Tour of California treating us like dopes

It would be easier to take the Tour of California seriously if its major sponsor wasn’t the leading manufacturer of EPO.

Nothing against the race itself, which is quite the spectacle. It’s just that the ‘EPO Tour of California’ is a bit difficult to enjoy with a straight face.

Of course, this is not what the race is actually called, instead it borrows the name of the company that invented and markets EPO, Amgen.

Think about that a bit more: North America’s biggest professional cycling race carries the name of the company that makes EPO.

Apparently, nobody at Tour of California management company AEG Sports has paused to consider whether it’s appropriate to be a key part of a very deliberate marketing strategy for the single product that has done the most to wreck cycling’s soul.

It seems two decades of sustained and high-profile abuse of EPO by professional cyclists, which has done massive damage to the sport’s reputation and integrity, has completely passed the Amgen Tour of California’s organisers by.

Amgen’s blockbuster product is the drug Epogen (epoetin alfa), which is better known simply as the synthetic form of EPO.

It’s a perfectly legal prescription medicine when appropriately used in a clinical setting. It is used to treat anaemia in patients with kidney disease, cancer, or those on antiretrovirals used to control HIV. All well and good.

You could argue the abuse of Epogen by cyclists and other endurance athletes is not Amgen’s fault, that the company developed and marketed the drug in good faith, and cannot be held responsible for the way it has been misused.

You could argue Amgen has every right to market its products and, if it sees value in sponsoring sporting events, that’s its prerogative.

Both of these statements are probably true (although I have seen counter-arguments for both), but they miss the point.

That EPO has legitimate uses doesn’t change the fact it has profoundly damaged cycling, and it should in no way be associated with the sport.

That Amgen has a right to market as it sees fit does not mean cycling organisers should be willing to accept money, much less naming-rights sponsorship, from a company with such a malign influence on the sport.

It’s an absolutely shocking message for North America’s biggest professional road race to be promoting the product that has – more than any other – been the scourge of the cycling world.

This is not a new partnership: Amgen has been title sponsor of the ToC since 2006. The company must have poured millions into the race by now.

As profitable as the relationship between the race and the pharma company must be, it needs to end.

Try to reconcile these two statements:

1. We are committed to eradicating doping in sport.

2. We are taking heaps of cash from the company that makes the most widely abused doping product in cycling. They’re really nice.

It can’t sensibly be done. It’s a nonsense of doublespeak. It’s bullshit.

Did Amgen decide to sponsor the race as some sort of corporate making-amends, a mea culpa for the damage its product has done to the sport? Or is it just a straightforward whitewash job?

Who can read the mind of a multinational corporation?

Clearly, the company has some reason to focus on cycling; Amgen sponsors other cycling-related events.

Just last week Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott was all over the news wearing a jersey emblazoned with Amgen logos, after the company sponsored a fundraising ride undertaken by politicians.

But why is it apparently focusing on cycling? And more importantly, why the hell is cycling letting it?

Is the sport so desperate for cash it needs to prostitute itself to the highest corporate bidder, with no regard for the message it sends to fans, athletes, and casual observers?

What could be more outrageous, the ‘Acme Blood Bags Vuelta a Espana’? It’s almost beyond parody.

Would we accept an alcoholics’ support group sponsored by a brewery? A cancer hospital named after a tobacco firm?

Why do we think it’s OK for Amgen, of all companies, to sponsor a sport trying desperately to eradicate the use of its major product?

The Tour of California is a great race, it attracts great teams, riders, crowds, and coverage. This year’s edition looks set to be one of the best yet.

The race, and the riders participating in it, doesn’t deserve to be linked with the cycling world’s most notorious doping product.

If cycling is genuinely moving on from its EPO-soaked past, it needs to ditch Amgen’s dollars.