The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Doping: Are the blinkers back on?

Tyler Hamilton is interviewed in New York (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
Expert
22nd September, 2014
4

Did we really go through the wormhole only to find ourselves back in exactly the same place we thought we’d just departed?

Some would say yes, sure feels like it.

Sick to the back teeth with all the doping scandals of the past 20 years, when the Lance Armstrong implosion came, it seemed, for a fleeting moment, that we’d finally reached the watershed.

Surely now the veil would be lifted. The gloves would be unlaced and replaced with knuckledusters, for crunch time had come. There we stood on the precipice with the smoking gun right there on the floor by the lycra-clad body, we had the proof that Lance was dirty.

We had proof that this was high-level doping with long, sick and poisonous tendrils reaching all throughout the firmament of top level road racing. Even the most blinded fans, journalists and officials would now have to become cynics with regards to the claims that cycling was cleaning up its act.

Yet, while Lancegate finally got people talking about doping out in the open and played a part in the downfall of Pat McQuaid, ushering in Brian Cookson, has anything really changed since then?

Then we have the reaction – or non-reaction – in recent weeks to several positive tests that have resulted in riders being suspended or fired. Roman Kreuziger was one, Valentin Iglinsky another, Diego Ulissi yet another and we all know what happened to Jonathan Tiernan-Locke.

Perhaps the most depressing of all was the positive test for EPO by 18-year-old Kristjan Kumar, who had seemed to be one of the most talented young cyclists around.

Advertisement

Now we know why.

The positives have been reported but there’s been very little commentary by the cycling media. It seems almost as if people want to believe that cycling is getting cleaner so much that this spate of positives has almost gone unnoticed.

But it doesn’t take a genius to join the dots. Several riders are getting busted, which suggests very strongly that several more are also doping but have not yet been caught. Either the latter are not as thick as those caught, or they have better doctors.

With some experts judging that only about three to four per cent of cheats are being caught, the scale of the problem – when five guys have been caught in the past few months – might be still bigger than most people currently suspect.

What is interesting here is that on visual evidence alone it does look like there is less doping than before, simply by going off the looks on the riders’ faces on hard stages and by the relative lack of firecracker attacks and unbelievable rides.

I do think there has been a drop in products being used, but we have to be careful here before we blow the old trumpet and claim it evidence of a seachange. Why? Because it would be foolish, if not downright stupid, to believe that the peloton has suddenly changed their minds on doping, or that enough new guys have come through who simply have an aversion to cheating.

We also have to ask if the measures brought in (or soon to be brought in) by the UCI under Cookson have had any effect on the thought processes of the riders.

Advertisement

We’ll consider those measures in a moment, but what has not changed yet is that the ban for doping has not been increased, nor has a set financial penalty been set for either rider or team. Team managers who hark back to the bad old days have not suddenly become better educated, ex-dopers still have considerable influence on several of the management teams and riders still don’t have to go through any sort of a compulsory drug education program.

So what might be among the contributing factors for what many perceive to be a drop in doping among the top level pros? I think it is a combination of two things that are closely related. The first is the shift in public opinion on doping, the other the difficulty faced by several ex-dopers when their contracts have run out.

There’s no doubt that one of the major fillips of Lancegate was that doping moved onto centre stage. Fans and commentators (if not, in most cases, riders) felt free to express their opinions on this matter as never before.

Some journalists came out and apologised for not having done more to pry the lid off the Omerta. Others apologised for being an apologist for all things Lance.

This had another effect, one that could prove to be critical in the fight against doping, and that is that younger riders are now being exposed to (or can easily access) both the history of drugs in cycling and the current opinions on it. It is through education that we have the best chance to get somewhere in the effort to clean up this sport, and indeed all others.

On the second point, the struggles of riders that have come back from doping bans or who have clouds of suspicion over them has been telling. While some teams are still all too ready to take on ex-dopers, others now seem keen to steer clear of them. This has not gone unnoticed by others, you can be sure.

So some things are encouraging, despite the recent run of positives.

Advertisement

Also, behind the scenes the UCI does seem to have been making some significant changes, radical moves that could really change the whole ball game. One of their first moves was to stabilise and improve their relationship with WADA, the World Anti-Doping Authority.

Another was to make the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation operational without any of the UCI management committee being involved in the process. Founded in 2008, the original foundation did include UCI members, but Cookson recognised that this could compromise the transparency of the foundation’s work. This too is an important move and shows, or suggests, that Cookson is far less interested in cronyism than his predecessor.

Finally there is the Cycling Independent Reform Commission, the three-person panel set up to investigate cycling’s doping past and the UCI’s role in it. Again, the members are not directly linked to the UCI.

Amid talk of Cookson seeking to bring in a zero-tolerance policy, which would have a dramatic impact to anyone caught doping, there are enough good things going on here to allow our expectations to rise – if only by a percentage point or two.

We wouldn’t want to get carried away now, would we?

The UCI could really do with getting word out about their programs and plans to a wider audience. There has always been a sizeable gap between what they know and what we know, and that feeling hasn’t really changed since Cookson came in.

And yet, despite the concrete improvements, vigilance really is the watchword. Many in the professional rider tanks have demonstrated an incredible tenacity in the face of anti-doping measures, and a real determination to get juiced up.

Advertisement

To think that there’s anything less than a small minority well-equipped mentally to self-police would be folly.

Much like the sport itself, this is a team effort that requires a united front. The blinkers are off. Let’s keep it that way.

close