Amnesty for dopers?

finchy

Just a little idea I've had running through my head...

It's nearly the end of the season, maybe the UCI could announce an amnesty for dopers. Any cyclist who has ever doped can confess, in complete anonymity, to the UCI or doping authorities. All riders should then provide full details of how they got their hands on the dope. This could provide a fairly detailled picture of the doping networks that exist in cycling and other sports, and allow the police to investigate them.

Any cyclist who does not own up during the amnesty, but then is found to have doped during the subsequent investigation, should receive a lengthy ban.

The motivation for cyclists to admit their doping is quite obvious - if they do, they'll be able to race next season. If they don't, but another cyclist who uses the same doctor does, probable ban. Classic case of prisoner's dilemma, except this time there will be plenty more prisoners to make it more likely that dopers will be caught out.

Of course, it will leave a bad taste in the mouth to see so many cheats allowed to carry on, but in the long run it could prove to be beneficial. Naturally the confessed cheats should be the subject of more testing in the future.

OffTheBackAdam

In concept, fine.
In application it all falls apart.
Say our doper pops round to WADA/UCI & 'fesses-up. Says Dr So & So provided me with product X.
He also provides Riders A, B & C and they don't come & confess.
Now, how are the UCI/WADA going to prove that this Dr has provided illicit substances & that A,B or C were using them?
It also needs the country of origin to have doping as a criminal offence, which few do.
Then comes the other issue, if such a UCI amnsesty came into being, wouldn't previous dopers be clamouring for a retrospective application & a lifting of existing bans?
How would race organisors respond? ASO for example?

Kléber

I've seen this before and liked the idea. But it won't work.

Take the "Truth and Reconciliation" committee in South Africa, this found it very difficult to get the truth from people, despite the combination of national willpower and police records. Many wanted to admit the past and get a clean slate so they could live together in the reformed state.

In cycling, no one wants to admit the truth, all the insiders want to continue the game. Take Ivan Basso, he lied about his links to Fuentes when he was with CSC. He continued these tales when he signed with Discovery. It was only when he was caught that he then pulled out the "attempted doping" excuse.

finchy

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

In concept, fine.
In application it all falls apart.
Say our doper pops round to WADA/UCI & 'fesses-up. Says Dr So & So provided me with product X.
He also provides Riders A, B & C and they don't come & confess.
Now, how are the UCI/WADA going to prove that this Dr has provided illicit substances & that A,B or C were using them?
It also needs the country of origin to have doping as a criminal offence, which few do.
Then comes the other issue, if such a UCI amnsesty came into being, wouldn't previous dopers be clamouring for a retrospective application & a lifting of existing bans?
How would race organisors respond? ASO for example?

Your right to point out that doping isn't a criminal offence in many countries, but this isn't the case with those countries where the biggest races take place, and where most of the teams are based. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that even Spain has now outlawed doping).

I wasn't suggesting that riders should be banned just on the words of other people's confessions - what I meant was that the confessions could serve as a good starting point for further investigations, but any bans would have to come as a result of procedures such as DNA matching. I think that if a doctor has been providing illicit substances, there may be some evidence - bags of EPO-enhanced frozen blood for example

As for retrospective applications, just make them unavailable.