Ashenden and omertà

[More Strides than Rides]

What about track and field? Fans are much more oblivious of doping in athletics, despite being similar to cycling in everything mentioned so far. Some commentaries cite the different competitive organizational structure of cycling vs running, (training groups don't have the same resources, personnel, logistics as pro cycling teams necessary to dope on a widespread level- just an argument being made), which neglects the role of many national federations' talent development or similar programs.

However, there is no omerta to the degree of cycling. Athletes are outright with their suspicions more so than cyclists, even if it may be to clear an easier path to the podium.

This is not a "holier than thou" post, but a talking point for how cycling can be modeled to disrupt the omerta.

 

[Page Mill Masochist]

Cycling fans are the only ones who actually care whether or not their sport is clean. Why they care so much I have no idea, but that is the reason cycling takes so much heat. Talk to a NFL fan about doping - they know how dirty it is and they don't give a sh!t. Why should they? Sport will never, ever be clean. It's entertaiment - shut up and watch it.

The NFL is good entertainment because the game itself appears to be honestly played, even if the players are dirty.

Pro cycling lies somewhere between a legitimately contested sport and a pro wrestling match with its favored riders, selected enforcement, clowns like Phil Liggett, and so on. If you like that kind of entertainment, fine. I don't.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

If Ashenden wants to target the omerta he and other anti-doping organisations should focus their attention on retiring riders that have nothing to lose by speaking out. I don't understand why there aren't more guys with one or two seasons left secretly filming conversations and/or actual doping practices in the act. Build a library of video and audio evidence and then dump the lot at WADA HQ on the day you hang up your jersey for the last time.

To get that kind of video access, one would need to be on the inside - ie a doper.
It isn't up to the athletes to sort out their sports - that is meant to be the sports authorities role, of course they are in a conflict of interest position.

Additionally, how hard can it be for anti-doping authorities to hire investigators whose sole purpose is to uncover organised doping? If the police can break gigantic illegal drug smuggling rings, then surely it must be possible to do the same in cycling. Maybe it will take years of surveillance and intelligence gathering, but hey if they started working on this 10yrs ago, maybe we would have seen a few more drug busts by now. More resources into busting the supply side is needed.

Who?
By that I mean - the UCI are anti scandal, not anti-doping. And the individual countries have limited resources - the only route there is proper police investigations. Which of course has happened before and is the most successful route as they have proper legal power.

 

[usedtobefast]

Now, I'd like to see Ashenden also talk about US Football, World Cup soccer, Olympic track and field, etc. Cycling has been made into the "bad apple" of sport and its exposure is being done in the name of all sport.

That's not only not very democratic, but is also not sportsmanship like. I've got no problem with doping in cycling being exposed, however, that the football league for example hasn't been placed under the same scrutiny can only be for one reason.

And the reason is, as usual, money. There exists too a omertà within the cultures of these sports, but pro football and soccer generate gargantuan sums of money, whereas track and field is the main Olympic spectacle so the IOC has no interest in going after it the way cycling has been under attack. Bolt is a global phenomenon, but it is laughable to think he's clean. How many positives do we get each year in the anti-doping tests of these sports? Heck football and soccer don't even have blood controls, but only urine samples tested and the controls are sporadic at best. There's simply no business interest nor incentive to fight doping in these sports. Which is not only hypocritical but sinister, when we realize that high school and college youth are already taking anabolic steroids, testosterone, HGH in the hopes of becoming future champions.

What are your thoughts?


http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/opinion-michael-ashenden-on-omerta-101

i am tired of doping, doping this doping that. people use the stuff in every part of society. you can not stop it. that much we know. the health effects are, what they are. i am not for or against doping. enough controls just to keep people from dying, seems like what we have now. like trying to stop the ocean with a pencil.

 

[Krebs cycle]

To get that kind of video access, one would need to be on the inside - ie a doper.
It isn't up to the athletes to sort out their sports - that is meant to be the sports authorities role, of course they are in a conflict of interest position.

Exactly. Ashenden cites a pro rider who, by virtue of fact that he has spoken to him, obviously wants to get something off his chest, but is too scared to turn whistleblower for fear of losing his career. Fair enough, but if you're a pro rider who has ethics and you just dope to save yourself from being the team outcast, well gather your evidence in secret and then leak it when you have retired. I've always been disgusted at the way whistleblowers get treated in any industry. This is where Ashenden was wrong in his article. Everyone knows that whistleblowers basically have their lives ruined and to me, that is a sad indictment on human morality. Whistleblowers should be heralded as heros by the public, not demonized and then have to go into hiding for the rest of their lives.

