Sometimes it’s not enough to be clean. Sometimes, you also have to be seen to be clean.
Such is the case in professional cycling at the moment, as teams, sponsors and governing bodies fall over themselves to demonstrate that they have drawn a line under the tarnished ‘Armstrong era’.
Something must be seen to be done.
Transparency is the new watchword. To be frank, it’s well overdue in cycling, after a couple of decades of dissembling, denial and (duh) doping.
Matt White’s career is the latest sacrifice at the broken altar of Cancer Jesus. After admitting to doping while a rider with Armstrong’s US Postal team, it’s not surprising that Orica-GreenEDGE (OGE) felt its credibility was straining just a bit too far with White at the helm.
To further demonstrate its squeaky clean credentials, OGE has appointed Nicki Vance, one of the world’s foremost anti-doping experts, to forensically audit its anti-doping practices and advise on how to strengthen them even further. This is a welcome step and should provide some confidence that the sport is acting to wipe out doping.
Cycling must be seen to be clean, and with the UCI bosses flapping around unwanted and ineffective, like a pigeon in the holy water, individual teams must shoulder the burden themselves.
In this context, could White be trusted in his role developing the next generation of Australian cycling talent? Was he a liability for sponsors, who don’t want to suffer the kind of brand damage that US Postal, Festina and Deutsche Telekom could tell us all about?
The hammer blow of Rabobank withdrawing its sponsorship of men’s pro cycling probably made White’s position untenable. He represented too much commercial risk. Hey, this sport is a business, too.
Something must be seen to be done.
It’s sad for White, whose first season with a young team exceeded all but the most wildly optimistic expectations.
The team won a classic at Milan-San Remo, a stage of the Giro d’Italia, a stage and the climber’s jersey at the Vuelta. I count 28 stage wins for the year across a mix of World Tour and other races. Many of these wins were from young and relatively unknown riders.
Nobody can deny that the team enjoyed plenty of success under his leadership.
The team also appears to have functioned well off the bikes, with good team spirit shown by the team’s extremely popular backstage pass videos and the ‘Call Me Maybe’ parody. These are signs of a happy team.
It will be a big shock to the squad to lose a popular team manager who was clearly performing well in his role. Finding a replacement without some skeletons won’t necessarily be easy.
Perhaps this is an opportunity for recently-retired Matt Wilson or Robbie McEwen to step up, or even for vocal anti-doping campaigner Brad McGee, if he can be enticed away from SaxoBank as it battles to keep its World Tour status.
In any case, just as Sky has been doing, OGE has done what it had to, to protect its commercial interests and its reputation, and White must take the fall.
Something must be seen to be done.
Here’s hoping his example won’t encourage others in his situation to stay quiet. The threat of career-ending banishment is a strong incentive not to stir the pot.
This is a terrible outcome, especially when many reformed dopers appear to have genuinely learnt from their mistakes. People can change.
Garmin, which has stood by Jonathan Vaughters and his band of merry confessors with the kind of pragmatism that probably isn’t possible for most teams, understands that those with a shady past can be born again as defenders of clean sport.
As for White, it would be a shame for his career in cycling to be finished. He has plenty to offer, perhaps after a suitable period of penance on the sidelines.
But, for now, something must be seen to be done.
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