As a cycling tragic, I want the sport to be cleaned up. And I am very dubious about claims that, having dispatched of Lance, we are entering a new, clean era. Frankly, I’m tired of the false dawns.
To fix any problem, to really fix it, you must address its root cause. Lance Armstrong is many things, but he isn’t the root cause of doping in pro cycling. That is the structural or institutional arrangements which encourage it. To get to the root cause, we must start at the top.
At present, the anti-doping fight is focussed at the bottom – i.e. the riders and dope testing of them. At face value it may seem logical – there’s no point in testing anyone else. But this is what is often called in compliance circles a ‘bottom up’ approach.
Increasingly, it is being recognised in many industries as ineffective (on its own at least). This contrasts with other, non-sporting examples such as the recent Newscorp phone tapping scandal.
What started out as an investigation into dodgy practices by some ‘bad egg’ journalists ended right at the top of the organisation. As a result, one of its papers was closed. This was only due to determined investigations by police and two government inquiries by officials with wide ranging powers.
No such inquiry has yet been completed by cycling’s governing body. An ‘independent’ commission, set up by the UCI to investigate its conduct in the wake of the Armstrong scandal, was quickly disbanded among claims the UCI itself failed to support it.
Frankly, the notion of an institution setting the terms of reference for an investigation into itself is inherently fraught and casts doubt over the term ‘independent’.
Herein lies a difficulty for cycling and other sports – doping (within the scope of a society’s laws) isn’t illegal. Therefore, unlike with the phone tapping example, there are no higher power which can step in and overhaul how the sport is governed or even how it conducts its anti-doping program.
Change must come from within, even if via new people. There are worrying signs that cycling’s current administrators are digging in deeper, rather than embracing change.
If some of the allegations about their conduct made by people such as Floyd Landis have substance to them, then it’s easy to understand why.
A key ingredient missing in the fight against doping is a ‘top-down’ approach – accountability for cycling’s hierarchy – teams, administrators and even sponsors.
An example of how a pro cycling team should be run is Garmin-Sharp, under the direction of reformed doper Jonathan Vaughters. Garmin undertakes its own internal testing and interviews of riders, with the stated aim of proactively keeping its riders away from doping.
Compare this with the approach of some other teams, who stand idly by as their riders perform feats of endurance more amazing than the last, racking up victories until they eventually get popped by a doping control and promptly sacked in a public display of disgust. You get the picture.
In criminal law, there is a concept known as a ‘positive duty’. It makes a person responsible for taking measures to avoid an outcome. A common example is work, health and safety law – the boss can be held liable for an injury suffered by a worker, even if the boss didn’t directly cause the injury.
More so, a boss can be held liable for failing to prevent an injury, even when the injury hasn’t yet been suffered. It is a useful means of getting people’s attention.
There is no positive duty in pro cycling. Team directors and administrators of the sport stand by while Rome burns around them, cynically blaming the dishonest riders for their cheating, while often seeming to do nothing to prevent it.
It’s enough to make you wonder if they’re happy for their riders to dope and win, then dispense of them when they’re caught and start the cycle over again with a new rider.
Teams like Garmin-Sharp stand out from the bunch in appearing to feel a (positive) duty to put a stop to that rot. Other teams are also taking stronger stances, but I wonder if some measures are more publicity stunts than genuine attempts to combat doping.
Sky’s decision to make all of its staff sign a declaration they have never and will not dope seems more of a pre-emptive strike, setting themselves up to distance themselves from, rather than prevent any future revelations of doping by its riders and staff.
But most worrying is the lack of leadership coming from cycling’s governing bodies, principally the UCI.
While the decision not to renew Katusha’s Pro Tour license appears to be a concession to current public sentiment towards the sport and its governance, on the whole it seems the UCI are happy enough to tolerate teams with a doping record – particularly if they have a flagship rider or two on their roster.
A UCI list ranking riders by degree of suspicion that they were doping was leaked a couple of years ago. This was apparently based significantly on biological blood passport profiles. The point being that it’s not hard to identify where the next doping scandal is likely to come from.
But little seems to be done. It’s one thing to have the most sophisticated doping detection systems in all of world sport, but quite another to make use of the intelligence in cleaning the sport up.
It would seem simple enough to reform the team licensing system to make internal anti-doping programs a fundamental and mandatory criteria of license renewal. Imagine if team programs like Garmin-Sharp’s were mandatory? It would be a cleaner sport.
Another problem, too lengthy to write about in detail here, is the farcical role of national cycling federations in prosecuting riders for doping offences.
The conflict of interest, resulting in riders often being more protected than prosecuted by federations with an implied interest in retaining their riders’ services, has been almost comical.
There has been much debate on what it takes to eradicate, or least reduce, doping in cycling to less embarrassing levels.
These are a couple of examples of why a top-down, or institutional reform is needed, rather than the continued and all-too-convenient fixation of testing and punishing riders.
Of course, it is easy to discuss change, but more difficult to achieve it. The fact is, there are many powerful people in the sport with different, more self-interested priorities than those discussed here.
So on a more positive note, I am encouraged by the plain talking of our new UCI Oceania Confederation President Tracey Gaudry, who seems to have flagged reform of cycling governance as a priority.
The Change Cycling Now movement also appears to be gathering momentum, with some influential and – almost a novel concept in pro cycling – credible people driving it forwards.
It’s apparent to me that many fans, and I’ve been guilty of it, have often been too star-struck to recognise who the good and the bad guys in cycling really are.
It’s well past time to set aside our admiration for and allegiances to some of our cycling heroes and support those who have shown the courage to tackle some ugly truths, and make the sport right.
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