues Telecom manager Jean-Rene Berneaudea.
“That’s the origin of the conflict. What matters today for my sponsors is a participation in the three big Tours.”
The thing is, the ProTour was a great concept. Unfortunately, the implementation was botched from the get-go. And in turn, today’s events have the air of inevitability about them. The big organizers didn’t like the UCI muscling in on their territory — that would be the business of putting on races — and potentially taking away revenue that they view as rightly theirs.
What effect is this going to have on the other races in the ProTour, put on by organizers other that cycling’s “Big Three”” (And they should be a bit wary of what happened to that other Big Three in Detroit, though it will be some time before strong enough competitors emerge to threaten their hegemony.) As the Beeb reports:
[O]rganisers of smaller races are worried about the future of their events.
“If it happens, 30 percent of the teams’ staff will be without a job,” said Thierry Cazeneuve, organiser of the Dauphine Libere race.
Richard Chassot, the Tour of Romandie director added: “It’s bad news for cycling and teams who will have to reduce their staff.
“If the three big Tour organisers share the cake between them, they have enough races without us. We might as well die.”
Clearly, the ProTour as a series of events will die unless there are teams willing to contest the events, and willing to pony up the money for a ProTour license, which according to this document is 75,000 Swiss Francs (roughly $75,000) per year, or 150,000 Swiss Francs ($150,000) for four years actually, as Larry points out in a comment below, it turns out to be 112,500 Swiss Francs (approximately $112,500) per year. But if the idea is to showcase the best riders in the world, what would happen if lesser teams with lesser riders were to take the place of the current teams? Well, for one, the fans wouldn’t get the quality of racing they would expect. And the race sponsors wouldn’t get the bang for their buck that they would expect, either. So if the UCI does try to soldier on, their reconstituted ProTour won’t likely last very long. Today’s actions “spell the end of the Pro Tour” according to Cazeneuve. It’s hard not to agree
The sad thing is that it didn’t have to turn out this way. As the AFP reports:
“The Pro Tour is a great idea in principal, with the best teams in the best races in the world,” said Marc Sergeant, directeur sportif of the Silence-Lotto team.
“But when there’s a war going on, you have to choose a side. The teams’ strength lies in their unity. Now it’s up to others to come to the table and talk.
“There were some good things in the Pro Tour, but where is it leading to if the Giro, Tour and Vuelta are not even part of the series?”
Perhaps the new structure to emerge from today’s actions will lead professional cycling in a whole new direction. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
The ProTour is dead. Long live the … what, exactly?
Now we should see major change inside UCI body.
McQuaid had lost support of great and historical national federations ( Spain, Italia, France, Netherland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany), had lost the support of organisers, and he just reaches a new low by losing the support of pro-team.
Resigning is his only choice now, especially after promising Pro Tour status to new races in Russia and China. They sign the deal there is few days, and it’s already over.
And the video of Beltran trying to avoid the control on first stage:
http://www.cycleto.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=380
And a second rider caught for EPO : Duenas (19th, Barloworld). A statement was done after the usual police raid.
Jean,
Thanks for the link. And for the info on Duenas.
For those who are interested in seeing more about Moises Duenas Nevado, here are a few stories I’ve found on the situation, via Google News:
Bloomberg
Telegraph
Agence France Presse
I can’t decide if the implosion of UCI via their Protour is good or bad. I think bad overall because cycling will benefit more with a cohesive organization that would span the sport in all races, all continents. Now the Balakanization will remain and expand unfettered.
It is interesting that Barloworld and Liquigas both responded to the EPO results by stating they had NO IDEA that someone on their team was doping. They never do. If they can remotely prove that someone on the team knew, they should kick the whole team out. Today.
It must be hard, though, to track via the drug passport idea, the decline of red blood cells over the course of a tour with the EPO feathered in to keep the riders from hitting rock bottom. They are not picking up these drug positives based upon changes in the RBC count, which is what the passport would be designed for. So maybe the passport don’t work so hot.
“The ProTour is dead. Long live the “¦ what, exactly?” — Let me take a stab at this and suggest CYCLING?
Will everybody who feels disappointed that the UCI is fast flushing down the toilet — hold your hands up?
While we’re at it — will every one who thinks and believes that the French Federation and the AFLD are the ONLY honest governing bodies in cycling along with ASO — raise your hands please?
Now, please, all who truly believe that this whole set of circumstances, including the WADA anti-doping crusade are truly being enacted solely to “protect fair play and establish an even playing field, and oh yeah — to “protect the riders?” Hands please.
