The best anti-doping policy for Cycling?

donrhummy

Which do you think is the best way to go about it? (You can use any criteria you like: moral/ethical, monetary, publicity, whatever...)

Kléber

Why do you need a simple version? It's like saying "do you want to turn left or right" when you can go up, down, forwards, backwards or just stand still. There's a grain of truth in your poll for any justice system and II appreciate binary choice is easy to deal with fighting doping isn't about saying "hey, we'll just have to let a few guys dope", nor "some people will pay the price", it's about getting it right.

biondino

Condemning innocent people is fine as long as we catch all guilty parites

Mussolini virtually wiped out the mafia by imprisoning thousands of suspects without due process - it was staggeringly successful in its primary aim, but utterly against the human rights of its victims. Good thing/bad thing?

In the end, it didn't matter as the liberating Americans opened the prisons and freed everyone

Of the two, I'm not sure anyone with any kind of integrity could vote for the second option in this poll.

feersumendjinn

Condemning innocent people is fine......
:idea: The next title of a Walsh/Whittle book???

Cycling has been tying itself in knots over doping for so long now it maybe time for a severely punitive, black & white policy
Still its hard to vote for option 2

Jez mon

I think you have to take the view that this is pro cycling, not real life. Both options are very flawed, but cyclists must now shout about doping as soon as anyone spots it. The culture of doping must be removed, unfortunately, in order to do this some will get caught in the crossfire.

Cyclists must make sure that their names can't be linked to dopers. It must be the dopers who get ostracized rather than the clean ones.

RichN95.

The answer lies within that Kimmage interview with Vaughters

‘It’s better to have five guilty men go free than one innocent man in jail’ - Thomas Jefferson.

It's the basis of any just legal system.

donrhummy

Jez mon wrote:

I think you have to take the view that this is pro cycling, not real life. Both options are very flawed, but cyclists must now shout about doping as soon as anyone spots it. The culture of doping must be removed, unfortunately, in order to do this some will get caught in the crossfire.

Cyclists must make sure that their names can't be linked to dopers. It must be the dopers who get ostracized rather than the clean ones.

But it IS real life. We're talking about people's careers here. When an innocent cyclist's reputation is destroyed, he loses the ability to earn a living for himself and his family with the only skill he's ever had. That's not a small thing.

And making sure their "names aren't linked to dopers?" That's a ridiculous requirement. Anyone here can easily link someone's name to a doping suspect. For example, did you read the "Mitchell Report" for Major League Baseball? One of the men whose name has been ruined by being mentioned in the report is Eric Gagne. I was surprised his name was in the report, linking him to doping, and headlines on newspapers across America blasted Gagne for being linked to doping. Well, I wanted to know what he'd done so *GASP* I actually read the section of the report dealing with Gagne. What did I find?

The only thing "linking" Gagne was that one of the steroid dealers was talking on the phone with one of his users when the user said that Gagne had a question about how steroids worked. The dealer NEVER talked to Gagne. He never sent him anything. He never received money from him. He never even heard Gagne in the background.

THAT is the problem with the witch-hunt that anti-doping has become.

Jez mon

I don't mean actually punishing them for tenuous links to people who may have doped. What I mean is, if a pro cyclist knows someone dopes and they train with them, then they should stop training with them. If a guy on your team dopes, then you should report them.
I know no one likes a grass, but the culture of secrecy must be eroded within pro cycling.

Yes, it's terrible for the few that are punished unjustly, but if the culture of doping continues, it will become harder and harder to sign sponsors and no sponsors means no jobs for anyone.

When drug busts such as Operation Puerto come out, all cyclists heavily linked (i.e. with a few bags of blood with their name on it) should be suspended, until their is good proof of innocence/guilt. Unfortunately, this means that some cyclists would be wrongly suspended, which doesn't sit well with me, trust me. However, cycling has got into a terrible state and I can see few ways of getting anything like a clean sport. The fact is, many of the drug tests have quite a high potential for inaccuracy, as far as I can see, the only way to prevent condemnation of innocent parties, is to require video evidence of that particular cyclist taking the drug.

blazing_saddles

Who can name the innocent cyclist, this thread has been based upon?
Is there a list of banned cyclists who have been shown to be innocent of the charges against them?
Apparently, there are no guilty men in prison.
So, maybe a list of convicted cyclists who are still protesting their innocence would be a good idea.
Perhaps we'll find a trend?

ellieb

I would of course vote for #1... but only if all the 'innocent' cyclists submit themselves to a lifetime of medical scrutiny to explain how they are able, for example, to naturally produce synthetic testosterone, share the womb with an evil twin which never sees the light of day and generally have variations in hamatocrit levels which defy biochemistry.

The reason why cycling is 'singled out, is that for many, many years doping was endemic, in a way it has not been in other sports. This happened because people were willfully in denial about what was happening or were just prepared to turn a blind eye to what was going on. Unfortunately it seems that some people still are.

Nobody has been condemned without a laborious legal & medical testing procedure. Tell me who has had their career ruined without this taking place. Plenty of people may be tainted by suspicion. It doesn't stop them riding.

donrhummy

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Who can name the innocent cyclist, this thread has been based upon?
Is there a list of banned cyclists who have been shown to be innocent of the charges against them?
Apparently, there are no guilty men in prison.
So, maybe a list of convicted cyclists who are still protesting their innocence would be a good idea.
Perhaps we'll find a trend?

Are you certain there are no innocent men in prison?