ToC and EPO: I don't know if I should laugh or cry...

[Louis]

From the NY Times

February 17, 2007
Cycling Race Says It Failed to Test for EPO
By EDWARD WYATT

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 16 — In only its second year, the Tour of California, which begins Sunday in San Francisco, has become the country’s most important professional cycling event, attracting more than 1 million spectators last year and a field of riders this year that ranks as the strongest ever assembled for a race in the United States.

But the issue of performance-enhancing drugs hovers over the sport of cycling, and over the race.

Last year’s winner, Floyd Landis, will not compete this year as he battles allegations that he used synthetic testosterone while winning the Tour de France last summer.

And now, organizers of the Tour of California, who boasted after last year’s race that no riders tested positive for banned substances, have acknowledged that riders were not tested for what has become the sport’s most abused drug — the blood booster known as EPO.

That failure is more surprising because the lead sponsor of the Tour of California is Amgen, the California biotechnology company that produces the genetically engineered version of EPO, which is sold primarily to help cancer and dialysis patients battle anemia.

A spokeswoman at Amgen, which had marketed its sponsorship as a way to educate people against improper use of its drug, expressed outrage at the failure to test for it, saying that the company had been repeatedly assured last year that EPO testing was done.

The spokeswoman, Mary Klem, said that when Amgen executives were informed of the oversight, they were angry and surprised. “Our understanding going into the race was that the test would be included,” Klem said. “And we were told afterward that no rider tested positive for EPO or for any banned substances.”

This year, the organizers of the race have agreed to test riders for EPO.

But how a sport battling a reputation for cheating among its athletes could have left such a gaping hole in its drug enforcement regimen raised serious questions about its ability to convince fans, sponsors and participants that the sport was clean and that riders were competing based on natural ability.

Professional cycling has been battered for years by doping allegations. Last year, several top riders were barred from the Tour de France after their names surfaced in a drug investigation in Spain.

Despite the doping concerns, the sport’s popularity has continued to grow in the United States, which could be its most lucrative market. This year’s Tour of California is expected to draw large crowds as it travels 640 miles through central California and down the coast to Long Beach.

The race has received the highest rating for an event outside Europe from the International Cycling Union, the sport’s governing body.

The field, with 18 teams of eight riders each, includes many of the top teams and riders from Europe and the United States.

Among them are the reigning world champions in road racing and the time trial, Paolo Bettini, the Italian rider for the Belgian team Quick Step-Innergetic, and Fabian Cancellara, the Swiss rider for the Danish team CSC.

Top American riders competing include George Hincapie, the current American road-racing champion, of the Discovery Channel team; and Dave Zabriskie, of CSC, who finished second in last year’s Tour of California.

Professional riders are subject to year-round unannounced drug tests, as well as tests at races. As it did last year, the Tour of California will test four riders each day, including the winner of each day’s stage, the overall leader of the race and two riders selected at random from the 144 riders scheduled to start the event.

It is not clear who made the decision not to test riders for EPO during the Tour of California last year, or whether it was merely an oversight. Executives at AEG, the company that organizes the race, and officials at USA Cycling, the sport’s governing body in the United States, said in interviews this week that doping controls were the responsibility of the International Cycling Union, which sanctions major races and is known by its French abbreviation, U.C.I.

Sean Petty, the chief operating officer of USA Cycling, said that his organization and AEG began talking to the U.C.I. in October about plans for the 2007 race.

During their review of last year’s event, he said, it became apparent that the daily tests of riders did not include screening for EPO.

Calling the revelation “a big disappointment to Amgen,” Klem, the Amgen spokeswoman, said, “We made clear that if Amgen was going to continue to be a sponsor of the race, it needed to be a clean race and EPO had to be tested for.”

Officials at the U.C.I., which is based in Switzerland, could not be reached for comment by telephone on Friday and did not respond to e-mail messages.

Michael Roth, a spokesman at AEG, said the race organizers last year adopted the standards and protocol for drug testing prescribed by the U.C.I.

He said that AEG did not know that EPO was not part of the standard test, but that the company asked for it to be included this year.

