Chaos in pro cycling: enough is enough!

Malkmus

I think ASO is adamant, for now.

There is still a need for a counterweight. Sadly, the UCI will never be able to serve that function.

TheDarkLord

As if the UCI are doing a great job themselves. Instead of fighting doping, they are fighting with (and suing) almost every overseeing agency now, and have alienated everyone. As long as race organizations stick within the UCI, the hope of reforming UCI is small - Verbruggen and his puppy will continue to cling to power. If you want UCI to change, the first step should be to severe the link between the race organizers and UCI. Then, once it is clear that the UCI as it is now has little significance, one hopes that there will be some change in the organization. If that does happen, then the next step will be to bring back the race organizers and work with them proactively - if this doesn't happen, then you're right in that there wouldn't be any real reform, and doping could go back to status quo. Right now, step one has happened. Let us see what happens next.

poulidor

UCI tests only 3 riders by stage : winner, GC leader, 1 random rider !

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6 samples with EPO have banned Lance Armstrong of TDF !

Crankyfeet

I can follow your logic there. I too, as well as everyone else I think, hopes for UCI reform. But I have little faith in people gaining power (say the ASO in this case - that is power over their own dope monitoring) and then delegating later to another party who could use it against them like UCI have. It just hasn't happened too often in history that power is usurped, then handed over.

If UCI can rearrange itself so that it's constituents are a broader mix, then it is possible that ASO would want to have some official sanctioning and not be considered always a renegade tour. The interesting rift in this equation is the WADA/UCI rift. Because UCI's claim to authenticity and it's major trump card is the Olympics. And WADA is basically run by the IOC in effect.

The real concern (to me) is the war against doping in cycling. That's the only objective that is of importance to me personally. I couldn't really give a shit about the brand/commercial value of the TdF or other political machinations, which are of primary concern to the big players in this mess.

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Crankyfeet

It is the out-of-competition testing (IMO and in the opinion of Victor Conte - BALCO) that is going to win this doping war. If someone trips up at the event.... then they have farked up on their dope program.

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Crankyfeet

That's the problem... In the last two years they are starting to (I'm talking about dope testing). Unless you have some inside information of malfeasance.

They are always limited by budget, which is the major challenge in the future for any dope-testing program... funding it so that it's effective.

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TheDarkLord

I don't have any inside info other than what CH posts here. But it seems like they are all the same - IOC, UCI, etc. Lots of cover-ups, with an occasional bust - maybe the latter is to give the general impression that they are doing something about doping?

TheDarkLord

So, we finally agree on something in this debate? With regards to your last point, look at it this way: if the UCI does change, and makes a reasonable effort to talk with ASO/RCS and try to work with them and yet get spurned, then we will all know where this is headed. Right now, it is UCI that is doing the spurning; so don't find fault with ASO now - they did try to talk with UCI, right?

Crankyfeet

The problem is that the drive for clean sport primarily comes from the spectator public. But it is the event organizers who pay to keep it clean. It has always been the cost-effective solution in the past to just present the illusion to the public of a clean sport.... and save megabucks on testing and the destructive costs of scandals, whilst giving the public more and more of what they wanted: superhuman performances and world records.

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Crankyfeet

I think there is a tendency to put too much faith in ASO. Not because they are evil or French or anything. Just because their objectives aren't totally in alignment with the sport of cycling IMO. Same for any other sports promoter.

ATM, they are playing the card of goodie goodie to UCI's baddie baddie. UCI are cleverly shooting themselves in the foot at every opportunity. I just don't trust ASO. I would be very glad to be proved wrong. We need an independent well-funded authority to govern cycling... that has all stakeholders in the sport represented.

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poulidor

The real problem is named Verdruggen and his pupetts... he should have resign since they were not able to manage the current situation. It's anormal and a major failure to not be able to find agreement with the organisers of the major events of their sport!

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6 samples with EPO have banned Lance Armstrong of TDF !

Crankyfeet

I always thought ASO could do as many tests as they liked at their event(s) alongside the UCI, if they were interested in a clean event. I could likely be wrong there. I remember thunder arguing that ASO could clean up the sport quickly if they had instituted some draconian quarantining style controls. I presumed from that argument that they had the power to do it if they wanted.

I thought ASO's prime concern was that UCI needed to be the official dope-tester for the event to be sanctioned... and that they didn't trust that the UCI weren't going screw them with scandals. Let's face it - both UCI and ASO probably knew in the past and sat at the same table discussing how they were going to cover up doping. Once that little roundtable broke up - how could they trust their previously corrupt partner now as an adversary?

The issue here is also money. ASO have a lot more cash to spend on testing (I'm making a bit of an assumption here). But arguably they have a conflict of interest in revealing dopers. If ASO (or UCI for that matter) had have done 20 tests a stage at last year's TdF... they may have had a positive test or two after every stage. Do you think ASO wants to have cyclists test positive and have a media frenzy? Or go through more scandals to scare cyclists into riding clean?

I predicted there wouldn't be one positive dope test at Paris-Nice. I may have missed one but I didn't see any. It could have been a coincidence of course.

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Crankyfeet

I don't have the same knowledge as you guys do about Verbruggen. Since I respect the guys that post here, and their knowledge of cycling, and the knowledge that UCI had been covering up doping in the past, I take it that he is an egotistical, power-broking, politically climbing, parasite - using a sport as a proxy for his own ego needs of power and status.

Having played to a reasonably high standard in two other sports, I ran across a few of these unsavoury characters. Unfortunately they often rise to the top in sports administration because many of the people at lower levels are volunteering a lot of their time and it isn't their primary vocation. Someone with determination and time and political cunning can exploit a low competition field, whereas the pool of politically cunning adversaries in a real career makes it more difficult (especially when you have to actually perform a skill well at the same time as brown-nosing your way to the top).

In an Asian country where I once lived, they once sent a team of 72 to the Asian Games in the early nineties. 13 athletes and 59 officials. The athletes had to sit at the back of the bus... and were treated like crap by the officials the whole event.

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cyclingheroes

Very good point!

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