Who or what would convince you pro cycling is drug free?

feersumendjinn

Is pro-cycling so synonymous with drug taking now that its impossible for anyone to believe it will ever be clean?
Who or what would convince you it is a clean sport, if anything?

a)A statement from the organisers claiming drug free races?
b)A year of no positive tests?
c)A statement from the teams & sponsors claiming new & improved tests that work?
d)A book from Walsh/Kimmage/Whittle etc. entitled “Cycling, Now its drug free what can we write about?”

Kléber

Some teams are pretty clean. Look at Slipstream, Bouygues Telecom, Francaise des Jeux, Credit Agricole. Arguably even High Road/Columbia and Cofidis are too, even if they've employed some bad riders.

But the problem is that many teams remain unreformed. Organised programes, the DSs are known ex-dopers, the same medical staff operate in the background and more. Even the governing body is still in near-total denial.

Cycling won't ever be 100% clean, nothing ever is, but only a few are making an effort to clean up.

Garry H

feersumendjinn wrote:

Is pro-cycling so synonymous with drug taking now that its impossible for anyone to believe it will ever be clean?
Who or what would convince you it is a clean sport, if anything?

a)A statement from the organisers claiming drug free races?
b)A year of no positive tests?
c)A statement from the teams & sponsors claiming new & improved tests that work?
d)A book from Walsh/Kimmage/Whittle etc. entitled “Cycling, Now its drug free what can we write about?”

Probably d). I f they could be convinced, so could I!! Wouldn't be a) or c). Maybe b) but make it 5 years.

blazing_saddles

It'll never be 100% clean, but it's probably cleaner now, than any time since the '80's.

I know what would help.

Forcing sports like football, ("no substances on WADA's list effect the performance of our players".) tennis ("no names from OP, especially Rafa Nadal, please".) and golf (where "technology has added 70 metres to the average drive) to adopt an approach to doping, on a par with cycling.

They are all synonymous with turning a blind eye to the problem.

z000m

lifetime bans from the sport as in athletics, two strikes and your out.

Salsiccia

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Forcing sports like football, ("no substances on WADA's list effect the performance of our players".) tennis ("no names from OP, especially Rafa Nadal, please".) and golf (where "technology has added 70 metres to the average drive) to adopt an approach to doping, on a par with cycling.

Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.

About PEDs in football, didn't I read somewhere that the Premier League said the EPO test was 'too expensive' and that is why they don't test for it?

Kléber

It should be UK Sport testing the players. But in the recent Euro-2008 tournament, the authorities said before the tournament (doh!) that they would not be testing for EPO. No wonder those [insert libelous team name here] were running non-stop.

But I don't care for other sports as much. As cycling fans, it's no good saying "he started it", or calling other pots black. We need to ask those in charge of this sport to fix things.

enjoy_the_ride

a) no
b) no
c) no
d) no

e) a continued drop in average speeds, back to say a max of 38kph over approx 3500 km would help.

http://www.bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdfstats.html

The 1998 Dublin (Ireland) - Paris Tour De Dopage statistics make me very doubtful of the approx 40kph averages.

donrhummy

Well first, the cyclists would have to stop claiming, "I rode into shape after two straight weeks of hard riding (in the toughest race in the world.)" Sorry, but riding against the best cyclists in the world for 14 straight days does NOT make you faster the next week (unless you're on drugs which would enable you to recover). Instead, this is the principle of over-training such that AFTER a week of recovery, you can come back faster.

Cyclists should get slower, not faster, over three hard weeks of riding.

The labs would have to be properly accredited and managed such that I could believe they're doing proper work (and all required to have the same exact standards and rules).

Every drug test would be done as follows:
1. Three samples are taken
2. The "A" sample is tested in one lab
3. If the "A" sample shows something, the "B" and "C" samples are tested in two other labs to confirm

All tests are done by a third party, none of this team-driven private testing like in Slipstream -- too much of a conflict of interest. Instead, every team's required to pay a certain amount (half a million euros?) to the organization that runs out-of-competition testing.