If you have video evidence though, you can leak it to the authorities and it is impossible to dispute. The dopers can still try to use a smear campaign to discredit the whistleblower, but when there is hard evidence then it stands on its own, independently of eyewitness testimony.

Who?
By that I mean - the UCI are anti scandal, not anti-doping. And the individual countries have limited resources - the only route there is proper police investigations. Which of course has happened before and is the most successful route as they have proper legal power.

Probably WADA in conjunction with national anti-doping authorities and the police. I understand that such investigations are expensive and logistically challenging, but it is possible that it would be cheaper to catch dopers using established counter-intelligence methods as opposed to conducting tests on blood and urine samples.

 

[ToreBear]

This thread puzzles me. So many want to point elsewhere. Look at them! They do it too! Five year olds also rationalize their own bad behavior that way.

Face it. Cycling is the bottom when it comes to doping. Few sports(none that I can think of) with this amount of money can gain so much from doping.

The tour has been drug fueled from the start. It's become ingrained.

I thought it was cleaner, but now I'm not so sure.

I ended the call with a sense of despair and resignation that felt like it was drowning me. Yet again, a member of the cycling fraternity had confided to me a shocking anecdote, this time calling into question the integrity of cycling’s overlords. Yet again, despite my pleadings, they refused to share their knowledge with authorities. They were terrified that if ever their name was leaked they would be ostracized from cycling forever.

First, there must be something to hide. Despite the self-serving data bending and associated propaganda to the contrary, I am led to believe that there are pockets of organised, highly sophisticated dopers even within ‘new age’ cycling teams. Personally, I don’t accept that the ‘dark era’ has ended, it has just morphed into a new guise.

 

[Thasp Blog]

I have a bit of a theory about this. I think it has to do with what doping does to cyclists, what it primarily affects. The "skill" in cycling is all about the ability to push yourself faster on the bike. Doping is first and foremost going to improve that. Anyone can ride a bike - there's no technical skill that takes years to master - there's race tactics, but if you're fast, you're fast, tactics are secondary.

In other sports like tennis the main skill isn't what doping is going to primarily affect. You can't take a drug and suddenly have a better backhand in tennis. Sure, it might make your endurance better and make you stronger or last longer on the court, but that's not what tennis fans are there to see as the main spectacle. They want to see a good backhand. I think that's why they don't care so much and why cycling fans care.

Doping can have a direct impact on skill. If you dope, you can practice longer. More repetitions of you backhand, forehand, serve, and volleys. This can somewhat compensate for a lack of talent.

Also, the extended training allowed by doping will improve your strength and speed, you can keep rallies going on longer. Get more balls back. Further, with doping, your shots will lose less zip as the match progress because you'll be fresher.

As Pat Cash remarked earlier this year: "[Tennis] is the perfect sport to dope."

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/spor...t-berdych-les-deux-qui-menacent-le-top-4.html

 

[D-Queued]

Doping can have a direct impact on skill. If you dope, you can practice longer. More repetitions of you backhand, forehand, serve, and volleys. This can somewhat compensate for a lack of talent.

Also, the extended training allowed by doping will improve your strength and speed, you can keep rallies going on longer. Get more balls back. Further, with doping, your shots will lose less zip as the match progress because you'll be fresher.

As Pat Cash remarked earlier this year: "[Tennis] is the perfect sport to dope."

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/spor...t-berdych-les-deux-qui-menacent-le-top-4.html

You can improve your individual strokes, but you still have to develop court sense and perfect ball placement.

In cycling, you can go high cadence (Lance) or low cadence (Wiggins), or sit on an incredibly aerodynamically inefficient machine (Indurain) and still rip people apart in a time trial. You have an earpiece providing you direction to 'go faster' or 'go slower', 'corner ahead', etc. Or, if you are Froome climbing a Col, get told to 'slow down you moron'.

No skill required.

Edit to add:

In seven Tour wins* (with an asterisk), there was only one true display of skill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtZhG2kWVLY

Even that demonstration involved incredible luck. Had the Beloki crash happened a couple of meters earlier, Lance would have been in the ditch.

Dave.

 

[More Strides than Rides]

You can improve your individual strokes, but you still have to develop court sense and perfect ball placement.

