FriendlyFred

My comments about just letting them all dope weren't, of course, serious. Although it might prove to be safer all around for the riders to dope in a controlled, monitored way, rather than whatever is going on now. I believe there are very few truly 'clean' riders on the pro circuit. there's too much pressure and too much money at stake. That includes SKY. Like US Postal / Lance, they've just been smarter about it. My understanding is, the real time to look at someone you suspect is doping is 3 to 6 months prior to the event(s) they're targeting, as they're doing the doping thing in conjunction with the training and buildup to the events. During the events themselves, there may well be very little doping occurring (except for the stupid or the desperate). Cheating is cheating is cheating, and I'm certainly not the person who has the answer.

gsteinb

Let them dope, despite all the obvious legal issues, is a frequent serious refrain from folks.

chasm54

With some reason. The main issue, for me, would be kids. In a world in which parents are prepared to push doctors to prescribe growth hormone for their normal-sized children, there'd be too many of them ambitious enough to encourage their little darling to dope.

I've sometimes toyed with the idea of rigorous testing for junior competitions, with the UCI imposing a lifetime ban on any under-eighteen found doping. Then a free-for-all for adults, with any legal substance being allowed. Not going to happen, of course.

Bacciagalupe

That isn't going to work.

If you can't stop the riders from doping, how could you possibly keep track of their taking PED's within specified limits? E.g. if they allow EPO use within a specified range, but ban stimulants, the riders are just going to figure out a way to take the stimulants and mask it from the tests.

I also think that riders getting popped obscures how doping has changed since '87. Back then, it's virtually certain the teams were encouraging riders to dope, and the peloton would go on strike when a rider or team was accused. The sense of an entitlement to dope is pretty much out the window.


Cycling already has out-of-competition tests, and profiles riders year-round to look for abnormalities.

Mithrandir

The big problem I have with doping is that if one person does it, then you are either forcing everyone else to do it just to remain competitive, or forcing them out of the sport if they don't want to risk it.

It's stupid. Don't dope.

Bacciagalupe

If you require medication which might have a performance-enhancing effect, then you get a TUE.

Lines do get a little fuzzy, but as long as the policies are clear, then the doctors and riders can be viably held responsible for their actions.


EPO, HGH and synthetic T are not normally prescribed for road rash or ITBS.


If you're talking about "chocolate milk," then it's ethical.

If you're taking a hormone that occurs naturally, but is conveyed in shots, and you're taking it with the intent to enhance your performance, not so much.


No active pro cyclist has a genuine medical reason to take EPO. Frank Schleck does not have lymphedema. Ricco had kidney failure, admitted to the doctors that he transfused 25 day old blood, and still denied he was blood doping. Where's the ambiguity here?

Life is full of fuzzy lines and borderline cases. Thus try to be as clear as possible, and have safeguards like the CAS. No system is perfect, and the current anti-doping could be better; but the solution is to improve the system, not dump it in the trash. Especially since even if you allow it in some form, riders will be motivated to find some other way to cheat.

gsteinb

Why define the line at 18 and under? What about the 22 year old NCC rider chasing a USA crit title and dreams of racing in europe? What happens when his team has to race against euro pro teams that come to the states for the big races? And what of the 19 and 18 and 20 year olds, not to mention 45 year old guys like me that have to race against that guy when he's around doing any one of the 100 races he'll do in a season. Not to forget there would be no way to tell how good any of these kids would really be in the pro ranks because the pros are a drug league and every one else is being tested.

chasm54

No. But HGH and testosterone gel might be very useful for recovery, while doing little or nothing to actually enhance performance.



Too simplistic, in my view. Everything a professional athlete does is done with a view to enhancing their performance. There's nothing wrong with that. And there's no difference in principle, and no clear difference in practice, between "occurs naturally" and "conveyed in shots". Natural is not synonymous with good. The issue is how we choose to frame the rules.


