Suggestion: UCI points for clean teams?

No_Ta_Doctor

I've just read Millar's book, and what seems to be the strongest point in it is that actively, or through turning a blind eye, teams pressure riders to dope.

So what would cycling look like if teams could earn significant UCI points just by demonstrating that they did their best to keep their riders clean?

I work for a company that produces medical equipment. Just about everything we do has a standard, a compliance requirement, and we can be audited at any point, without warning, by numerous official bodies. Where is that standard for cycling teams? UCI licence requirements have a bodge-job about cleanliness in them, but nothing is quantified, nothing is specified.

Would it be possible to take what e.g. Garmin claim to be doing and use it as a model for an independently verifiable, auditable, standard for cleanliness - and then award UCI points on that basis?

Currently Garmin are doing their thing on their own, and we only have their word for it, for the main, that they're actually implementing the policies they've created.

There could be various components to it - each worth some UCI points.

Independent testing (WADA accredited agency), possibly feeding straight into the bio passport.
Training of riders and staff re. avoiding doping on the team.
Implementation of policies like "no needle".
Trained mentoring for young riders.
Formal whistleblower procedures.

I'm sure there's plenty more.

For the riders there would have to be individual UCI points available to them as well.

It would have to be more than a box-ticking exercise, a team would have to be able to demonstrate they'd done all this to earn the points.

I think something like this might be more likely to end the "culture" of doping in the peloton than just complaining about the omerta.

RichN95.

It would be better to deduct points for sanctioned riders - penalising the team they were at at the time of the offence (so Astana would be punished for Contador, not Saxo, for example).

Clean policies are easy to set up for show but harder to genuinely commit to.

PS 'No needles' is the rule in cycling these days.

Richmond Racer

RichN95 wrote:

It would be better to deduct points for sanctioned riders - penalising the team they were at at the time of the offence (so Astana would be punished for Contador, not Saxo, for example).

Clean policies are easy to set up for show but harder to genuinely commit to.

PS 'No needles' is the rule in cycling these days.

Yeah, I'd agree with this. Team managers who claim that a sanctioned rider must have been doing it on his own without the tean's awareness...which is rarely believable anyway...if the points went against the team then managers like Holczer (surely the 'unluckiest' manager around :roll: ) might have real difficulty getting a job at other teams with history of points deducted for sanctioned riders on their watch.

No_Ta_Doctor

RichN95 wrote:

It would be better to deduct points for sanctioned riders - penalising the team they were at at the time of the offence (so Astana would be punished for Contador, not Saxo, for example).

Clean policies are easy to set up for show but harder to genuinely commit to.

PS 'No needles' is the rule in cycling these days.

I did wonder a moment about the no needles... Thought it was only no saline.

I agree that the loss of points should happen where the rider was doping (tbh the whole points system needs overhauling to give better stability), but I don't think this does enough to promote clean riding. It's not just a question of providing an incentive, it's about providing a framework to achieve it: here's the standard, these are the things you need to implement. It's common practice in most industries to work to standards. I expect there's even an ISO certification for writing ISO standards...

ddraver

The trouble with it is that you punish a whole team for what is/may be one riders crimes. Pre-Festina, it may well have been a good idea, but now? I'm not so sure....

This was why they decided to prevent doped riders points counting toward the team total, but again, that has it's own problems.

It stems from, cycling being a sport where an induvidual get's all the benefits of a win that a whole team works for...

RichN95.

ddraver wrote:

The trouble with it is that you punish a whole team for what is/may be one riders crimes. Pre-Festina, it may well have been a good idea, but now? I'm not so sure....

But that's the whole point. If the group gets punished for the actions of the individual then a culture of self-policing by the group arises. It's a tactic as old as the hills. Parents and teachers use it all the time. Here's another example of its use: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0hPO4Aa86Y

Richmond Racer

RichN95 wrote:

ddraver wrote:

The trouble with it is that you punish a whole team for what is/may be one riders crimes. Pre-Festina, it may well have been a good idea, but now? I'm not so sure....

But that's the whole point. If the group gets punished for the actions of the individual then a culture of self-policing by the group arises. It's a tactic as old as the hills. Parents and teachers use it all the time. Here's another example of its use: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0hPO4Aa86Y

Many teams have absolutely no idea what their riders are doing outside of the races. For example a huge number of pros dont even have coaches,and certainly not coaches employed by the team (Sky's broken new ground here, I think?). So this would make the teams have more involvement with their riders on a regular basis, not just at training camps and the races.

finchy

RichN95 wrote:

ddraver wrote:

The trouble with it is that you punish a whole team for what is/may be one riders crimes. Pre-Festina, it may well have been a good idea, but now? I'm not so sure....

But that's the whole point. If the group gets punished for the actions of the individual then a culture of self-policing by the group arises. It's a tactic as old as the hills. Parents and teachers use it all the time. Here's another example of its use: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0hPO4Aa86Y

I think that the point that dd is making is that riders will be sloping off to dope off their own bat these days, and are fairly unlikely as it is to let team-mates know what they're up to.

RichN95.

johnfinch wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

ddraver wrote:

The trouble with it is that you punish a whole team for what is/may be one riders crimes. Pre-Festina, it may well have been a good idea, but now? I'm not so sure....

But that's the whole point. If the group gets punished for the actions of the individual then a culture of self-policing by the group arises. It's a tactic as old as the hills. Parents and teachers use it all the time. Here's another example of its use: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0hPO4Aa86Y

I think that the point that dd is making is that riders will be sloping off to dope off their own bat these days, and are fairly unlikely as it is to let team-mates know what they're up to.

Oh, I realise that was his point. My point is that by punishing teams, those teams and their riders are pushed into a situation where they have to take a closer interest in what their riders are doing and creating a genuine anti-doping culture rather than having a situation where a team can just shrug their shoulders and say 'I never knew' time and time again.

rick_chasey

For riders who move from one team to another, I suggest they split the points so both the new team and the old team get half each.

RichN95.

Rick Chasey wrote:

For riders who move from one team to another, I suggest they split the points so both the new team and the old team get half each.

That's a whole different discussion, Rick.

(It's a fair point though)

rick_chasey

RichN95 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

For riders who move from one team to another, I suggest they split the points so both the new team and the old team get half each.

That's a whole different discussion, Rick.

(It's a fair point though)

I know, I know.

Was just thinking about UCI points.

No_Ta_Doctor

A quick bump for this one.

One of the points I think would really help would be if teams could buy extra testing from an independent accredited testing agency, with results fed straight into the main testing database. This could help fill some gaps in the bio passport. You could even allow individual riders to buy extra testing - rewarded with some extra UCI rider points.

You could throw in a requirement for any ex-doper to be set on a team-financed extra testing protocol as well.