Walsh on current state of doping

iainf72

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features.php ... alsh_nov08

Reasonable read.

mercsport

Yes , a good read . Or , rather , a sad read .

"I am missing something here but what is wrong with belatedly penalising the man who cheated? Would it be unfair to then sanction him?"
- David Walsh wonders what is wrong with retroactive testing?

One step forward followed by a few back .

Edit : Oh , bloody hell , I've just noticed an ad. for ProCycling at the top of this page with the cover shot of a yellow jerseyed Lance grimacing with the pain of it all . An apt heading to this thread but put me right off .

SpaceJunk

Yeah mercsport - sad in a way.

Sounds like some take solace in the (remarkable) fact that now over 80% of the peloton is clean. I must be a pessimist - I see the 20% that still dopes.

And when nearly 190 line up for the Grand Depart, nearly 40 of them are still cheating.

Looking past that, the article was an interesting read.

DaveyL

I'm definitely one who is happy to see it is 80% clean (if it really is). 10 years ago the numbers were more than reversed, and in fact it is only recently that serious steps have been taken to clean things up. Anyone who thinks it ought to go from 95% doped to 100% clean with the flick of a switch is not living in the real world. It will take time but we are moving in the right direction, which has to be good news. Many other sports have a problem and are still in the denial phase.

Kléber

Walsh makes the valid point that we're a decade on from Festina and the UCI has not been the driving force against doping, it's generally employed a "what doping" attitude and that even within the organisation today there are turf fights over the need to tackle the issue.

Like it or not, it's taken the journalist who became a race organiser, Prudhomme, to tighten things up.

blazing_saddles

Sort of an add on to this thread, as we're looking at the general state of doping.
New anti-doping rules in Germany

The German National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) has released a new set of rules for anti-doping tests in all sports disciplines, taking effect as of January 1, 2009. German athletes will be divided into three groups for testing, depending on their degree of risk, with about 700 top athletes in the highest category with the most restrictive whereabouts reporting requirements.

"If there is a concrete suspicion or someone is trying to play games with the whereabouts reporting, then we can show the athlete the 'red card'," said NADA legal advisor Anja Berninger according to the dpa press agency. Suspicious athletes can therefore be lifted into the highest category testing pool.

This top level, called the International Registered Testing Pool (RTP), will require athletes not only to send in their whereabouts for every quarter year, but also to follow the "one-hour rule". The athletes have to name one hour every day in which they will be available for a doping control.

"During this hour they must wait at the named place for the controller," Berninger said. "This regulation affects only the very top athletes."

Further changes to the rule books include an increased ban of four instead of two years for first-time dopers, the obligatory suspension of an athlete after a positive A sample and the prohibition for convicted athletes to take part in organised training during the duration of their ban


Here's the "A" list of sports which Germany are targetting:-
Speed Skating
Weightlifting
Canoeing
Track and Field
Cycling
Rowing
Swimming
Triathlon
Can anyone spot the obvious exclusion?

iainf72

Does it involve a round ball and stupidity?

Or cross country skiing?

blazing_saddles

iainf72 wrote:

Does it involve a round ball and stupidity?

Or cross country skiing?

Close enough. Think Vienna lab and German success and you get biathlon. Haematocritic levels your average cyclist would die for. :oops: (sorry for any implied insensitive pun)
Heavily covered on German tv, heavily implicated in systemmatic doping, but not getting blacked out tv coverage, a la "the T of G" on ARD.

andy_wrx

An intensely aerobic endurance sport, interspersed with the requirement to get your heart-rate down so as to be able to shoot at a target accurately ?

Drugging - surely not !

eh

Why would the governing bodies ever do much when they are normally staffed by ex-pros themselves who probably have more than one skeleton in the closet, plus other various interests. No the anti-doping battle cannot be won by relying on governing bodies to act.

blazing_saddles

See this is headline news on the Beeb. About time they started to catch up.......
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7721593.stm

Also, this article shows how little testing is currently being carried out, within the sport.

leguape

"Blood-boosting drugs and transfusions work well in normal times, but would be devastatingly effective when you and three others were the only ones in the race hitched to an outboard motor. "

Is there an element to that situation that it means you've got a much shorter list to sort through for targeted testing and it reduces the scope within which the average doper can operate?

I thought there'd been talk that they were getting close to a manageable/reliable test for autologous doping, or was that just Greg Lemond claiming to have the answer?