Or, have fewer rules, and make them rules you can actually make stick. That's the way to have a level playing field. Having rules that can be evaded is the surest recipe for cheating.

chasm54

Yeah, well, I agree. It's a mess, and nothing we can do will resolve the problem in a way that is cut and dried.

gsteinb

Yep, it's a mess. And I want big name guys to fall hard for it. I don't care if it's rational or not. I want Armstrong living in a cardboard box beneath a footbridge, and I hope someday that fall from grace acts as a deterrent. Without it true sport is utterly lost.

chasm54

Oh, I'm a bit less pessimistic than that. The kids I sometimes help with are just as keen and idealistic and full of belief in their own potential as we were, and there's plenty of room for most f them to fulfil that potential, and enjoy the sport, without worrying about what it might tak to climb the Alpe d'Huez in less than half an hour.

Edit: OK, less than forty minutes...

gsteinb

Admittedly, I'm pretty tired of racing against dopers.

chasm54

I sympathise. And it may explain our difference in mood. The calibre of racing I do is so poor that if anyone were doping, you'd be more inclined to pity than resent them. LOL.

Cat4Lifer

And Fabio Carsatelli, Andrei Kivilev, and Wouter Weylandt are the only reasons you need why descents can't be allowed in bike racing!

benlees

Agreed. You let everyone dope, and to be totally serious: why bother having the race? The winner is the one whose body best metabolizes whatever drugs they were given. Why bother? That ain't sport. And there will still be cheats. Gotta be vigilant. Have to make the risks of cheater greater than the reward. The old balance of shame and glory.

FriendlyFred

True sport was lost when they started allowing professionals into the Olympics. Not that the Olympics were any cleaqner than pro sports, but it crossed a line that can't be re-crossed. Roger Federer and LaBron James in the Olympics is a travesty. Poor Jim Thorpe. If only he'd known.

jeffpoulin

It was Anquetil, but your quote is not exact. In 1967 he said (on TV, no less) "on ne fait pas dauphiné Bordeaux-Paris en marchant à l’eau claire" (one doesn't win Bordeaux-Paris by running on mineral water). He could have said the same about the Tour, and probably did at some point, just not on TV.

gpsblake

It is a mess folks. No easy answer, I guess the current system is the best system.. If you allowed open doping then all professional cyclist would be forced to dope to be competitive. Teams are punishing riders big time for doping these days and while the system will never be perfect, it is a system. Out of 192 riders, 2 have been caught doping this year I think...

Outside of perhaps some lifetime bans, I don't know more what to do.

ramuntxo

+1

Bacciagalupe

Not really seeing a difference between "artificially enhancing your recovery" and "enhancing performance."


There is, when the rules explicitly bar those actions.

Riders who take PED's aren't engaging in civil disobedience against a profoundly unfair system. They're looking for an edge to win the game (or just stay in it).

Taking a drug isn't much different than a pro hiding a 1 pound weight on his bike to get it up to 15 pounds, and surreptitiously shedding it at the bottom of a climb. Even if the 15-pound UCI rule strikes you as arbitrary or a poor choice, you don't have the right to break the rules.


If your body can't produce enough testosterone, then injecting an artificial supplement is significantly different both in practice and principle.


The problem isn't that the rules are "too complex."

The riders, their doctors, and team management know very well what's on the WADA Prohibited List, which is updated annually.

So, the rule is simple: Don't take prohibited substances. Is that really so hard?

Further, it's well-known that there is an arms race between cheaters and testers. The cheaters do things like blood doping, or take masking agents, take drugs that are nearly undetectable, or take PED's that they know their sport doesn't test for (e.g. EPO use by track & field sprinters) specifically in order to evade the rules. As soon as a substance or technique becomes detectable, they find another one.

The "surest recipe for cheating" is just "being human." I'm not sure what will actually stop people from cheating, but I am fairly sure that relaxing rules is not going to do it.

900aero

Its also an evolution, not a static situation. Doing the best, fairest thing at any point in time is the best we can hope for.
We'll always get attempts to play outside the rules because fatigue is a biochemical state, not a bio-mechanical one and thus so tempting to artificially alter.

chasm54

Really? You don't see the difference between helping someone recover from illness, injury or fatigue, and enabling them to do something they could not normally achieve when healthy and fresh?