One little point — ALL the entities that have been mentioned so far — would like us all to believe that in some way they are inexorably entwined and necessary for cycling to continue — That without them — cycling will virtually disappear off the face of the earth.
Gee — and I thought all along that all cycling needed was just the right mix of masochistic willingness to spend quality time in the pain zone and a high degree of desire by very competitive individuals to challenge each other in group situations. But hey — I could be wrong.
It may very well be true — that the UCI will eventually disappear like a guest who stayed too long; I for one will not miss them. It is not difficult to also remember that the state of affairs in cycling at the present time were much aided by the UCI — as far as I’m concerned — good riddance!
As to the rest of the alphabet soup — I hope they all turn belly up from their bloated self-importance. I shall never forgive these “politicians” for building themselves up at the expense of “fair play” and the cost of individual rights, along with a book of rules that any McCarthy hanger on would “melt over!”
To be honest — the thought that the “two” cyclists who have been found to be “doping” both HAPPEN to be from Spain — and that the Spanish Federation decided to follow ACTUALLY laws of the land in dealing with their “doping problem” and thereby causing a great hard on in the need of the alphabet soup to “get them” — never even crossed my mind — not to mention that their “guilt” is based on the A Sample and both riders have been “found guilty” by all.
Lucky for me — I am boycotting the TdeF — and will do so from now on — I for one am “sick and tired” of the “reality shows” flooding the air waves — I’ll get out on my old Vitus and just creak on down the road.
I have GREAT MEMORIES OF Lance Armstrong who won 7 Tours with every one doping — and with Floyd Landis doing something really great on stage 17 and winning the Tour.
But I can’t avoid reaching that ironical point where I realize that Moises Duenas Nevado was supposedly “doping” and he was “dominating the entire field” from 19th position after the first ten stages, 6min 43sec behind race leader Cadel Evans.
I don’t know what to think about the developments vis-a-vis UCI. I kind of depends on exactly what happens now. But let us not forget that there is more involved here than just pro road, namely amateur, track, mountain bike, cyclo-cross, and BMX. Then there are things like artistic cycling, cycle ball, cycle polo, cycling speedway. I am not sure how many of these things UCI runs, I know that some are.
And I also wonder, to what extent is economics playing a role here. The lower level teams have fewer riders and fewer support staff. So if teams forgo a Pro Tour license, they not only save on the license fees, but on salaries too.
Jean C and Morgan in agreement, the death of the Pro Tour is a good thing? Hmm, I hope the sun still sets in the west tonight, because obviously life is a lot less predictable than I’d thought!
; ^ )
OK, obviously one of the most remarkable accomplishments of the UCI is that it’s managed to alienate everyone. The UCI is not a friend of the cyclist, not appreciated by the teams, and not respected by the race organizers. In comparison, President Bush’s 27% approval rating looks pretty good!
All this being said, our fearless leader Mr. Rant got it right when he said “Long live … what exactly?”
I don’t know the answer to the question, but the place to start is to consider exactly what just happened, and why.
Much of this is pure economics. The cost of a Pro Tour license was something like 112,500 Swiss Francs annually, plus the rules required the Pro Tour teams to employ at least 25 riders and race in every Pro Tour race without exception. It was an expensive enterprise to run a Pro Tour team. In contrast, the Pro Continental license costs 11,000 euros annually, you only need 16 riders and you can race wherever you can get invited to race. Looking at these facts alone, it makes more sense to be a Pro Continental team.
The problem is, everyone wants most of all to race in the Grand Tours, particularly the Tour de France. And the Pro Tour teams were willing to pay up for a Pro Tour license, together with the additional expense of being a Pro Tour team, to get guaranteed entry into the Grand Tours.
So, what happened? Obviously, a lot of things happened. Let’s point out two things:
1. The UCI and the Pro Tour teams never saw eye to eye about the purpose of the Pro Tour. The Pro Tour teams signed up for the Pro Tour to get guaranteed entry into the Tour de France, the Giro and the Vuelta, and they were willing to tolerate having to race in the other Pro Tour races. But the UCI saw the Pro Tour as being a season-long series of races that would stand on its own, generate its own fan interest, build the sport of cycling world-wide, and of course be a growing source of revenue for UCI. So, UCI wanted to expand the Pro Tour racing calendar, while the Pro Tour teams saw this as merely increasing their cost of maintaining their Pro Tour license. This created conflict every time the UCI tried to expand the Pro Tour calendar, particularly with the inclusion of the Tour Down Under in Australia. It’s an expensive proposition to move a Pro Tour team all the way to Australia, especially if your team sponsor has no interest in marketing in Australia. So, we can say that holding a Pro Tour license was expensive, and that the UCI was acting to make it more expensive.
