Ambiguity is the new cancer in our sport. Who knows? Do you? I certainly don’t. We’ve been left like a herd of worried guinea pigs by all the ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’ that have beset the sport of cycling over the past few years.
Just as it seemed as though the Armstrong palava, that flung the dung onto every wall imaginable, was going to finally bring a new dawn, we were left with the numbing realisation that nothing was really going to be done.
A week ago the former head of the World Anti Doping Agency, Dick Pound, came along to say of the Tour de France that “As an event, I don’t believe what I see.
“We’ve been there, done that and until there’s a change of attitude at the very top then I won’t watch it.”
Pound went on to talk about all professional sports, and was unequivocal about his suspicions.
“It’s pretty clear just from the numbers of people being caught that drug use is rampant, and it’s rampant at the top end of sports.
“This isn’t people ranked at No 300 taking drugs to boost them up the rankings, it’s the people at the top who have used drugs to get there.
“I believe it’s happening across sports. It’s clear that cycling, athletics, swimming, tennis and football have major problems and are ruled by governing bodies in denial.”
Recent revelations about the former West German government having full knowledge of an intensive and all-encompassing doping programme that include just about every sport the nation’s athletes competed in came as something of a surprise, but why?
They generally seemed like decent people, I suppose. But then look at Tyler Hamilton.
Many complain when lesser known commentators say the same thing as Pound, but they were silent when Dick spoke. The man knows too much has seen too much too. It’s a surprise his life hasn’t been threatened.
Maybe I’m being dramatic, but there is a precedent.
Last year Travis Tygart, the man who ‘brought down’ Armstrong, received a death threat via email from two men, one a retired 72-year old urologist, Gerrit Keats, who admitted his guilt and is about to be charged.
Yet on the other side of the fence we have Pat McQuaid, our old friend, who when not trying to make the UCI a complete laughing stock is walking around kissing babies and pleading his innocence, and then some.
“I’m the beginning of the new guard,” he said recently, “because I’m the one who has completely changed the culture of doping in our sport since I came in eight years ago.”
Yes, no need to adjust your screens, he actually said that.
And then we have Bradley Wiggins, who made a comment just a while ago to the Daily Mail newspaper that smacks of such denial and naivety that it left me incredulous:
“Even with all the problems cycling has had with the American guy, it is still growing all the time. People love it and that is fantastic.”
Not much ambiguity there then. Everything is rosy in the garden of cycling, apparently. ‘The American guy’ is gone, so all is peachy.
Yet we are still seeing ambiguity in rampant for every time we turn on the TV. Tom Danielson of Garmin-Sharp has just won the Tour of Utah, back from a suspension after admitting he took dope in 2007 – but only in 2007, mind.
Danielson received a six-month ban for his admissions, which kept him out from those busy racing months from September to March this year.
To me that seems inherently questionable. I also feel uneasy when I read about Marcel Kittel passing a lie detector test, the results of which show that he ‘is most likely clean’, according to a panel of experts.
Great that he submitted to it I guess, and quite possibly he is clean, but is this what we have come to?
Denials, death threats and lie detector tests?
Lord, you couldn’t script it.
So many cyclists still shrug their shoulders and say ‘Well, I don’t know…’ before their voices trail off into the ether.
This is the problem. We just do not know anymore. And this is where the sport has been dragged to like a lifeless corpse by the UCI.
They dodge, duck and weave.
Just a week ago Tygart blasted the UCI for not allowing the American anti-doping authorities control the tests at the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, as he felt that the powers that be there wanted to continue the lax doping controls that they have administered in the past.
“We are confident, just like in seasons past, there won’t be CIR testing, there won’t be human growth hormone testing, there won’t be EPO testing. It is a charade.”
It is indeed Travis, it is indeed.
It is time for this ambiguity, that emanates from so many corners of the sport, to stop.
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