Frank Schleck gets away with it - virtually

stickman

Should have got a lifetime ban, not a slap on the wrist by a malnourished gnat.

alihisgreat

wrong section.

stickman

Why? There has been numerous postings on Armstrong's cheating here.

Mikey23

One year backdated ban... Not quite getting away with it I would have thought

john1967

Mikey23 wrote:

One year backdated ban... Not quite getting away with it I would have thought[/quote

Are you having a laugh.Football gave Rio Ferdinand a 9 month ban for missing a test yet cycling fails to set an example.
This decision is pathetic.

stickman

He'll miss the tdf which no-one would have expected him to win but he'll be in the Vuelta when most of the big names may be worn out from the season. Net result looks more like a reward.

Pross

john1967 wrote:

Mikey23 wrote:

One year backdated ban... Not quite getting away with it I would have thought[/quote

Are you having a laugh.Football gave Rio Ferdinand a 9 month ban for missing a test yet cycling fails to set an example.
This decision is pathetic.

Citing football as an example of being tough on doping?!! I'm amazed the testers even turned up for Rio.

john1967

Football has its doping house in order were as cycling is still struggling to get its anti drugs message across.Weak punishment like this don't do cyclings image any good.

alihisgreat

stickman wrote:

Why? There has been numerous postings on Armstrong's cheating here.

and they're in the wrong section too?

danlikesbikes

john1967 wrote:

Football has its doping house in order were as cycling is still struggling to get its anti drugs message across.Weak punishment like this don't do cyclings image any good.

Football fan are we?

Only reason I ask is if you google football & drugs testing the top 20 items either relate to the PFA not wanting to bring in home testing for players, FIFA dismissing failed drugs tests as a public health issue or a handful of newspaper reports all citing similar issues.

Whilst I agree that Frandy's ban was too light & I'm all for tighter bans in the sport (but thats my opinion and slightly off topic) a rider should only be banned from the date of the incident with the real issue being how slow the system seems to be getting to a conclusion.

thegibdog

john1967 wrote:

Football has its doping house in order

It certainly does!!

stickman

I used to be able to say to people: look how cycling's sorting out the cheats compared to all the other sports. It's been a few years since then. It seems to be softer and softer nowadays. I hated the Vuelta being tainted by Contador last year.

Mccaria

Wenger doesn't seem to think football has its act together

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013 ... corruption

I think he also avoided some players coming out of Italy where he had concerns on some of the figures they were putting out in tests.

In the Feuntes case isn't there comment on him being in Germany when there was no cycling event on, but there was a rather big football tournament? Also the comments by the various presidents of Real Sociadad on their links to Fuentes doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

If you look at the recent Australian report on drugs in sport, antler secretions use in American football and golf (VJ Singh take a bow), Murray calling for blood testing in tennis etc etc I wouldn't be relying on too many sports getting a clean bill of health.

My favourite testing regime is the NBA, where, if I understand it correctly, a player can only be tested 4 times in a season. Accordingly once they are through 4 tests they can then use whatever substances they want with total confidence through to the end of the season. Imagine how bad the Vuelta would be if a 4 tests a year rule was introduced into cycling !

RonB

Mccaria wrote:

Imagine how bad the Vuelta would be if a 4 tests a year rule was introduced into cycling !

Might want to think about rescheduling the Worlds too!

gpreeves

Mccaria wrote:

Wenger doesn't seem to think football has its act together

Danny Mills doesn't seem to think so either

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/england/9858898/Former-Leeds-and-England-defender-Danny-Mills-says-players-would-do-almost-anything-to-get-an-edge.html

With the rewards on offer for winning, it seems naive to assume they wouldn't also be using illegal methods to get an edge. Does anybody know how strict the drug testing regime in football actually is?

Pross

john1967 wrote:

Football has its doping house in order were as cycling is still struggling to get its anti drugs message across.Weak punishment like this don't do cyclings image any good.

Have you seen how few tests are done in football considering all the people playing each week? They don't have a bio passport and as far as I know they don't do blood tests. It's easy to make your house look to be in order when no-one is looking in the cupboards or under the bed. The Schleck decision is bad and I am hoping it gets challenged but to hold football up as a shining beacon is laughable.

mike6

Backdated ban? Sounds like a let off to me.

shinyhelmut

Backdated to the date on which he withdrew from racing doesn't seem unreasonable.

It should by rights be a two year ban, or lifetime if you don't believe his training plan excuse for the money transfer to Fuentes.

Pross

ShinyHelmut wrote:

Backdated to the date on which he withdrew from racing doesn't seem unreasonable.

It should by rights be a two year ban, or lifetime if you don't believe his training plan excuse for the money transfer to Fuentes.

Exactly. Back dated here is fine as he was suspended as soon as he tested positive. The 1 year ban however is wholly inappropriate and should be appealed. We have seen plenty of examples now of national ADA doing this sort of thing.

This isn't a cycling problem, it is a problem of national ADAs refusing to properly punish their biggest name sport stars. I suspect that had Messi been a Luxembourg footballer and committed a similar offence then the result would have been much the same.

john1967

Pross wrote:

john1967 wrote:

Football has its doping house in order were as cycling is still struggling to get its anti drugs message across.Weak punishment like this don't do cyclings image any good.

Have you seen how few tests are done in football considering all the people playing each week? They don't have a bio passport and as far as I know they don't do blood tests. It's easy to make your house look to be in order when no-one is looking in the cupboards or under the bed. The Schleck decision is bad and I am hoping it gets challenged but to hold football up as a shining beacon is laughable.