The out-of-comp testing would occur at least 8 times a month for every rider. The riders would be given GPS devices for when they go out on the road so the testers can find them and it would only happen during certain hours so they're not woken up at 2am which is inhumane (and there are other rules, such as don't go into the funeral home when a guy is burying his dead child!!). With the GPS, the cyclists can wear "black" so that fans don't bother them but the testers can still find them.

Can't think of other things but those would all go a long way toward convincing me.

blazing_saddles

donrhummy wrote:

).

Every drug test would be done as follows:
1. Three samples are taken
2. The "A" sample is tested in one lab
3. If the "A" sample shows something, the "B" and "C" samples are tested in two other labs to confirm

You mean like the UCI had to do, with Iban Mayo? :shock: :oops:

donrhummy

Blazing Saddles wrote:

donrhummy wrote:

).

Every drug test would be done as follows:
1. Three samples are taken
2. The "A" sample is tested in one lab
3. If the "A" sample shows something, the "B" and "C" samples are tested in two other labs to confirm

You mean like the UCI had to do, with Iban Mayo? :shock: :oops:

No. I mean: if the three do not ALL agree, then it's not a doping charge. So Mayo would have been found innocent. I think doing it in 3 diff. labs makes a much less clouded situation where you can't question a positive result because that one lab is suspect. It would be three labs all finding the same results.

I'd even say it should be:
First lab is chosen by the organizer.
Second lab chosen by UCI/WADA.
Third lab chosen by the rider/team.
(all choices from the accredited labs)

All the choices would be made at the beginning of a year and would be used throughout the year.

Jez mon

Wouldn't the three lab approach be expensive and time consuming, obviously the current system has flaws, but letting a rider/team chose leads to a tremendous conflict of interest, accredited lab or not.

Anyways, for me, I would say blood tests done should be closer to the time of the race, furthermore, every team needs a system and an ethic like slipstream's. Of course, we need to make sure that anti-doping programs don't turn into organized blood doping, which is very difficult.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, I don't think there is any way that cycling will be whiter that white any time soon. BUT that slow progress is being made towards a cleaner sport.

RichN95.

donrhummy wrote:

I'd even say it should be:
First lab is chosen by the organizer.
Second lab chosen by UCI/WADA.
Third lab chosen by the rider/team.
(all choices from the accredited labs)

The problem with this is someone like Vino can choose the testing lab in Kazakhstan and get a free pass.

Better is for the B tests, WADA gives the accused a list of, say three, labs to choose from.

Noodley

Nothing.

nolf

What would convince me cycling is largely drug free?

Andy or Franch Schleck winning the tour de france this year would be a good start.

ACMadone

nolf wrote:

What would convince me cycling is largely drug free?

Andy or Franch Schleck winning the tour de france this year would be a good start.

Never gonna happen! Just like cycling will never be 100% drug free. It seems to be getting better, but is that just what they want us all to believe?

Has anything more been said by the UCI about the 23 (i think) riders that required attention?

RichN95.

ACMadone wrote:

nolf wrote:

Has anything more been said by the UCI about the 23 (i think) riders that required attention?

They're probably waiting for the best time to damage ASO. First rest day, I guess.

flattythehurdler

Good, the more damage the better.
I would personally concentrate the entire drug testing budget on testing for EPO, and it's vaiants, and on testing for blood doping. These are the things that really make a 2 speed peleton. None of the rest skew the results to the same extent over the course of a 3 week tour. Ask Lemonde.

Garry H

flattythehurdler wrote:

Good, the more damage the better.
I would personally concentrate the entire drug testing budget on testing for EPO, and it's vaiants, and on testing for blood doping. These are the things that really make a 2 speed peleton. None of the rest skew the results to the same extent over the course of a 3 week tour. Ask Lemonde.

So with your test, Landis would never have been caught...

Philip S

Seeing riders that have cycled hard the day before - say on a tough mountain stage - not being able to do exactly the same thing the day after (cf, Gerdeman in the Alps last year), so there'd be some real tactics as to which stages a contender can go all out on and which ones they have to ride defensively...