2. With the exclusion of Unibet and Astana from ASO-sponsored events, and the near exclusion of Team Columbia (at the time known as Team High Road) from the Giro, it became obvious that Pro Tour membership did not guarantee participation in the Grand Tours. So, while the cost of the Pro Tour license was going up, the value of the license was being diminished.
I understand all this, but it’s point 2 above that has me confused. If the old pro tour teams want guaranteed entry into the Tour de France, then why have they dumped the UCI (who fought FOR this) and embraced the ASO (who’s fought AGAINST this)? Also remember that ASO has excluded only two Pro Tour teams from its races — holding a Pro Tour team license was CLOSE to a guarantee that the team would race in the Tour de France. Are the teams likely to obtain a better guarantee from the ASO?
There’s also the odd business that one of the Pro Tour teams’ reasons for withdrawing from the Pro Tour is that they did not like being caught in the middle of the war between the UCI and the ASO. Fair enough. But to a large extent, the UCI was fighting this war on behalf of the Pro Tour teams, to guarantee their entry into ASO events … which is what the Pro Tour teams considered to be the essence of holding a Pro Tour license. So … the Pro Tour teams are withdrawing from the Pro Tour because the UCI was fighting for the interests of the Pro Tour teams?
Not logical.
I suspect that the teams have not agreed on much yet, other than that they’re happy to be free of the expense and burden imposed on Pro Tour teams by the UCI. My guess is that the timing of the announcement was not based on the old Pro Tour teams actually having reached firm agreements with the ASO (or even among themselves), but was driven by the fact that the Pro Tour license fees were overdue and that they were all together in France anyway.
Jean C, if you can tell me what you think the Pro Tour teams have accomplished by leaving the Pro Tour, please do so.
(William, just saw your post, great points!)
Larry –
Err….do you really think I am in agreement with Jean C? Perhaps you should re-read what I wrote?
As far as I’m concerned – to put it bluntly – the UCI is the one who is hacking and coughing its weaselly last breath. It is to the end of the UCI that I look forwards with some anticipation – perhaps I am being short sighted – but ANY of the “alphabet soup” that breaths its last is a good thing for me! About time the universe gave back what they themselves have caused to individuals AND to bicycle racing!
If the “pro tour Concept” folds being ridden by the UCI – it will raise up in some other format – lets be honest here Larry – there is a lot of money to be made – and there are plenty of enterprising groups and individuals who will try to tap it.
As far as agreeing with Jean C – not likely Larry. I am not of the opinion that “the end justifies the means.”
Larry,
I just lost my response… so I should rewrite it! f*#$d!
I said: McQuaid went a bridge too far and has lost!
He could have won if he has reduced the number of PTT, but by pushing harder on the GT, he forced the GT organisers to find an other way.
They have found and proved it when they have run Paris Nice and TDF without UCI.
By doing that, the teams have learned that McQuaid had lost all his power.
UCI is a federation of federation… I don’t see why UCI would abandon Pro racing when the national federations will kept their proroad entity.
The issue is : UCI come back to its regulation role, and probably without McQuaid after so big failures.
Rant, Jean C’s post reminds me to mention that most of MY posts do not go through these days. I copy them before I send them, then repaste. It usually takes two or three clicks on the Submit button to get through.
Jean C, I agree with you, but I don’t expect UCI to quietly accept a mere “regulation role”. We’ll see.
Morgan, I was being somewhat tongue in cheek. But you’re happy about the demise of the Pro Tour, and so is he. You’re happy to see any of the alphabet soup agencies take a hit, he’s happy to see UCI take a hit. It’s kind of sort of like you guys agree. It’s kind of sort of like the state of the agreement I imagine to presently exist between the pro tour teams and the ASO. Y’know, an agreement on the surface? With fundamental differences of opinion at the core?
The UCI is far from dead. McQuaid may or may not remain the head of UCI, but UCI will continue to exist. It performs many functions on the international scene, and is officially recognized by the IOC and every national cycling federation. It may play a smaller role in men’s pro road cycling, or maybe no role whatsoever in men’s pro road cycling, but that still leaves them with the women’s side of the sport, and mountain, and track, and BMX, and everything else. Moreover, if UCI is interested, I think they can continue to play a role in men’s road cycling, even at the grand tours. The sport needs rules, and officials, and even team and rider licensing (Pro Continental style). There’s a great advantage to have all this performed on a coordinated level with the various national cycling federations. UCI might even play a continued role in anti-doping, though I kind of doubt it — I think that the biological passport program will be taken over by the pro tour teams themselves and that they’ll sign up to the WADA rules.