I think you, and many others, are hung up on an illusory distinction between what is "natural" and "artificial". Having foam rollers to massage your quads isn't "natural".


If you have asthma, you are entitled to an exemption and can use drugs that are banned for others. How is that different from being unable "naturally" to produce as much testosterone as one's competitors?


You are missing my point - probably deliberately. I was observing that if one has rules one cannot reliably enforce, that makes matters worse, because those who wish to play fair will observe them while cheats prosper.

gsteinb

It's pretty difficult to actually get a TUE. Guys who don't know think that a DS can just write one and it's all ok. It's a bit more complicated.

Bacciagalupe

I see a difference between working hard to train your body and your mind to compete in a stage race, and taking a drug to induce recovery above and beyond what you could possibly ever achieve with training.


I'd rather be hung up on the idea of "natural" and "artificial" (which, really, isn't that hard to figure out) than make excuses for cheaters.

Again: Yes, there are fuzzy borders; something like a hyperbaric chamber skates a fine line. That makes those specific cases problematic, and have no effect on other aspects. EPO, for example, is clearly going to boost your hematocrit far beyond what you could ever achieve with hard work and intelligent training -- so much that it can kill you in your sleep. And if not taking EPO means you're slower after 14 days of constant riding than another rider whose genetic structure gives them a higher hematocrit, and you can't outsmart them by conserving your energy, and you don't get lucky, then you lose. In fact, you're supposed to lose.

There is nothing "natural" about taking EPO, HGH, synthetic T, CERA, diuretics, or ozone. Don't fool yourself about that, 'cause you aren't fooling me.


Asthma is a medical condition; there is nothing "natural" about the inability to breathe, and you can't relieve it with training. More importantly, the cutoff for salbutamol is well below any possible performance-enhancing effects, but is still clinically effective. There's also considerable debate about salbutamol; some docs say it shouldn't be allowed at all, while others say there is little evidence it has any effects on performance at all.

It's perfectly normal for men to produce less testosterone as they age. Normal, natural, inherent, pick a word -- any word. The reality is that as you get older, you lose certain physical aptitudes. If you can't make up for that with tactics and experience and knowing your body better and mental toughness, then you lose. That's the nature of sport.


What you said is "have fewer rules, and make them stick." Go read your own words.

But the problem is not a surfeit of rules, or too much complexity. It's that riders are very, very good at cheating.

The UCI already does extensive testing, far more than most other sports -- including required testing for stage winners and category leaders, random year-round testing, year-round tracking of test results (the "biological passport"), criminal investigations of dirty doctors, and occasional searches of hotel rooms and team vehicles.

What more are they supposed to do -- give them polygraph tests? 24/7 chaperones? Mandatory searches of hotel rooms and team vehicles? Polygraphs can be beaten; chaperones can be bribed; riders can have someone not on the team transport their drugs.

The reason why it's difficult to have effective tests is not because the rules are too complex or poorly thought out. It's because the riders and their doctors are expending significant resources to develop doping techniques that cannot be detected. A test for EPO is developed; the riders switch to CERA. A few riders get popped for CERA; riders stop using it. They develop a test for residual phthalates from blood bags, docs will either figure out how to filter those out, or switch to glass, or who knows.

When black-hat hackers zing a credit card processor, the solution is not to transmit credit card information in the clear. It's to toughen up security and enforcement -- even though you know the hackers will turn right around and look for new vulnerabilities and other weak spots in the armor.

Relaxing or lifting the rules against PED's is not going to reduce the amount of PED's in use, and it's not going to make it safer for the riders. They'll continue to push the boundaries, even if it jeopardizes their health and safety. Sponsors would flee, law enforcement would pop half the riders, municipalities would cancel events.

So you tell me. What rules should be eliminated? What rules are too complex for the riders to figure out? How would removing tests actually improve the situation? How do you ensure rider safety, when they still have the exact same incentives to push the boundaries and use undetectable drugs to get an otherwise unavailable advantage?

caotropheus

Nice article this one

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18921784