Bike Pure - Are these demands realistic?

[Jonathan]

As I see it, our difference of opinion comes in the means that we believe will get us there. Without sounding like a "sensitive new age tree hugger", I'm much more in favour of an approach that uses positive reinforcement to get us there rather than one that uses negative reinforcement (be it from external bodies or peers).

You phrase it very generally, but I agree. Problem is though, it is very unclear what kind of positive options are open and how effective they are. I believe a change in the way teams are organized and how they employ riders could make a difference, but it is very difficult to conclude anything with the hiatus of knowledge that I outlined in earlier posts. A measure that comes close to being called 'positive' was the shortening of stages, but I don't think that did much good.

 

[kiwirider]

You phrase it very generally, but I agree. Problem is though, it is very unclear what kind of positive options are open and how effective they are. I believe a change in the way teams are organized and how they employ riders could make a difference, but it is very difficult to conclude anything with the hiatus of knowledge that I outlined in earlier posts. A measure that comes close to being called 'positive' was the shortening of stages, but I don't think that did much good.

The general nature of the comments is deliberate - trying to avoid people seizing on an example rather than the concept in general ...

I agree with you that the lack of knowledge on the causes is a serious impediment to developing effective measures - regardless of if they're positive or negative. It is legal drafting 101 - you need to know what you are trying to address and where you want to get to before you start thinking about how you are going to get there.

That said, an example of one of the types of positive measures that I am talking about comes from professional rugby and rugby league in NZ. Both sports have programs that prepare players for their post-sport careers. These programs kick in from the start of the player's pro career and include everything from what can loosely be described as "counselling" sessions on what finishing their career will mean to them through to support and provision for formal training (eg., trades school, university). The result is that (according to what I have been told by players) the fear that "my world will fall apart the day that I leave the sport" has been removed - and with it went one of the motivators to use PEDs. My understanding is that none of the pro cycling teams have anything similar to this - and that once a rider is "beyond their use by" they are dropped like a hot potato ... So, I wonder what impact a measure like this may have in cycling?

As I said at the start of this post, the generality was intentional - so take my example as just that - a concept being typed out on a Sunday morning as I'm having breakfast and my coffee rather than a fully detailed proposal ready for submission to WADA!

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

Both sports have programs that prepare players for their post-sport careers. These programs kick in from the start of the player's pro career and include everything from what can loosely be described as "counselling" sessions on what finishing their career will mean to them through to support and provision for formal training (eg., trades school, university). The result is that (according to what I have been told by players) the fear that "my world will fall apart the day that I leave the sport" has been removed - and with it went one of the motivators to use PEDs. My understanding is that none of the pro cycling teams have anything similar to this - and that once a rider is "beyond their use by" they are dropped like a hot potato ... So, I wonder what impact a measure like this may have in cycling?

The point you made earlier, about short pro careers being a motivation to dope, was pretty compelling IMHO. I have seen comments made before about education being interrupted by cycling, limited transferable skills and no support with other career options. Different context but similar idea. The Cervelo team website has a comment from each rider about what they want to do after cycling. Maybe they are looking at it?

I wondered if there was some way of restricting the number of races each rider can do. E.g. the same number of races, but all with a few less riders....so riders can have more natural variability in form through the season.

 

[Sheltowee]

UCI & ASO are not going give this a look. Stand to lose too much. From what McQuade is saying on CN, victory has been declared and the armistice has begun. We are in the morning after!

 

[the truth.]

fair play to the CN clinic posters.

spend the last night reading the posts.
there is within these last 9 pages a major step towards a solution, by embracing small/ large refinements. and new protocols.
how do we get WADA to read it?

 

[Dr. Maserati]

fair play to the CN clinic posters.

spend the last night reading the posts.
there is within these last 9 pages a major step towards a solution, by embracing small/ large refinements. and new protocols.
how do we get WADA to read it?

Agree - there are many interesting ideas and theories contained in this thread.
Perhaps we should go through each of the numbered points on the BikePure initiative so as to help them formulate a practical, legal and workable set of points.

As a case in point - there is general agreement that those with a doping history should not be allowed coach or manage a team.

However - to practicably apply this could prove difficult and could have the opposite effect of eradicating those with a doping history.

Just as a example - who do you ban?
Those who have been sanctioned or those who have admitted?

