WADA taking more active role in cycling?

iainf72

Sounds a bit like it

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 67988.html

Now everyone can start guessing who they are...

Kléber

The juicy bit:

This person said antidoping officials are particularly concerned about the status of five professional riders who were flagged for doping in December but have not yet been sanctioned by the UCI. The riders, whose names are known only to the UCI, were determined to be doping by an independent committee of nine scientists and experts that was appointed by the UCI to review data from blood and urine tests.

The person said at least two members of the panel have voiced concerns that the UCI may be disregarding these positive tests or shielding guilty riders from punishment.

Cumulonimbus

Cant find the uci one but here is a cyclingnews page from when the last bio-passport offenders were revealed

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-nam ... l-passport

'UCI president Pat McQuaid revealed to Bloomberg in late February that a handful of riders had been asked to explain their blood values to the independent expert panel that examines the biological passport readings. "We see no other reason other than a possible potential doping reason," said McQuaid at the time.'

Looks to me like the procedure is that if someone is found guilty then they are given time to respond with a reason. Assuming the UCI is not doing anything dodgy then maybe the reasons were sufficient to cast doubt on the guilty verdict? In this instance maybe they are awaiting the results from more tests? However, if there is something dodgy going on then WADA stepping in may prompt these cases to be suddenly resolved in the next few weeks as a 'final check' is completed.



*not saying i believe this or not.

iainf72

With the 2 recent cases of Franco P and Valjavec we've seen 2 different outcomes. Valjavec cleared by his ADA and free to race.

If the UCI have some really big names flagged, they could be extremely nervous about wanting to sanction because of the threat of a long court case. So perhaps they're targetting hoping to get them on a positive "traditional" team.

Or perhaps this is WADA's way of saying "we're got your back, sanction them"

Kléber

Some interesting points there.

Will the UCI take action over Valjavec, either issue intructions to look again or ask the Court for Arbitration to look again?

58585

I'm interested to know whether you guys think the UCI is incompetent or corrupt...
And whether you think WADA has the clout to do anything about it

iainf72

I think there is a level of corruption in the UCI. But then, we had people like Ann Gripper who did a fantastic job. The UCI are in a wierd position where they're trying to promote the sport but it's got a doping problem.

In this case, WADA would be helpful as they have a lot of resources (money, legal help, experts etc) and it would take some of the strain off the UCI. If you're an athlete who's earn multi millions in your time, you could pay a lot for a lawyer and make it financially challenging for an ADA to sanction you. This is the technique Floyd used in Floyd v1.

alanmcn1

UCI looks after cyclings external face first and foremost. I'd love to know who the 5 are..............After Lance's donations wont take much to get cycling governance turned around

This time last year in the alps pre-tour everyone was covninced Cancellara and Bertie wouldnt be starting the tour thanks to the passport