Larry,
That’s not good. If you’re running into problems, I suspect others are, too. I’ll have to look into that and see what the problem might be. Sorry for the inconvenience, for you and for everyone else similarly affected.
Larry, I agree with you. Why would the ProTour teams make any settlement with the Grand Tour organizers? What was in it for them? They could openly fight with the UCI and the ProTour requirements, without siding with ASO. What did they gain?
Let’s see, if I were the manager of a ProTour team and I was sick of traveling to the Tour of Poland, or Langkawi, or God-forbid, the Tour Down-Under. Really, Australia? The toilets don’t even flush in the correct direction. Anyway, if I were sick of it, and I could get a group of teams to agree, why couldn’t I plead my case to the UCI? I cannot understand why the riders and the teams have so little influence.
It seems to me that the teams should never have negotiated with the race organizers. If I were the manager of a corporation who do I want to negotiate with: the union or small powerless groups of labor? The teams have culpability in all this. They could have asked the UCI for mercy when the ProTour couldn’t get the support of the race organizers. They could have found a way to collectively bargain a solution. But only if they stuck together. What they have done is piss-away the investment that they made in the ProTour. They got nothing out of it. McQuaid was intransigent, but the teams had the power to make him move to the middle. It seems disingenuous to say that McQuaid should have stopped being an advocate for the UCI rules – the members of the UCI should have made him change the rules.
Rant,
I also have become accustomed to Larry’s method of making posts. I can’t say it happens a majority of the time. But maybe 1:10.
Last week was bad. This week is ok.
BTW, I use Firefox 2.0.0.15 with the “NoScrpt” add on. I have suspected that this java filter may be the problem, even after accepting all the java scripts from your site. But I am no expert.
Oh well.
Michael,
The spam comment filter for this site (I’ve gotten something like 50,000 of the buggers over the last three months) looks for a user’s Java and JavaScript capabilities. From what I understand, if a user doesn’t have Java and JavaScript enabled, comments might not get posted.
I’m going to be looking into other methods of blocking spam, too, to see if there’s a better way. Sorry you’ve had trouble, even if it’s only one time out of ten.
Rant:
I too have problems, sometimes just even getting into your site to see if there is anything new. And when this happens, I don’t have any problems accessing other sites. Guess I need to start using Larry’s strategy.
BTW, I am using Safari and do have Java and Javascript enabled.
William,
There are times when I have trouble getting to my own site, too. Whether it’s you, me or anyone else, if the site isn’t accessible, that’s a problem that my ISP will need to correct. I’m paying for uptime not downtime. Sorry for the inconvenience. I’m hoping we’ll get that situation resolved.
I may be changing to a different spam comment filtering plugin to WordPress. I’m hoping that does the trick as far as posting comments goes.
It is yet another day in a life of a Tour de France boycott.
Cycling has thrown me a bone with a couple of interesting cycling stories that fall outside of the Tour itself and arguably have some level of importance, such as the collapse of professional cycling as we know it.
For a moment, I thought that maybe the 17 pro tour teams had also decided to join the boycott — effective January 1, 2009, but effective nevertheless. I was prepared to declare boycott victory over the ASO, until I learned that the pro tour teams were acting together with the ASO. I then considered that perhaps the ASO was ALSO trying to join the boycott, which when you think about it would have been a terrific strategy. Imagine that the workers at the local plant vote to go on strike and go to take their places on the picket line, only to find that management is already picketing there! Either that’s the end of the strike, or it’s the end of the enjoyable part of the strike, but in any event it’s hard to negotiate demands when there’s no one left to negotiate with.
I then had to consider what I’d have to offer the ASO to get them to leave the boycott and go back to their offices where they’d be in a position to continue to ignore our demands. I’d like to be positive, but it seemed that we’d be lucky to break even.
When the pro tour teams announced that there was a role in their plan for UCI, then for a minute I thought about calling off the whole boycott. I like boycotting with Michael, Rob W, Ken, Cabazon, Morgan and the rest of y’all, but if Pat McQuaid shows up at this party, I’m going home.