Roth said that the organizers of the race would bear the cost of the extra test, about $400 for each urine sample, or $1,600 for each of the race’s eight days.

That roughly doubles the cost of drug testing for the event, but it also represents a cost that would probably not be prohibitive for a race in which sponsors put up hundreds of thousands of dollars.

One cycling team director said the fact that racers at the Tour of California were not tested for EPO did not mean that riders could have gotten away with doping.

Jonathan Vaughters, the racing director for Team Slipstream, which is riding in the race, said that because professional riders are subject to out-of-competition testing at any time, they could have been tested before last year’s race.

“The threat of testing is the deterrent,” he said.

Nevertheless, Klem said Amgen still wants the testing done.

“If somebody’s using EPO in the race, we want to know it,” she said. “At least we know going into this year’s race that we will.”

Juliet Macur contributed reporting from New York.

[A.L.Breguet]

"Jonathan Vaughters, the racing director for Team Slipstream, which is riding in the race, said that because professional riders are subject to out-of-competition testing at any time, they could have been tested before last year’s race.

“The threat of testing is the deterrent,” he said."

Uh, yeah, sure thing Jon.

I'm afraid the whole sport is corrupt and dirty from the very top all the way down to the local thursday night training race.

[AgilisMerlin]

I love this sport



a
m
e
r
l
i
N

[Elefantino]

It's good to see Amgen outraged (if it is really outrage and not posturing).

Skoda bailed on the TdF because of l'affaire Landis. If more sponsors would get serious and pull the cash, you might have a clean sport.

Or you might just see them replaced with dirty sponsors.

Catulle's Tour...

[djg]

Originally Posted by Elefantino

It's good to see Amgen outraged (if it is really outrage and not posturing).

Or you might just see them replaced with dirty sponsors.

It's a publicly traded company (heck, I'm a shareholder) and I'm not altogether sure what it means for a corporate body to be outraged, but I've no doubt that at least one person involved is pissed. Amgen's business is not sports promotion but biologics and drug development, manufacture, and sales. The race is a combination of advertising and good-will building and, while the sponsorship really is not a fortune for them, it's absolutely not part of the program that good-will chasing donations are supposed to be associated with scandal or even allegations of cheating, especially as Amgen products might be identified as tools for cheaters. Now, you might argue that a sale's a sale, but their business really depends on selling medicines to millions, not dope to hundreds. They're on the hill (and before Euro bodies) all the time on pricing and other issues; they're repeat players before FDA (and foreign regulators); and they're pretty much constantly in the courts on IP issues. Billions on the table--I don't think they need or want the hassles that come with the dirt market.

Originally Posted by djg

It's a publicly traded company (heck, I'm a shareholder) and I'm not altogether sure what it means for a corporate body to be outraged, but I've no doubt that at least one person involved is pissed. Amgen's business is not sports promotion but biologics and drug development, manufacture, and sales. The race is a combination of advertising and good-will building and, while the sponsorship really is not a fortune for them, it's absolutely not part of the program that good-will chasing donations are supposed to be associated with scandal or even allegations of cheating, especially as Amgen products might be identified as tools for cheaters. Now, you might argue that a sale's a sale, but their business really depends on selling medicines to millions, not dope to hundreds. They're on the hill (and before Euro bodies) all the time on pricing and other issues; they're repeat players before FDA (and foreign regulators); and they're pretty much constantly in the courts on IP issues. Billions on the table--I don't think they need or want the hassles that come with the dirt market.

I agree 100%. However, why should they want to come even close to scandal by sponsoring cycling now days (considering the nature of their business)? I think their marketing people are either very brave or not too smart. It's like Marlboro sponsoring Happy Meals with old Ronald McDonald, atmo...

[Elefantino]

Originally Posted by catulle

I agree 100%. However, why should they want to come even close to scandal by sponsoring cycling now days (considering the nature of their business)? I think their marketing people are either very brave or not too smart.

Let's see ... we make a product that is used to cheat in cycling and has become the three-letter symbol for everything that is foul in the sport. I know ... let's sponsor a cycling race!

I cannot find a parallel.

[toaster]

Having spent a couple seasons racing on Amgen's Masters team and knowing many individuals involved in the company and the sport, all I can say is the passion for cycling is there in the first place and in the second place that even if the products Amgen made helped cancer patients and yet when given to healthy cyclists they would wobble on their bikes and fall over Amgen would still be involved in a major bike race like Tour of California.

[1centaur]

What interests me is the bit about it not being clear if the non-testing was intentional or an oversight. If my company was the title sponsor for a race and the test for my product was not done, I would do a thorough investigation to answer that question. I would also have one of my people stationed at the testing location to watch it being done, at the least to judge the quality of the testing. Further I would want a statistical summary of the results of each test, not just pass fail but the numbers involved, because I'd want a sense of how close to the line people might be getting so I could consider how to reduce the incidence of my product being mentioned in that context.

Given their location it's not surprising they are cycling fans. They have every right to sponsor the race. They should not sponsor a race for which the organizers intentionally choose not to do drug controls, a fact that could easily be known by riders before the fact. They seem to be responding appropriately to that possibility. Good for them.

[rockdude]

Originally Posted by catulle

Catulle's Tour...

Is that your cactus garden? I am looking to start a garden this spring and those pretty white and yellow flowering cacti look good. Could I have some cuttings?

[BumbleBeeDave]

<<<It is not clear who made the decision not to test riders for EPO during the Tour of California last year, or whether it was merely an oversight. Executives at AEG, the company that organizes the race, and officials at USA Cycling, the sport’s governing body in the United States, said in interviews this week that doping controls were the responsibility of the International Cycling Union, which sanctions major races and is known by its French abbreviation, U.C.I. . . . . . .

. . . . . Officials at the U.C.I., which is based in Switzerland, could not be reached for comment by telephone on Friday and did not respond to e-mail messages.>>>

Sponsoring this race could have been a golden moment in promotion and PR for Amgen. It was an audacious move in both marketing and PR for a company known for manufacturing one of the most notorious cheating substances and could have gone far to improve the reputation of their company and pro cycling in America.

Of course, with this revelation the operative phrase becomes "could have been." Because in one fell swoop someone--and it looks to be the UCI--has totally invalidated both Amgen's motives and much of the huge investment Amgen has made in both the race and publicity for it.

Why? Why would the UCI do this? EPO testing is one of the very basic drug control requirements for any pro cycling race nowadays. Did they think noone would catch on? Hardly likely, considering how their organization leaks tips and insider information like a sieve.

Of course, to be fair you have to consider the possibility that AEG and USA Cycling are just finger pointing, having made the decision themselves not to test for EPO lest someone come up positive and embarrass their main sponsor.

But let's assume for a moment that it IS the UCI that made this decision. Why? Several possible reasons come to mind . . .

Incompetence . . . given their performance in so many other aspects of managing professional cycling the last few years, this one is not surprising. Call it stupidity, lack of internal controls and/or communication, or whatever . . . But at least this one doesn't include blatant intent.

Arrogance . . . Possible, but how could they be more arrogant about this event than they seem to come across in everything else they do? Trying to force the Pro Tour on the world and destroying as many established organized races as they have through not including them in the tour is about the only proof I need.

Nationalism . . . They did this deliberately, knowing it would leak out, as a way to hurt American pro cycling and keep Europe the only true arena of "real" pro cycling. I'm reminded of a quote from Admiral Yamamoto in the days after the stunning Japanese victory at Pearl Harbor . . . " I fear we have only awakened a sleeping giant." The Europeans have to know that as much money as there is in the US, if pro cycling were to attain the level of popularity here that it already enjoys in Europe, then the scope and prize money of races possible here would dwarf even the TdF.

Warped PR concern . . . They made a conscience decision to not test for EPO for the same reason outlined above for the Americans--PR disaster if anyone came up positive for cheating using a drug made by the race's main sponsor. They really were trying in their warped, under the table way to keep a sponsor. But after seeing what's been happening to Unibet these past few weeks, I've pretty much given up any idea that ANY group in European pro cycling really gives a fcuk about keeping any corporate sponsor.

But whatever the reason, I can't think of a better reason for Amgen to pull the plug. They have been made to look like total hypocrites--whether they really are or not.

BBD