"the system"

[BBB]

It's been an odd week or so in the world of cycling dispute resolution.

Last week we had the Landis decision. Landis goes down 2-1. 80 plus pages written by the two arbitrators in the majority and 20 plus in dissent. The majority did recognise some problems, but at the end of the day they still felt there was sufficient proof (greater than the usual civil standard but less that the criminal standard of proof) that Landis was on the sauce. The dissent is in stark contrast and is written with a lot of passion, albeit at the expense of structure (in my view). In response Landis, amongst other things, labels the system "corrupt" - in my view a dumb thing to say.

This week we get a different type of result from the so-called corrupt system. The Spanish take on the UCI over their attempt to block Valverde from racing at the Worlds due to links to the OP investigation. CAS bounce the UCI and Valverde is free to race.

Finally, it gets reported that the German sports minister was attempting to get an injunction to stop Bettini and DiLuca from racing on Sunday. The UCI, in stark contrast to their position with Valverde, react savagely and accuse the German minister of having various ulterior motives - commercial and political. No word on the injunction, but DiLuca takes himself home.

So on the one hand the 'system' outs Landis and allows Valverde to race, while machinations in Germany mean that one star rider removes himself from an important race.

A mixed result, hardly corrupt, but something is certainly not right.

[1centaur]

All human institutions are political - that's human nature and the tendency of large groups of people.

In the case of doping, the technical complexities of the testing system make quick, easy and sure decisions very difficult, which leads honchos to try to run with suspicions and assumed consensus in order to get their POV into practice. As we can tell from the discussion here, many think anyone accused of doping is so likely to be guilty that it's not worth giving the benefit of the doubt - that also seems to be the prevailing view of the sport's leaders (not saying it's incorrect, just saying what is). Occasionally, somebody says, "wait, you have nothing but suspicion" and forces the honchos to live up to that minimal standard of proof. That's what Valverde did. But the honchos correctly figured out that time is the enemy of their enemy, the supposed doping cyclist, so to avoid the CAS veto they just need to "burn the witch" so close to an event that the evil doers can't respond in time. This is the way the criminal justice system would work (probably did in Western towns) if we did not have precise rule of law approaches. The lack of established procedure is what distresses many people about cycling and it will get resolved in the right way eventually (riders' union?), but for now we're in the stone age of cycling justice.

[nick0137]

I'm not sure I could disagree more. Not least because I think there is no chance of the UCI being sufficiently organised to be that Machiavellian.

We're talking about different things here.

(1) Landis. He failed a test. He was "charged" and "prosecuted" in the forum organised by his home regulator, USADA. It took a very long time (but then the science wasn't easy and it just takes time to organise and present complicated arguments like they had. Anyway, he lost 2:1. Happens all the time in arbitrations and in courts. It's still a loss. If he doesn't like it, he can appeal. He might win. But it doesn't look like he's going to test it out. Seems to me like the system worked.

(2) Valverde. He hasn't failed a test. But he has been linked (through Peurto) to the good doctor. The Spanish federation do not think that the link is sufficiently clear or strong to warrant any action. The UCI disagreed. I have no reason to suppose that either reached their decision other than in good faith and let's work on that assumption.

Question: what should the UCI do? Nothing or something? Nothing means that they have to ignore their genuinely held view that there is something about Valverde that should be looked into and, moreover, take the risk that he becomes World Champ and then is found to be bang to rights on Puerto stuff. Hmmm. Not good. Something means finding something to do. Can't charge him cos he hasn't failed a test. So the UCI is rabbits-in-the-headlights for too long trying to work out what it can and should do.

What would you do with an employee who you genuinely suspected of taking cash from the till? You'd suspend him and investigate and at the end of the investigation either fire him or reinstate him. Seems to me that's what the UCI decided to do. But Valverde is better off than your employee cos he has the immediate right to challenge the UCI decision at CAS. He did and the CAS (so it appears) decided that the UCI's genuinely held and not baseless suspicion was not sufficient to stop Valverde working.