Then I considered, if the teams, the ASO and the UCI are all boycotting the Tour, then WHO’S LEFT RUNNING THE RACE? I thought that maybe we could get the Rantheads together in Paris, walk into all of the now-empty office space of the ASO, and just take over. THAT could be cool. But then I remembered my brief career as a college radical in the 1960s, when our protest group took over a building on campus. It was like 4:30 p.m. on a Friday, the building was empty when we got there, the police and college administration just ignored us, and we wandered around the building for about a half hour before we got bored and left. Lesson learned: there’s no protest value in taking over an empty building.
So, then, where does the boycott go from here?
I’m not 100% sure, but after some consideration, I think that the pro tour collapse is due to some cause other than a desire of all of two-wheeled mankind to join our boycott. I think that the pro tour looked at the boycott, and at the demands made by Michael and me to end the boycott, and they decided that as between boycotting and making demands, the fun part is making demands. So the pro tour teams started making demands without actually boycotting anything. This is an unfair labor practice. I think.
In any event … it appears that the pro tour teams have made only two demands: (1) more money, and (2) still more money. That’s not terribly creative, especially in comparison to the demands made by boycotting rookies like Michael and me, for such things as more interesting time trials and canned spam. Honestly, I expected better from professionals.
I was working on a series of new demands … for example, I want the caravan that drives the race route before the riders to toss stuff to the crowd other than corporate promotional swag. I was going to demand that they toss classic reading material as well. From what I learned at this year’s Tour of California, 99% of attending a road race is staring at an empty piece of road while muttering such pearls of cycling wisdom as “do you think they’ll ever get here?” and “if the riders have all taken a wrong turn and gotten lost, is it the duty of the maillot jaune to ask for directions?” Having something nice and deep and French to read can help kill a few hours. I was going to recommend that they toss Camus to the crowd, as Proust could not be tossed but would require something more like a cannon shot (with the attendant loss of life one would normally associate with cannot shot).
But now I’m so confused about the state of what we’re trying to boycott, that I’m not sure how to boycott it. I think, to be blunt, that we’re rank amateurs when it comes to this boycott stuff. We figured that our boycott was such a threat to damage the well-being of the Tour, the ASO would have no choice but to meet our demands. We did not consider that, with the damage done to the Tour by doping cyclists, cyclists wrongfully accused of doping, alphabet soup agencies fighting with each other, and Pat McQuaid making idiot announcements every two minutes, not to mention the pro tour teams leaving the pro tour, no one gives a damn about boycotting fans.
The only comfort (and it is, admittedly, not a lot of comfort) is that no one gives a damn about the non-boycotting fans, either. At least we’re not being discriminated against.
Larry:
The trouble is that everything is connected to everything else. Doping cyclists get caught in the tour. Pro cycle teams tell the UCI to take a hike with its Pro Tour, and side with ASO which runs, guess what, the TdF. Just about any mention of drugs and sports these days rates the obligatory mention of a certain rider with Mennonite connections, who may or may not have doped in the ’06 Tour. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
Well this is interesting:
http://tour-de-france.velonews.com/article/80269/riccardo-ricco-tests-positive-saunier-duval-team-withdraws
I don’t know exactly how CERA (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator) works compared to EPO but it sounds as if it sticks to the receptor and activates it longer than just bridging receptors the way EPO does. For a smarter mouse you need a smarter mouse trap.
And if the whole team goals home, as happened here, then was everyone using CERA and management knew and facilitated? I still think it is the team management that is the corrupting influence and until teams are punished (as Astana was this year) the cheating will continue. This sport has an absolute death wish.
Astana and Contador should be happy at home…they escape a probably nightmare!
Curiouser and curiouser the Tour 08 is, isn’t it?
Like the old Tom Lehrer song goes (though it’s not exactly apropos for the EPO stories, but it kind of is…), “Who’s next?”
Hah!!! What a great song! And quite fitting. Thanks Rant, that made me laugh!
Was the Pro Tour really a good idea?
Certainly the implementation was a failure, we can all agree on that. There was no obvious visible change in cycling. It doesn’t matter whether or not someone may or may not be able to quote statistics about ore racers or stars racing or whatever. For such a big effort, and all the hype, if it worked, the fans would’ve said “Wow this rocks”. But the reality is no casual observation would even notice the impact of the pro tour on cycling (stories of political infighting aside).
One promise was, see more big stars in more races. But that didn’t happen. Teams came up with bigger rosters so that the big stars could continue to pick and choose the races. So when you’re watching a little race, with a bunch of no-names, do you care if the no-names have “Discovery” on their backs instead of “joe-bob’s ceiling contracting”?