LangerDan

Apparently a fake tattoo was what the problem needed all along

Cunego 'dopingfree'
Lampre's Damiano Cunego will race the Tour de France wearing a stick-on tattoo on his left arm, which says 'I'm dopingfree', according to Sportwereld. The Italian wants to support the action taken by Marco Guadagnini, who wants to eradicate doping from the sport. "Not only bike riders, but also other sports men that put the tattoo on their arms, are sending a clear message," he said.

The fake tattoo, a smiley featuring the message, can be bought on www.dopingfree.org.

Where the "Oh sweet Jebus" smiley?

flattythehurdler

Garry H wrote:

flattythehurdler wrote:

Good, the more damage the better.
I would personally concentrate the entire drug testing budget on testing for EPO, and it's vaiants, and on testing for blood doping. These are the things that really make a 2 speed peleton. None of the rest skew the results to the same extent over the course of a 3 week tour. Ask Lemonde.

So with your test, Landis would never have been caught...

No. There are strong rumors that Landis had a blood transfusion. I don't personally believe that he did that to the peleton on a little testosterone patch, especially given that exogenous testosterone was found in his samples throughout the tour, once a proper test was applied. He was goodish throughout the tour with testosterone doping. He was superhuman on THAT day.

Garry H

flattythehurdler wrote:

Garry H wrote:

flattythehurdler wrote:

Good, the more damage the better.
I would personally concentrate the entire drug testing budget on testing for EPO, and it's vaiants, and on testing for blood doping. These are the things that really make a 2 speed peleton. None of the rest skew the results to the same extent over the course of a 3 week tour. Ask Lemonde.

So with your test, Landis would never have been caught...

No. There are strong rumors that Landis had a blood transfusion. I don't personally believe that he did that to the peleton on a little testosterone patch, especially given that exogenous testosterone was found in his samples throughout the tour, once a proper test was applied. He was goodish throughout the tour with testosterone doping. He was superhuman on THAT day.

Rumours maybe, but he was caught with synthetic testosterone. Are you implying that they couldn't prove the blood doping, so made something up about having a massive natural to synthetic testosterone ratio? Surely, the use of that much synthetic would have had the desired result on THAT day...

Edit: Ahh, now I see what you're saying: That although he did have a huge T/E ratio and that Synthetic Testosterone was found, this could not account for the difference in performance, so it must be down to something like blood doping. Right?

DaveyL

flattythehurdler wrote:

Garry H wrote:

flattythehurdler wrote:

Good, the more damage the better.
I would personally concentrate the entire drug testing budget on testing for EPO, and it's vaiants, and on testing for blood doping. These are the things that really make a 2 speed peleton. None of the rest skew the results to the same extent over the course of a 3 week tour. Ask Lemonde.

So with your test, Landis would never have been caught...

No. There are strong rumors that Landis had a blood transfusion. I don't personally believe that he did that to the peleton on a little testosterone patch, especially given that exogenous testosterone was found in his samples throughout the tour, once a proper test was applied. He was goodish throughout the tour with testosterone doping. He was superhuman on THAT day.

He was not superhuman that day. It was certainly a strong ride, but in terms of wattage not superhuman - any of the top GC guys could have done it. Poor tactics by other teams (and a weak Pereiro/Caisse d'Erpagne) helped a lot at the start of his break.

Garry H

DaveyL wrote:

He was not superhuman that day. It was certainly a strong ride, but in terms of wattage not superhuman - any of the top GC guys could have done it. Poor tactics by other teams (and a weak Pereiro/Caisse d'Erpagne) helped a lot at the start of his break.

Looked at in isolation mybe not, but I think it needs to be viewed in context with what happened to him the previous day. It's the recovery that's the issue, not the performance on that day per se.

DaveyL

Well that's not what you wrote the first time

There seems to be a few folk (Sean Kelly even called it as it happened - I have the footage) that Landis had the hunger knock on the climb to La Toussuire. It is possible that he didn't actually do himself that much damage as he couldn't go hard enough to fatigue himself a lot. You could argue that the revelaton of him having synthetic testosterone on several days of the Tour backs this up - taking testosterone after Stage 16 wasn't a desperate measure to recover but pretty much standard practice for him (and no doubt many others) at the end of any reasonably difficult stage.