doping escalation

[gt6267a]

escalation! (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2007/jun07/jun19news3)

The UCI has introduced a new anti-doping charter, it announced today in Geneva. Under it, all 600 ProTour riders must sign a statement before the Tour de France in which they agree to pay a year's salary if they are found to have used illegal doping products, in addition to the usual suspension they would face.

thoughts?

[dave thompson]

That will get their attention!

[CNY rider]

How much of the average pro's income comes from straight salary, and how much is from prize money?

[Climb01742]

they should make the teams sign one, too, with a forfeit of entire year's budget if any rider is caught doping. it's unfair to lay all the burden on the riders.

[Ti Designs]

Is that a year's salary had they never used drugs? 'cause the common excuse is that you need to cheat to be competitive, if you're not competitive as a pro rider you don't get paid much.

I never used drugs when I was racing. My biggest earning as a racer was the down comforter I won in a prime at Fitchburg on an 85 degree day (nobody else went for it). I'm seeing the whole drug scandal thing unfold and thinking to myself that I could have done better had I used something, and still gotten out in time. Honesty was clearly not the best policy back then, things might be getting better, I'm not sure...

[Mud]

I used to play tennis at a fairly high level. In most tournaments (until the finals or sometimes semis) you call your own lines and better results yield better seeds, etc. It is all the same. It is really amazing how you can get "jobbed" at just the right time and how people can do it with a straight face. At least my best ranking was earned, but a couple of calls the other way and it would have been 10 places better. Funny, after all these years it still gets me.

[wasfast]

I'm seeing two different reportings. Your quote says "must". The Cyclingnews version says it's voluntary and they'll have a list of those that have signed it. I believe it should be MANDATORY.

You can't ride the TdF unless you sign but if you do sign and are found guilty then you pay financially plus the 2 year ban. Sounds like you can not sign, not be guilty and not ride the TdF. Strange.

[gt6267a]

they should make the teams sign one, too, with a forfeit of entire year's budget if any rider is caught doping. it's unfair to lay all the burden on the riders.

while the idea to put more and more pressure against doping ... take away advantages / incentives to dope is a good thing ... at what point does it force sponsors to walk away? if t-mobile is spending millions on their team, testing them like mad dogs on their own, laying off a dude they pinched, and then one guy on their team gets busted ... and they are out another $4M Euro? I don't think companies would put themselves on the line for that?

i am with the crowd that says only penalizing the riders does not distrubute the burden to all those who are involved. i do think there needs to be another solution than penalizing the sponsors.

it also seems like a sticky situation to even ban a DS for 2 years with the rider. with the rider they have evidence linking the rider to the illegal action. with the DS they just have an expectation that it must have been condoned or encouraged. where is the proof?

i am curious to hear about a solution to punish more than the rider that goes by proof, not just assumptions.

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . at the riders that will lead to the formation of a rider's union. Just a matter of when they get p*ssed off enough . . .

BBD

[Climb01742]

while the idea to put more and more pressure against doping ... take away advantages / incentives to dope is a good thing ... at what point does it force sponsors to walk away? if t-mobile is spending millions on their team, testing them like mad dogs on their own, laying off a dude they pinched, and then one guy on their team gets busted ... and they are out another $4M Euro? I don't think companies would put themselves on the line for that?

i am with the crowd that says only penalizing the riders does not distrubute the burden to all those who are involved. i do think there needs to be another solution than penalizing the sponsors.

it also seems like a sticky situation to even ban a DS for 2 years with the rider. with the rider they have evidence linking the rider to the illegal action. with the DS they just have an expectation that it must have been condoned or encouraged. where is the proof?

i am curious to hear about a solution to punish more than the rider that goes by proof, not just assumptions.

i agree...scaring off sponsors wouldn't be good. but laying it all on the riders isn't fair either. as it is now, teams could still subtly, or not so subtly, pressure riders for results...then be shocked when they test positive. i don't have a good solution for how to share the responsibility and penalties, but sharing them both only seems fair.

[William]

A %'tage of rider earnings docked for one year....similar %'tage from sponsor/team management.


Just a thought.



William

[Elefantino]

This sounds a lot like a 1950s "loyalty oath." Of course everyone is going to sign, at least those who want to ride in the Tour. (And if the powers that be show some brass, every UCI Pro Tour event, too.) If you don't, then Joe McCarthy will shred you.