But that makes one wonder – is there any realistic structure that’s going to lead to big stars in more races, and more races all the time? I don’t think so. I think the Pro Tour was a bad idea from the start. Wholesale changes and large scale improvements in cycling sounds good. But that’s not even an idea, it’s just a notion.
Imagine if all that time and money and effort was spent promoting the cycling we have? Or fixing the anti-doping system?
tom
Thomas,
Apparently to fight doping that is not a real money problem but more a willing!
We have currently a good demonstration done.
Jean C, I don’t know how this is being reported in France, but from what I read over here, this is not a “good demonstration” on the part of the AFLD. Of course, I may not have understood what you meant by “good demonstration”. How would you say that in French? (My French is terrible, but my wife’s is fluent, even if she speaks with a Geneva accent, and my daughter’s is pretty good.)
I (and many others, our friend Tom Fine chief among them) have issues with AFLD’s “targeted testing”. We understand that some riders are being tested over and over, while others are being ignored. Evidently, Beltran, Duenas and Ricco were all targeted, but no one is sure who’s on the target list. According to Bonnie Ford at ESPN, Damiano Cunego and even David Millar have been subject to additional testing. There are reports that the Spanish riders are being tested heavily and that the French riders are rarely being tested, though Bonnie Ford reports that French riders Jimmy Casper and Jerome Pineau have been subject to additional testing. In short, we don’t know who’s being tested, or why they were selected for testing. No less than an authority than Rasmus Damsgaard says that the AFLD would catch somewhere between 20 – 50 riders for EPO use if they tested everyone. If AFLD catches 3 of 50 dopers, that’s not a good record, and if they only catch three guys because they didn’t test everyone, that’s even worse.
On the other hand, my impression is that the French police are doing a good job! I don’t think that the AFLD’s testing is scaring anyone — they just don’t catch enough dopers to act as a good deterrent. I think it is fair to conclude that the benefits of doping outweigh the small risk that the AFLD will discover the doping. But being arrested, now THAT’s a good deterrent! That’s gotta scare the shorts off of any rider tempted to dope in the Tour.
By the way, I truly appreciate your presence here on this forum. Your voice is invaluable and your contribution irreplacable.
Larry,
Thanks for your nice words about me. Tu es aussi irremplacable. You can say that directly to your wife, she will appreciate it.
On TBV, there is a lot of biaised people and anti-french…
As announced, testing are done by 2 manners: the winners, leaders, jerzeys and targetting.
Of course, the most supicious riders have been chosen. Every rider gave a blood sample during the TDF medical visit the day before the first day. Some riders were tested by OOC during the last month before TDF too. They have probably information about others races and precedent years, especially via Lausanne lab. ( It seems that blood is tested by Lausanne. )
With all this information they should have done a biological profil of riders…
And probably they use some advice of people working in physiology of sport, (or like me ;D) able to recognize doping by their performance.
About the french tested less than others, it’s normal (for me) they are the less suspicious, our laws are deterrent, and “our” results are normal.
It would be anormal that a Ricco, Voigt, … should be tested like a french.
Just a look at the result:
Beltran – no illegal drug found – but tried to escape testing
Ricco and Duenas caught and the drug was found in their rooms.
Difficult to think that is false positive.
About the only 3 riders… if lab wants to avoid too much false positive, they have to catch less dopers…
By comparing with the precedent years, that result is fabulous! From 1996 to 2004-5 80% at least were using EPO! how many caught?
I can just hope that they will use that testing during Olympic Games, we have seen recently some dubious progress in many sports ( Track and field, swimming,…)
Now LNDD could retest the UCI work at Giro, isn’t it a good idea?
We can extrapolate about the last controversies about Mayo and other riders!
Apparently I was so exhausted from boycotting that I missed a lot of good discussion yesterday and this morning … I did happen to catch this on cyclingnews today though:
“Roberto Amadio, Team Manager of Liquigas, explained to Cyclingnews on the morning of Tour de France’s stage to Foix … ‘The agreement [between the teams and the grand tour organizers] gives the right to the teams to participate in all the races, but it is not an obligation that they participate. However, there will be a percentage of teams that have to participate.'”
(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2008/jul08/jul17news2)
Am I missing something, or wasn’t the dictate that all ProTour teams had to be included one of the biggest problems ASO supposedly had with the UCI? But now the new agreement to cut the UCI out offers all the teams “the right to participate in all the races”?
