Since Tyler surrendered his 2004 Olympic Gold medal from the Time Trail, who do you think is going to get it? Maybe we should just have a reride???
1 Tyler Hamilton (USA) 57.31.74 (50.062 km/h)
2 Viatcheslav Ekimov (Russia) 0.18.84
3 Bobby Julich (USA) 0.26.45
4 Michael Rogers (Australia) 0.29.93
5 Michael Rich (Germany) 0.37.72
6 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kazakhstan) 1.26.40
7 Jan Ullrich (Germany) 1.30.30
8 Santiago Botero Echeverri (Colombia) 1.33.02
9 Igor Gonzalez De Galdeano (Spain) 1.55.51
10 Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland) 2.10.64
Wow, had forgotten Cancellara was 10th there… if those 9 guys beat Fabian, maybe FC is / was clean?
Also: I don’t care if Eki doped. He’s Russian from the old school so he gets a pass.
Go down the list, getting rid of people who have ever once been caught doping. The top person on the list is the winner.
Seriously, wipe the names of anyone who’s been caught doping once from the records. Make it as if they never existed, erase their name and team affiliation from the standings, make it as if they never existed. So in 2004, no one won gold, maybe someone won silver or bronze, and maybe no one won those either. Make them return every nickel they ever won. Do that, and maybe there’s a chance cycling can be a real sport.
Did others on this list dope? I don’t know, don’t really follow that stuff. And at what % are you going to assume everyone did, or had the opportunity to, or merely wasn’t tested that day? In which case wasn’t everyone playing on an even field, in which case everyone should just keep the medal they were awarded?
To be honest, IMO if you make it to the end of the year, the season’s results should stand FOREVER, with no questioning of who might have done what, and when. Move on folks.
I was 2nd at the world championships twice (pro 5km), and if the UCI came to me saying “Shaun, we have reason to suspect one year you should have won, we kept the B-sample, and our better testing can now detect things it couldn’t back then and we think you’ll end up as World Champion”, I’d honestly tell them to pour it down the drain.
(note, this is totally hypothetical as i have no reason to question either rider who beat me fair and square)
I’m sure if I sponsored Michael Barry and George Hincappe, I’d agree.
Until then I like Hudson’s idea.
Shaun,
The scenario you describe is not accurate. An accurate scenario is WADA **knows** the person who beat you doped for the win. No guesses.
In my scenario, would you let the lying cheat who finished in front of you take the win?