[Russell]

they should make the teams sign one, too, with a forfeit of entire year's budget if any rider is caught doping. it's unfair to lay all the burden on the riders.

word

[Ti Designs]

they should make the teams sign one, too, with a forfeit of entire year's budget if any rider is caught doping. it's unfair to lay all the burden on the riders.

I've never been a pro, I know nothing of what goes on in the pro ranks, but pressure to perform aside, isn't it the rider who dopes, not the team? Back when I was racing the team dope was the guy who forgot his shoes - has that term changed meanings???

[Walter]

The thing that scares me about all of this enhanced punishment talk from the UCI is that it is not coupled with any discussion about more qualified and non-conflicted labs, accurate and independent backup tests, and/or a meaningful review/appeal process. The Paris lab is rife with conflicts and a lack of professionalism. Having the same lab test the backup is not backup test at all. The present appeal process is slow, shoddy and lacks clear procedural guidelines and protections to preserve the integrity of the process.

If you want to hammer a wrongdoer (and their team), you have to make the process valid and reliable.

[shaq-d]

the proposal is ridiculous. these dumba$$ cyclists really need to band together and form a union.

sd

[Nick H.]

Let me see if I've got this right.

The charter also says "I declare myself ready to give a DNA sample to the Spanish judicial system so that it can be compared to the blood bags taken in the Operación Puerto."

Pereiro has already threatened to quit cycling rather than give DNA. If he doesn't sign the charter and Landis loses his case then Prudhomme will probably not declare Pereiro the winner of the 2006 Tour.

In which case the winner will be Kloden. But will he sign? Let's see...he's been boycotting the press because he doesn't want to be asked about doping, he wasn't doping at T-Mobile while everybody else was, and he said Jan was innocent...hmm. I wonder what his dog is called.

Next was Sastre, who, as a CSC rider, was naturally clean.

Then we have Cadel Evans, who said when Basso and Ullrich were thrown out of the Tour that he was delighted that the cheats had been caught. So either he's got the biggest balls in cycling or we can expect him to be given the 2006 yellow jersey.

[Avispa]

the proposal is ridiculous. these dumba$$ cyclists really need to band together and form a union.

They don't seem to be so dumb... Or may be they are? I say, fry them alive! From CyclingNews.com:

Manzano slams Valverde, Aldag

Alejandro Valverde "took the same stuff that they gave me," said his former Kelme teammate Jesus Manzano. He gave a concrete example in an interview with the German magazine Stern, saying "I remember an evening after one of the Vuelta stages in 2002. Valverde came to dinner with a testosterone plaster on. After an hour he ripped it off, otherwise he would have been tested positive."

Valverde has consistently denied all doping charges.

He blasted T-Mobile Sport Director Rolf Aldag's statement that doping was a personal thing and that teammates didn't know what each other was doing. "That is a big lie. He is stlll living from cycling. Sure, he is Sport Director, he has to ensure his income. If Aldag really told everything, then he would stand there alone against thousands of cyclists. He is aware of that. So he just talks about it being a private affair."

He added, "Doping is not just the private affair of a few people. It is a cancer that is growing. And everybody knows that."

Manzano also said that Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes was still in business, "but not in the big way like before. He has exchanged quantity for quality: "If he had 200 patients before, he now has maybe 20. Just the top ones."

He concluded, "It's this way in the cycling world: When you have started, you stay with it and just change your doctor. The riders who still speak to me say: Everything has stayed the same, but we are more careful now."

[Bruce K]

The onus should be on the riders. By penalizing the teams financially, which ultimately penalizes the sponsors, will only drive the sponsors out and further hurt the sport.

Maybe suspending teams from a major event would put pressure on them from both sides, it could be written into rules and contracts that they need to be clean to ride and they need to be clean for a sponsor to continue to pay.

A similar but reverse problem exists in construction. If an employee is found in violation of an OSHA regulation, the contractor pays ALL the penalties, the employee, NONE.

This holds true whether the employee was trained properly or not, Whether he was repeatedly told by a supervisor or not, etc.

At this time, there is no mechanism, even by OSHA rules, for the employee to bear any burden of their own bad behavior.

In the case of doping, a rider, if he felt pressured could refuse. You don't HAVE to be a pro rider, or you could ride for another team, or you could blow the whistle.

It may be a step in the right direction but it seems to need some fine tuning.

BK