In the second story on the page, the UCI is considering seeking compensation from the 9 teams that already HAVE ProTour Licenses for next year, if they do indeed break their “contracts”. The idea is to cover losses that will be suffered by the UCI and the smaller tour organizers …
Jean C, I will work later on a comprehensive post about Ricci, the new EPO and the job being done by the AFLD. The news is flying in so fast, it’s hard to react.
The French bashing really bothers me, and I should probably do more than I have done to fight against it. I have been highly critical of the LNDD-AFLD and other agencies who happen to be French, but their being French is not an issue. If we want to bring nationality into it: (1) the French have the technological know-how to run the safest nuclear power industry in the world, while the U.S. has Three Mile Island on its record, (2) the French have the know-how and administrative ability to get Parisians out of their cars and into buses and trains, reducing global warming and creating the most live-able large city I’ve ever seen — in contrast, try to go cross-town in my native Los Angeles in any form of transit on a Friday afternoon, and (3) French-run science does not try to pretend that global warming does not exist, or that evolution did not take place — this is a dubious distinction held by U.S. science. Need I go on?
Cote du Rhone is better than nearly anything we can grow in the Napa Valley. Orangina is the single greatest soda ever bottled. The best falafel in the world is sold in Le Marais (and I’ve eaten falafel in Jerusalem, in both the Arab and Jewish quarters of the old city, so I should know).
http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/travel/31bite.html. I’m not kidding about that falafel.
Oh, OK, one more thing. The French were right about Iraq. We were wrong. On behalf of the U.S., I officially apologize for all the terrible things we said about France at the outset of this war. We should have listened to you.
The Tour de France is the greatest cycling race on the face of the earth, and in my book, the single best sports event anywhere. It got to be that way in part because France is so damn beautiful, and in part because the French have traditionally run a terrific race. This is true, boycott or no boycott. It is KILLING me not to watch this race.
Jean C, hopefully this helps make up for any failure on my part to fight France-bashing wherever it rears its ugly head!
Now Jean C, here’s how you can help me stamp out France-bashing. You can ride your bicycle over to AFLD and explain to them that we need to understand how they’re targeting riders for testing. It’s not just Americans who are complaining that the Spanish riders seem to be over-targeted and that the French riders seem not to be targeted at all. Probably there’s a good explanation. Also, try to get the AFLD to understand that, if the most important bicycle race on the planet is to be run purely by French authorities, it’s important for the French authorities to avoid any appearance that they’re favoring French riders. So, drag the French riders in for testing in equal numbers to everyone else. What could it hurt? Yes, I understand that the French riders are subject to national testing, but riders on teams like Garmin-Chipotle (Slipstream) are subject to even more testing, and the AFLD has dragged David Millar in for targeted testing. Tell the AFLD that they need to BE fair and APPEAR fair.
Tell them if they do this, then I’ll drop my boycott.
Amendment: I also want a falafel shipped to me from L’As. Actually, I’ll require falafels shipped to every Ranthead boycotter.
Amendment: also a nice bottle of Cote du Rhone for each boycotter, and a good vintage of Chateauneuf du Pape for me as their leader.
Also: I want Audrey Tautou to record my greeting on my office answering machine.
One problem is that people are coming up with theories with insufficient sample to make any kind of conclusion. One “old guard” or 2 Spaniards aren’t enough to indicate any pattern, either with respect to who is or might be doping or with respect to who might or might not be targeted.
If Damsgard has any specific knowledge about 20-50 cyclists doping, then he should share it with the proper authorities so it can be dealt with. However, if this is just more of the mere suspicions based on little if any real evidence, then he should keep his mouth shut.
ASO/AFLD is in a hard spot. If the whole Tour took place w/o any positive drug tests, people would think it a whitewash to show how good they were at picking clean teams. But now that they are getting some positives, people are saying they aren’t doing any better than the old system. However, AFLD’s positives WRT CERA, when others say it can’t be detected in a valid way yet, seems to be a poke in the eye at UCI/WADA and the Giro.
So, what should we do? Step back, take a deep breath. We know that 3 riders had positive A tests, and that the police found hard evidence in Beltran’s room. One team has quit. Let’s wait and see what develops.
William,
Good points. I agree, it’s best to wait and see how these stories develop. Duenas appears to be in real trouble, given what the police supposedly found in his room. Saunier Duval, as a team, is harder to say, even though they pulled out after Ricco’s A sample result was announced. Rabobank carried on last year when Rasmussen was forced to leave (of course, it was Rabobank doing the forcing, at least officially). I’m not sure why SD didn’t stay on. Sure, their GC contender was nabbed, but they could still have stayed in and salvaged a stage win here or there.