In cycling, you can go high cadence (Lance) or low cadence (Wiggins), or sit on an incredibly aerodynamically inefficient machine (Indurain) and still rip people apart in a time trial. You have an earpiece providing you direction to 'go faster' or 'go slower', 'corner ahead', etc. Or, if you are Froome climbing a Col, get told to 'slow down you moron'.

No skill required.

Edit to add:

In seven Tour wins* (with an asterisk), there was only one true display of skill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtZhG2kWVLY

Even that demonstration involved incredible luck. Had the Beloki crash happened a couple of meters earlier, Lance would have been in the ditch.

Dave.

Your definition of skill is not useful in this discussion. Skill should be broken down into more manageable components, we'll say everything about the sport that is more mental than muscular. Doping allows for more physicality during practice, allowing you to improve your technical skills; a doped tennis player getting 8 hours of practice on serves per day, verses a clean managing only 5 (making up numbers). More time practicing your brain, because your doped body and go longer.

In cycling, that looks like tactical acuity, road awareness, very good perception of fatigue/effort (pacing), bike handling, acceleration, and any other component I missed. Fatigue affects your decision making, and bike handling. All important skills necessary for winning.

And, there is no asterisk. There are no 7 tour wins.

 

[The Hitch]

You can improve your individual strokes, but you still have to develop court sense and perfect ball placement.

They already have that. Everybody in the world top 10 000has been playing since they could walk, and spent half their life on the tennis court. they have perfect court placement since they are 6. you act as if the professionals are going to struggle to hit the ball where they want. The guys playing challenger events.can knock a leaf of a tree from.a mile away.

The pros don't play amateurs. They play other pros who also know how to play tennis. And you dont win rallies against pros with gentle strokes. Even the less.physical players are.smacking the crap out of the ball with every stroke.

 

[Altitude]

The NFL is good entertainment because the game itself appears to be honestly played, even if the players are dirty.

Pro cycling lies somewhere between a legitimately contested sport and a pro wrestling match with its favored riders, selected enforcement, clowns like Phil Liggett, and so on. If you like that kind of entertainment, fine. I don't.

Football is not honestly played at all. Cheating takes place on almost every play. From holding your opponents jersey to smashing your helmet into someones chin to spying on other teams to memorize their playbook, it's filthy all over. Just search "NFL bounty scandal" to get an idea of how phucked up that sport is.

Fans of pro wrestling don't care how roided out those guys are. Wrestlers drop like flies from heart attacks and it changes nothing. People want the freak show entertainment. Does cycling somehow attract the most responsible fans in the world? It really doesn't make sense to me.

 

[D-Queued]

Don't get me wrong.

I agree with you guys. Case in point: Williams Sisters. Power in women's tennis blows away skill and has completely changed the game.

From Wikipedia:

The longest women's match (by time) took place at a tournament in Richmond, Virginia, in 1984, when Vicki Nelson took 6 hours, 31 minutes to defeat Jean Hepner 6–4, 7–6(11–9). The match featured a 29-minute, 643-shot rally, the longest in professional tennis history.

That was thirty years ago.

Better mental acuity, from higher aerobic capacity, makes a huge difference between scoring a goal and missing or losing the ball

But, doping still has a bigger 'relative' impact in cycling. You have a chance at overcoming dopers with skill in other sports, whereas you have no chance in cycling. Donkeys to race horses.

Please remember, I am a cyclist and am dissing myself, and all of my relentless personal efforts, on the skill equation.

Dave.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Football is not honestly played at all. Cheating takes place on almost every play. From holding your opponents jersey to smashing your helmet into someones chin to spying on other teams to memorize their playbook, it's filthy all over. Just search "NFL bounty scandal" to get an idea of how phucked up that sport is.

Fans of pro wrestling don't care how roided out those guys are. Wrestlers drop like flies from heart attacks and it changes nothing. People want the freak show entertainment. Does cycling somehow attract the most responsible fans in the world? It really doesn't make sense to me.

Nope. Cycling doesn't attract more responsible fans.

But, cycling is a beautiful sport - one that most people can empathize with as they have ridden a bike.
Why fans may be more outspoken in cycling is it has been continually linked with doping yet doping offers little to the sport.
Most fans of the sport want to see human effort and struggle - not superhuman robotic stuff. The sport is brutally hard - that's it's draw.

