Okay. David Garcia just got popped for EPO and some kind of starch thing. It strikes me that if you took all the guys that they tested in Spain, that a super high percentage are turning up positive. This is a joke.
Now Alberto Contador says he’s done talking until the UCI decides if they are going to sanction him. I think he should have used that tactic before he started talking in the first place. It took him a couple months to come up with the contaminated meat scenario. And it only took him a week to use the “not talking stance” after the reports of plastic in his pee. That is pretty hard to explain I guess. At least Alberto is learning from his mistakes.
And then there is Bernard Kohl coming over to the US to talk to USADA. He says you can’t win the Tour de France without doping. I hate to say it, but I believe him. And it’s been that case for a long while.
So, what do we do about it. I thought the jail time scare might get some of these guys on the straight and narrow. It hasn’t seemed to work. No one is spending anytime in jail and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down the usage. What ever happened to the riders having to pay back a years salary? That never happened either.
So, the risk/reward ratio is still skewed towards the risk. The current rewards for the doping outweighs the risks by miles. It’s not even close. So, the risks have to be increased to match the rewards. And that still won’t stop the problem completely. But it’s a start.
We need a new plan. So, my new plan would be – if you’re using EPO, steroids, HGH or all these other super drugs, then when you’re caught, you don’t get to race bicycles anymore. Ever. And all your results from your lifetime are forfeited too. All the way back to when you were a junior or whenever you started racing. Plus, you have to pay back your lifetime earnings in the sport. This would essentially make anyone caught of a major doping violation go into bankruptcy.
But, the above ideas won’t work either. Not completely. Not until everyone is on the same page about the acceptability of drugs usage. And they’re not. The UCI is not. The guys that are caught and serve their 2 years come back and are accepted with open arms by the sport and the fans. We do have short memories and do forgive pretty easily. That is why the first sanction has to be much more severe.
I’m sure there is a list of current riders that have served a doping infraction. It would be pretty long. Here is a list of some of the doping violations historically. There are nearly 400 footnotes. These are the guys that are winning the major races. The World Championships, the Tour de France, ect. And if Benard Kohl is correct, you still only get caught 1% of the time. So, the list could be 100 times larger. That seems incomprehensible, but it is probably close to correct.
We can’t have all these guys stealing life experiences from the others riders anymore. It is that plain and simple. It is completely, totally unacceptable.
Alright, maybe I was too harsh above. If you have a doping violation, you can still race, but you have to use this bike.
The plastic is interesting but if they knew this why not use glass bottles? I agree….it’s not looking good 🙁
I like your rules for riders using what you call the super drugs. What if they not only handed down sanctions to the rider but the hole team, including team directors. Maybe not for 2 years but we need something that increases peer pressure.
A while back I started viewing professional cycling as entertainment, not inspiration or motivation. I would prefer it to be both but i’m tired of feeling like a fool after my favorite riders appear to be dopers.
i think most of these people are doping. i don’t hate them for it, but i don’t particularly like them either.
It would be pretty cool if the outcome of a bicycle race was determined by factors like skill, talent, training miles logged, and luck… instead of drugs. Then someone’s sacrifice would really be worth it and something special would be achieved.
The only thing i know for sure… i’m not doping.
So we don’t get to hear Alberto say that the plasticizer came from eating the package that the tainted beef came in. That excuse would have gone right along with whiskey and vanishing twins.
I would like to see hematocrit levels reported just like batting average in baseball. We should all be able to see a rider’s hematocrit go from 42 at the start of the tour to 38 at the end and believe his efforts are true. I would bet that Alberto’s hematocrit jumped up in the same test that caught the plasticizer and the clenbuterol but they don’t ever report this.
I agree the two-year ban is too short, they just come right back to the sport.
I agree the financial penalties should bankrupt the rider and team.
All of the attempts to clean up the sport since Tom Simpson’s death have been ineffective, more drastic measures need to be taken.
Knock Nascar all you want but when they break the rules, the guy calling the shots gets suspended maybe if the Director also got the hook that would get some attention in cycling.
Yes, lifetime bans. I have a game where I go back to bike magazines from up to 10 years ago and “spot the doper” as I flip through the pages. It’s amazing how many of those guys over the years have gotten a dark cloud over their heads or were outright busted.
They do come back way too quickly.
Whoa. I am liking that pic of the square wheels. thats what it feels like my wheels are when i race cross…
Tainted beef, what next tainted beer. If you are going to dope there is a place for you, the Single Speed World Championships, wait, thats a different kind of doping.
After reading all the names on the Wiki list I became quite depressed. It seems that ALL the cyclists I admired in my cycling “Wonder Years” were doping: Rooks, Roche, Theunisse, Fignon and even my main man Sean Kelly. Say it ain’t so!