Thanks Larry for the reconfort …. You have just forgot to speak of our beautiful bridge in Millau.
I will try to make shorter than the precedent post which just go in the ether.
French riders are less tested because they have less suspicious values, not because they are french. For example some french teams have foreign riders and they seems to have not tested too.
Some people are saying that Caisse d’Epargne is a french teams but maybe the riders had been tested.
in fact that is the same as in custody or cops along the road, they control suspect about random testing and about suspect behaviour like a chaotic driving.
So what is unfair is to think that french are doing something unfair!
The most unfair is that most of the french riders have to live under the most rigourous laws against doping in the world. EU already stated it recently in a debate to harmonize EU doping laws.
The most unfair is to accuse AFLD from unfairness without a proof, by confusing results of screening and nationality.
What about the same ration of testing for teams? or for every age od rider? or for the color of the skin?
I am afraid that for some people they opinion are projection of what they would do if they were AFLD.
For Audrey, I can do nothing. I can just propose to use an ex-colleague who has a wonderful voice, a real dream. Everyone enjoyed to call me and to hear his voice. His plastic was remarkable. The worst point was she was already married!
Rant,
please, if it’s possible I would have an idea about the impact of TDF doping on the sales of your book. I just need some qualifiers or tems or % .
We can wait the end of TDF to have a good picture.
Jean,
If it’s possible to get a breakdown of sales figures during and after the Tour, I’ll publish that information. I’m not sure how long it will take to get, as the book is distributed through several channels, and I’m not sure how quickly the information gets back to my publisher. But as soon as I hear anything, I’ll pass it along.
Rant ,
Thanks but dont worried you have time it’s only for me to see if there is an impact on the sales of such books.
Larry,
One point I missed in the precedent post about less testing of french riders: probably some effects on the french longitudinal control. AFLD has already a lot of datas about them, so to detect anomaly it can be quicker.
Jean:
It makes sense to me if French riders are tested a lot by the French authorities, there may be less need for the TdF itself to test them. Does this testing of French riders continue while they are in the Tour, independent of the Tour’s testing. And are non-French riders on French teams or living in France subject to the same testing?
Larry,
I am very disappointed in your recent announcement regarding your boycott demands. All you want is fairness!!! I want my cheese! You cave on something as ludicrous as fairness, then there is no way I get my cheese. And we can forget about the meat in a can.
About your discussion with Jean: I’ve said it before, here we go again; how will the world cycling federation ever be able to reconcile the French attitude toward doping – as a legal matter worthy of arrests and laws – versus the American attitude – not worthy of government intervention or its associated intrusions on civil liberties? American’s historically are very uncomfortable with the government intruding on matters like this (despite the impression you might get from a vocal minority). And when the government does intrude, we typically expect a much higher level of transparency and accountability than we get from the quasi-governmental agencies surrounding cycling.
I think that a lot of the angst on Rant revolves around some of these different ideas. Many persist with the argument that Floyd’s test results would never hold up in court. Which resulted in a big SO WHAT from CAS. The people who believe that Floyd is guilty, do not find any discomfort in that fact.
I know that most people don’t agree with me, but I have always felt that the depth and breadth of cycling is much greater than any doping. To focus on the issue of doping as the Tour and WADA have, is to miss the much bigger issues afflicting the management of the sport. Doping is not a plague. Doping will not kill any sport. Cycling management and promoters have advertised to the fans that its product over the last 15-years wasn’t on the level. Too bad for us (I have to admit, I still love the toughness of Tyler Hamilton, the brutal force of will from Armstrong, the tenacity of Chiapucci, the quirky resolve of Floyd, and the flamboyancy of Cipolllini). Now the leaders of cycling, because of their astonishing incompetence, have driven the sport back into local federations. When the American television contract is up for European racing, will they renew? Or will I be reduced to waiting all year for a few hours of the Husatonic Race or the Philadelphia Road Race?
Doping didn’t create this mess. It was the cure inflicted upon us that is creating the mess.
Michael, that’s a great post.
Once you get your hands on a L’As falafel, you’ll see why I sacrificed your cheese and canned meat.
I don’t agree with you on the differences between the French and the U.S. attitudes towards due process. Who’s running Gitmo? Not France. As best as I can see, the ADA system was written by Richard Young (U.S.) at the direction of Dick Pound (Canadian).
You make a lot of good points, but I need to move over to the next post for a major announcement.