 

[sittingbison]

...Most fans of the sport want to see human effort and struggle - not superhuman robotic stuff. The sport is brutally hard - that's it's draw.

yup, I think fans of any sport watch as they equate it to themselves. In games of skill like soccer and tennis, we admire their prowess compered to our owm (being the yardstick). In cycling, we llok at the alps, or the ITT, and want to marvel at their ability compered to what we know WE would suffer doing.

There is almost zero fun in watching a super duper juiced Cobra or Chicken skip through the alps, because it has no bearing or relevance to a normal or even elite performance that we can equate to.

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

That was a pretty full on piece from Ashenden. It's the first report from someone in the know that confirms what we suspected "there are pockets of organised, highly sophisticated dopers even within ‘new age’ cycling teams."

Any truth and reconciliation must include the present day. Anything else is just another whitewash.

 

[_frost]

yup, I think fans of any sport watch as they equate it to themselves. In games of skill like soccer and tennis, we admire their prowess compered to our owm (being the yardstick). In cycling, we llok at the alps, or the ITT, and want to marvel at their ability compered to what we know WE would suffer doing.

There is almost zero fun in watching a super duper juiced Cobra or Chicken skip through the alps, because it has no bearing or relevance to a normal or even elite performance that we can equate to.

Nice thinking but I don't somehow believe that if they suddenly started running >10 second 100m it would long keep the interest to track&field?

 

[_frost]

If Ashenden wants to target the omerta he and other anti-doping organisations should focus their attention on retiring riders that have nothing to lose by speaking out.

I think that would be a good starting point. The more they could get people to talk the more would have courage to come out. Kind of power in numbers that once you exceed some critical mass it cannot be labeled as greedy, bitter losers trying to bring heros down.

 

[Page Mill Masochist]

Football is not honestly played at all. Cheating takes place on almost every play. From holding your opponents jersey to smashing your helmet into someones chin to spying on other teams to memorize their playbook, it's filthy all over. Just search "NFL bounty scandal" to get an idea of how phucked up that sport is.

You are correct, but what I meant is that NFL Commissioner Goodell does not pick winners in the way that the UCI anointed and protected Armstrong (to the point of giving Armstrong a license to finger his competition for drug tests).

 

[_frost]

This thread puzzles me. So many want to point elsewhere. Look at them! They do it too! Five year olds also rationalize their own bad behavior that way.

I don't think people are pointing elsewhere to support the behavior, but rather say that this is not anyhow unique but a larger problem in professional sports and to really get somewhere we should dig deeper to the primary causes.

Face it. Cycling is the bottom when it comes to doping. Few sports(none that I can think of) with this amount of money can gain so much from doping

It doesn't matter how little percentage you gain from doping/cheating, especially if the risk of getting caught is almost nonexistent, if that is a decision maker of winning millions of price money and sponsorship deals. Sums around cycling are really pocket money comparing to eg. soccer and tennis players

 

[BroDeal]

As Pat Cash remarked earlier this year: "[Tennis] is the perfect sport to dope."

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/spor...t-berdych-les-deux-qui-menacent-le-top-4.html

I think this is BS. Hamilton riding on paniagua, 94th in the Tour. On a full program, contender for victory. No matter how much dope the tennis player ranked 94th in the world takes, it won't turn him into a top five player.

 

[Robert21]

Most fans of the sport want to see human effort and struggle - not superhuman robotic stuff. The sport is brutally hard - that's it's draw.

Exactly so, and people also want to believe in what they see: without 'authenticity' the sport is reduced to empty 'sports entertainment'. Unfortunately I can no longer believe in what I see, and that includes the performances of people like Wiggins. I feel cheated and saddened that I can no longer take any real pleasure from a sport that used to mean so much to me, dating back to the times when I was a schoolboy riding criteriums around my local park.

To quote once more from Robert Redeker's Le sport contre les peuples

Despite everything, no one can forget the magic of the Tour de France. But this magic is not associated any more with the Tour that has just passed: one remembers, often in a dream-like way, always in nostalgic way, of the Tours of the old days and their stars, Tours of times gone past, those of Fausto Coppi, Federico Bahamontès and Charly Gaul, which, or so it seems to us, were deeply different. They leave in the memory the trace, perhaps misleading, of Tours infinitely more human in spite of the inhumanity of the effort required of the riders. Other sports, like cycling, can claim deep popular roots (football in England or in Brazil, Rugby in the South of France), however non have managed to benefit from this popularity in order to weave such a powerful bond with childhood and its dreams, as the sport of cycling has...