And the last player tested positive for performance enhancing drugs was?

thegibdog

john1967 wrote:

And the last player tested positive for performance enhancing drugs was?

Ah, the Armstrong defence!

shinyhelmut

I think Marion Jones used that one too

Pross

john1967 wrote:

Pross wrote:

john1967 wrote:

Football has its doping house in order were as cycling is still struggling to get its anti drugs message across.Weak punishment like this don't do cyclings image any good.

Have you seen how few tests are done in football considering all the people playing each week? They don't have a bio passport and as far as I know they don't do blood tests. It's easy to make your house look to be in order when no-one is looking in the cupboards or under the bed. The Schleck decision is bad and I am hoping it gets challenged but to hold football up as a shining beacon is laughable.

And the last player tested positive for performance enhancing drugs was?

In the UK there is currently one player on the banned list the same as cycling. That list suggests both codes of rugby and athletics are the worst offenders. But that doesn't show the full picture, cycling has more stringent testing than football. Football doesn't have blood testing as FIFA / UEFA feel there may be ethical issues. The Puerto investigation was basically derailed when doping in Spanish football was uncovered and Fuentes received several death threats if he spoke out. In the 1999-2000 season testers turned up at 32 matches out of over 3,500 testing two players from each tam - that's 128 players out of a potential 400,000ish. It's simple to have a clean sport if you don't go looking for the dirt, maybe cycling should take the ostrich approach too then they could claim to have got their house in order :roll:

blazing_saddles

john1967 wrote:

Pross wrote:

john1967 wrote:

Football has its doping house in order were as cycling is still struggling to get its anti drugs message across.Weak punishment like this don't do cyclings image any good.

Have you seen how few tests are done in football considering all the people playing each week? They don't have a bio passport and as far as I know they don't do blood tests. It's easy to make your house look to be in order when no-one is looking in the cupboards or under the bed. The Schleck decision is bad and I am hoping it gets challenged but to hold football up as a shining beacon is laughable.

And the last player tested positive for performance enhancing drugs was?

The entire Barcelona team..................but of course you wouldn't know anything about that.

Someone who should know, clearly disagrees with you.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/articl ... z2KR1x8RsL

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/footba ... ed-up.html

rob churchill

john1967 wrote:

Football has its doping house in order were as cycling is still struggling to get its anti drugs message across.Weak punishment like this don't do cyclings image any good.

Bwahahahahahahaahhahahahahhaha

Today's news.

john1967

Oh it was in the papers so it must be true.The bottom line is that cyclings reputation at pro level is screwed.Handing a pathetic ban to schleck does nothing to alter that rep.I don't give a toss about football or footballers but the sport has an overall clean image whatever you hear in the news.
I do however pity Cav and company who are tarnished yet again by a sport they love.

Pross

john1967 wrote:

Oh it was in the papers so it must be true.The bottom line is that cyclings reputation at pro level is screwed.Handing a pathetic ban to schleck does nothing to alter that rep.I don't give a toss about football or footballers but the sport has an overall clean image whatever you hear in the news.
I do however pity Cav and company who are tarnished yet again by a sport they love.

But cycling did it's job in Frank's case. He tested positive in a race and was suspended. The case was then handed by the UCI to Luxembourg's anti-doping agency and it was their panel that accepted Frank's argument of contaminated supplements which, as the supplements weren't available for testing, breaches WADA's code on strict liability. The UCI and / or WADA can appeal the ban and hopefully will. That is what happened in the Contador case when the Spanish ADA let him off. The UCI could do a better job on the detection front but lenient sentences aren't their fault (unless they don't try to appeal them).

As for football having a clean image, as I've said before if you don't look closely you won't find dirt.

EDIT I don't think you read that report did you? It's a direct report from the Fuentes case not 'paper talk'

blazing_saddles

john1967 wrote:

Oh it was in the papers so it must be true.The bottom line is that cyclings reputation at pro level is screwed.Handing a pathetic ban to schleck does nothing to alter that rep.I don't give a toss about football or footballers but the sport has an overall clean image whatever you hear in the news.
I do however pity Cav and company who are tarnished yet again by a sport they love.

Besides, bribery and match fixing is a much bigger problem in football than drugs.
(Well, until they start to take the problem seriously, that is.)

john1967

Forget about footballl its big enough and rich enough to look after its self.Instead listen to the recent radio 5live interview with Cav in which he spends 15 minutes deflecting questions about doping.Cycling still has a long way to go if it really wants show its cleaning up its image.The technical details of Schleks case are immaterial,it should be a 2 year ban.

rob churchill

john1967 wrote:

Oh it was in the papers so it must be true.The bottom line is that cyclings reputation at pro level is screwed.Handing a pathetic ban to schleck does nothing to alter that rep.I don't give a toss about football or footballers but the sport has an overall clean image whatever you hear in the news.
I do however pity Cav and company who are tarnished yet again by a sport they love.

Did you bother to read the link I posted? Let me summarise for you: The president of a La Liga club told the press 'we were doping for years, when I took over the club we were paying Eufemiano Fuentes £290,000 a year' What does it take to get your head out of the sand?

danlikesbikes

john1967 wrote:

Oh it was in the papers so it must be true.The bottom line is that cyclings reputation at pro level is screwed.Handing a pathetic ban to schleck does nothing to alter that rep.I don't give a toss about football or footballers but the sport has an overall clean image whatever you hear in the news.
I do however pity Cav and company who are tarnished yet again by a sport they love.

Overall clean image except what you hear in the news, what about sleeping with players wives, drunk driving, rape the list goes on & this is what you call an overall clean image :?: