So the Emperor has been naked all this time.........
For a decade we believed he was Superman in golden robes. Were we fooled, or did we just not want to see the truth?
Whatever discussions, analysis, post-mortems, reviews, tribunals, investigations, books, symposia etc follow from the USADA report, the important questions are:
Why was the system so flawed? How can we fix it?
Why was the system so flawed?
For one, I don't accept that the technology in 2012 is so much further than it was in 2002 - that what is used or available today was not available then. Blood analysis is not something that was invented in the 21st century.
When EPO appeared, the response was to set a ceiling measurement. This is like a speed limit on the roads .... people won't drive below it...they will drive as close to it as possible. It's human nature. The 50% level was obviously way too high, when the accepted norm was much lower.
Once the parameters were set, the first question to any intelligent person would be: "how would a cheater get around it?". To understand alcoholism you talk to a recovering alcoholic. To understand drug abuse and addiction you talk to a former junkie. May Michele Ferrari should have been employed by the UCI to design an unbeatable testing system since according to the USADA report it took him all of five minutes to see the flaws in the UCI's program.
But really you have to go back to cause of the doping, not the effect or the doping itself.
Money....the 'math' part of the after-math.
Currently there is no disincentive to a sponsor to hire a drug cheat .... be it rider, manager, doctor, soigneur or coach. When a rider fails a drug test, the rider is sanctioned, fined, suspended or banned. For the sponsor, their investment is not damaged, the team continues unaffected and in the end there is no such thing as bad publicity. How many sponsors have seen their business adversely affected by positive controls on their riders?
If a rider fails a test, the sponsor has the possibility to kill the result with donations to organisers / federations / even perhaps the UCI e.g.the alleged payment for Armstrong's Swiss positive. If they are willing to pay after the fact, why not make them pay a priori (is this a proper use of the term?)
For the UCI to refuse to acknowledge anything that happened in the past, or to deny their own responsibility for any of it, or their accountability to their membership for the state of the sport is to perpetuate the system
that has failed thousands of talented young riders like Mark Scanlon.
I
have witnessed the old system's failure in the past at close quarters. In
my final year racing in France I won the final stage of a stage race in
Eastern France. Successfully infiltrating the race winning move early
in the stage, I was riding in a group with the second placed overall rider (a
National Champion). The yellow jersey (a former professional teammate
of Sean Kelly) was back in the bunch with a strong team and a wallet to
recruit extra riders if needed. About two thirds way through the stage,
the yellow jersey, all his team and several members of other large
teams all got off! The stage was on a circuit, and when riders passed
the finish line with perhaps 2 laps remaining, the dope control notice
was spotted at the podium.....
I presented myself for
testing as the stage winner to be told that no controls would be
performed. The organisers and sponsors were saved the possibility of
very damaging publicity.
I remember reading in L'Equipe
magazine in the late 80's, when I was based in France, that at the
Rolland Garros tennis tournament, dope controls were performed on
competitors. However the results of positive tests were never published
if the culprits agreed to leave the tournament. So if a seeded player got beaten in the early rounds by a "nobody", you could reasonably infer that they had failed a control.
Drug testing was not a done on a large scale in that sport ..... in fact
Rolland Garros was one of the few tournaments with antidoping. How
they handled it meant they KNEW there were cheats, but the sponsors were
protected!.
That kind of "protecting the Golden Goose" can not continue....
How do we fix it?
If a team hires any employee previously connected with a drug investigation, the sponsor pays the UCI €100,000 per. If a team hires a previously convicted ride, the sponsor pays the UCI €200,000. If a rider fails a test, the sponsor pays the UCI €300,000.
Riders still serve their suspensions or bans and non riders serve mandatory suspensions .... even those who confess after the fact .i.e. Rijs.
In this way, low paid (i.e. ordinary team members) will be discouraged from doping. High paid riders (Team Leaders) would normally earn enough money in their contracts for the sponsors to be able to recoup the payment in legal action. The UCI would have an incentive to maximise the success rate of their doping program which could be financed by positive results.
UCI tested LA more than 200 times. If even 100 of these tests were conducted at times when he was actually cheating, then the success rate of the UCI's program is less than 1 in 100 at best.
The UCI would have unparalleled credibility in sport worldwide among the public and among honest sponsors by enforcing a system as proposed.
Has nobody ever raised this before?
If this has never been seriously considered, if no one in the UCI ever discussed in detail the fallibility of their testing program and policy, and if no one accepts responsibility for what has gone before, then the UCI are not the body to govern the sport.
If any of this did take place, then the UCI are not the body to govern the sport.