The anthropological type represented by Lance Armstrong - unlike that of Fausto Coppi or Jean Robic - approaches that of Lara Croft, the completely fabricated virtual cyber-heroine of the game Tomb Raider. It is as if cycling has changed into a video game, where the former "convicts of the road"- an expression which was used by Albert Londres to describe the brothers Henri and Francis Pélissier - have become "virtual human beings", a post-modern term which is applicable to Indurain, Virenque, Ullrich and Armstrong. Material reality - in particular climbs and the wind - do not provide any additional resistance to Lance Armstrong, who pedals "aériennement" as though the suffering of effort no longer exists.

Something popular and vital nonetheless lives on in the race: the amiable picnickers at the edge of the road, and the long multi-coloured ribbon of the people of France, who colour this prestigious test like one 14th of July stretched over three weeks. But a fatal gap has been eroded between the race and the riders, who have become almost virtual, changed into playstation figures, and the public of the collapsible tables and camping tents, the pastis and the chilled rosé d'Oc, who still live. For the man of the people coming from the working classes, hardened with the struggle and able to surpass their physical limits (Bartali, Robic, Coppi, Bobet), contemporary sport has, little by little, substituted the pedalling Robocop (Rominger, then Indurain, Zulle, etc.) pharmaco-scientifically manufactured, with which no spectator can identify.

Apologies for any errors in my translation from the original!

 

[Darryl Webster]

I have a bit of a theory about this. I think it has to do with what doping does to cyclists, what it primarily affects. The "skill" in cycling is all about the ability to push yourself faster on the bike. Doping is first and foremost going to improve that. Anyone can ride a bike - there's no technical skill that takes years to master - there's race tactics, but if you're fast, you're fast, tactics are secondary.

In other sports like tennis the main skill isn't what doping is going to primarily affect. You can't take a drug and suddenly have a better backhand in tennis. Sure, it might make your endurance better and make you stronger or last longer on the court, but that's not what tennis fans are there to see as the main spectacle. They want to see a good backhand. I think that's why they don't care so much and why cycling fans care.

Spot on , cycling is essentially an aerobic sport and requires very litle skill hence PEDs can turn a donkey into a race horse , Riis being one of the best examples . No amount of peds could turn someone with poor hand / feet/ ball co ordination like myself into a good football/ tennis player or any other sport involving a ball.

 

[Jack Aubrey]

'And, there is no asterisk...'

http://www.letour.fr/HISTO/fr/TDF/index.html

 

[dsut4392]

I think this is BS. Hamilton riding on paniagua, 94th in the Tour. On a full program, contender for victory. No matter how much dope the tennis player ranked 94th in the world takes, it won't turn him into a top five player.

It's a selective quote; although Cash says Tennis is a perfect sport for doping (mentioning nandrolone and recovery time between matches), in the rest of the interview he goes on to say that tennis must be clean because there are never any positive tests, and that it doesn't have a doping (PED - recreational drugs are a different story) culture in his experience [francophones please correct me if my rudimentary French coupled with google translate have misunderstood the article].

I don't watch much tennis, but power, speed and endurance seem to me to play as big a role in winning as shot selection and accuracy in the closing stages of tournaments. I agree there is much more of a skill element in Tennis than road cycling, and that PEDs couldn't turn a donkey into a winner in Tennis, but how about turning a donkey into an also-ran, or an also-ran into a contender, or a contender into a winner? The potential gains would seem to be more than "marginal".

For instance, where would Nadal be ranked if he had 2% less power in his stroke (=4% less ball speed, complete guess?), 2% less court speed, 2% less endurance, 2% slower recovery between matches, and also took 2% longer between points and change of ends? [Note I've heard the rumours and seen the forearms but have no more evidence about him doping than I have about any other player, i.e. none at all]

 

[Ingenerius]

I think this is BS. Hamilton riding on paniagua, 94th in the Tour. On a full program, contender for victory. No matter how much dope the tennis player ranked 94th in the world takes, it won't turn him into a top five player.

Sara Errani disagrees. Ranking end 2011: 45. Ranking 2012: 7 (well almost)

And if the other top players were clean, which they are not, she would be ranked number 1.


But totally agree with Agrajag. Doping isn't that visible in tennis and the fans just want to see a good backhand. Us cycling fans want to see riders drive themselves in to the ground in the beautiful sport of cycling, and feel cheated by the doping that completely alters the reality and the level playing field. Don't think the doping alters the level playing field as much in tennis if everyone dopes(doesn't make it ok).