That is a very important, and to my mind worrying, decision because it effectively might mean that anything less than a failed test or the most compelling of documentary evidence will not be sufficient to entitled the UCI to "suspend" a rider. That would, I think, be a huge blow for cycling in its battle against the druggies. Riders who "everyone" knows are on the sauce and who are implicated (with good prima facie grounds) in drug activities will simply race on, will win races, will affect the outcome of races and the UCI will not be able to do anything about it.

(3) The German injunction application was a joke.

[SPOKE]

THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN!!! the agencies that govern cycling have their issues and i really hope they can, at some point real soon, work to correct them.

[1centaur]

I'm not sure I could disagree more.

(1) Landis. He failed a test. [snip]Seems to me like the system worked.

(2) Valverde. He hasn't failed a test. But he has been linked (through Peurto) to the good doctor. The Spanish federation do not think that the link is sufficiently clear or strong to warrant any action. The UCI disagreed. I have no reason to suppose that either reached their decision other than in good faith and let's work on that assumption.

Question: what should the UCI do? Nothing or something? Nothing means that they have to ignore their genuinely held view that there is something about Valverde that should be looked into and, moreover, take the risk that he becomes World Champ and then is found to be bang to rights on Puerto stuff. Hmmm. Not good. Something means finding something to do. Can't charge him cos he hasn't failed a test. [snip]

What would you do with an employee who you genuinely suspected of taking cash from the till? You'd suspend him and investigate [actually I would investigate before suspending and then fire or retain] and at the end of the investigation either fire him or reinstate him. Seems to me that's what the UCI decided to do. But Valverde is better off than your employee cos he has the immediate right to challenge the UCI decision at CAS. He did and the CAS (so it appears) decided that the UCI's genuinely held and not baseless suspicion was not sufficient to stop Valverde working.

That is a very important, and to my mind worrying, decision because it effectively might mean that anything less than a failed test or the most compelling of documentary evidence will not be sufficient to entitled the UCI to "suspend" a rider. That would, I think, be a huge blow for cycling in its battle against the druggies. Riders who "everyone" knows are on the sauce and who are implicated (with good prima facie grounds) in drug activities will simply race on, will win races, will affect the outcome of races and the UCI will not be able to do anything about it.


Re: Landis - The system did not work quickly, and that leads impatient people to rush to consequences they just KNOW will be forthcoming anyway. Justice delayed is justice denied, the saying goes, but in this case the denied justice extends beyond the case in question.

"linked" and "genuinely held" may be valid in the minds of those who all think the same thing ("linked" is often a word used by media and is as potentially unobjective as "a person of interest"), but the vast majority of people who have ever been wrong about something "genuinely held" their views because of their interpretation of the "links" they saw (just look at examples around here). In terms of legitimate justice, the presence of those elements is wholly insufficient to proceed to consequences, as any wise DA will tell you. Suspending a rider can irreparably damage his career for lots of obvious reasons. To do that, a legitimate justice system had better have hard proof, and otherwise needs to suck it up and just be suspicious.

Yes, having a higher standard before you destroy a person's career means that more dopers will succeed for longer, but nuking a ghetto would cut the crime rate in a big city too - you just can't proceed that way. Your approach is exactly what's wrong with cycling honchos today, which does not mean that you are wrong as to the ubiquity of doping. It's just that suspicions, allegations, cryptic notations in the journals of bad guys, etc. are so easily misconstrued or downright manipulatable that using such elements to effectively try and convict would in the end itself destroy the sport. All clean riders with triple digit IQs would realize that they are one genuinely held feeling about a link away from losing everything. That's not good enough.

[nick0137]

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Probably a cross-Atlantic cultural mismatch resulting from our differing perceptions of how "innocent until proven guilty" works.

Yes, a rider's reputation can be seriously damaged by being suspended. But so can any employee's. And over here employees get suspended on the basis of bona fide held and objectively based suspicion all the time. And they get investigated. And sometime they get reinstated, with the damage that goes with that. But their employment contracts entitle their employer to act in that way.

And so should (anyone know if they actually do?) the UCI rules because, as far as I am concerned, a rider is not some special being who needs to be given any greater rights or protection. He's just another guy trying to earn a living.