If it is the former - which would be legally possible - then you allow a team like Columbia to retain DS/coaches like Aldag, Peiper, Zabel to continue their jobs.
However if it is on a confession of a former rider then that only encourages silence and enforcing of the omerta.

 

[kiwirider]

fair play to the CN clinic posters.

spend the last night reading the posts.
there is within these last 9 pages a major step towards a solution, by embracing small/ large refinements. and new protocols.
how do we get WADA to read it?

I'm off to Montreal next week anyhow and David Howman (WADA Director General) is a Kiwi too - so that's gotta give us an in! Send me a copy of what people put together and I'll go and drop it off to him ...

(Actually, I'm semi-serious ... I've made contact with him before when I was toying with the idea of doing some study on PED management regimes through
McGill - and he's good friends with a former sports/team doctor of mine who provided me with the introduction ...)

 

[Oldman]

I'm off to Montreal next week anyhow and David Howman (WADA Director General) is a Kiwi too - so that's gotta give us an in! Send me a copy of what people put together and I'll go and drop it off to him ...

(Actually, I'm semi-serious ... I've made contact with him before when I was toying with the idea of doing some study on PED management regimes through
McGill - and he's good friends with a former sports/team doctor of mine who provided me with the introduction ...)

This stuff also needs to land squarely at the IN BOX of Johnathan Vaughters, Johan Bruyneel, Stapleton and any other DS/Team Owner that provides assurances or lip service of a clean program. It's one thing to get riders to sign on with a drug monitoring program (giving them no choice). Once you get the people living off Sponsor money to publicly acknowledge their support and willingness to deal with penalties we'll have some progress. The UCI is not WADA at this point in time and, like in any good crime solution; following the money helps out alot.

 

[rhubroma]

I'm generally for the ideas, in principle, so long as they are implemented in other sports like olympic athletics and world cup soccer (but also Football, Baseball and Basketball). I'm tired of seeing cycling be singled out for it's doping problem, but not these other sports.

I'm not, however, in agreement regarding doping as a "criminal offense" in society. This type of severity smacks of moralist prohibitionism, which I find distasteful given the hypocrits in the corporate world and government who usually put such ideas forth. So let's just keep it to a sporting offense.

 

[joe_papp]

...

It's the riders that break the omerta, the riders who tell the truth, the riders who name names, and explain what they did that are currently shamed. The are called liars, cheaters, and generally blacklisted from the sport, and especially by it's most powerful members. Ask Jesus Manzano. Ask Jorg Jasche, ask Bernard Kohl, ask Filipo Simeoni, ask JP.

This is what I think needs to be changed, and needs to be reversed.

Truer than you could ever even realize...and I mean that. You name all the right guys, myself included, who've done "unethical"/illegal things in the name of riding a bike faster, but owned up to this and broke the omerta. And we all got screwed to varying degrees. Do you think that anyone on that list would have knowingly gone ahead and have intentionally walked into this hell of hypocritical shame, while our peers carry on racing - even as we REPORT them, in real time, to the ADA's? The incentives are backwards. There is no benefit to the rider who confesses in this life as the system is currently set-up. I'll never race again because of it, whereas if I'd denied and kept silent I would have been back in Italy on a pro team for 2008. Confessing to doping and expecting salvation in the here and now is foolish, as the general response will be one of savagery. Hence why I say I hope that in the next or afterlife there is some karmic reward or something positive that comes from the mistakes I made, which were followed by foolish but well-intentioned confessions and revelations. If you people only knew the true extent of what I conveyed to whom and where...if you were an author, and you were writing my story in full, your editor would tell you to tone down the fantasy element a bit - that it couldn't really happen. But it is happening. And maybe it's even worse for BK, JJ, JM and the few others.

Yes, doping sucks and it makes clean sport impossible. But crucifying dopers who confess is just stupid b/c it only encourages other dopers to STFU if caught.

 

[joe_papp]

That said, an example of one of the types of positive measures that I am talking about comes from professional rugby and rugby league in NZ. Both sports have programs that prepare players for their post-sport careers. These programs kick in from the start of the player's pro career and include everything from what can loosely be described as "counselling" sessions on what finishing their career will mean to them through to support and provision for formal training (eg., trades school, university). The result is that (according to what I have been told by players) the fear that "my world will fall apart the day that I leave the sport" has been removed - and with it went one of the motivators to use PEDs. My understanding is that none of the pro cycling teams have anything similar to this - and that once a rider is "beyond their use by" they are dropped like a hot potato ... So, I wonder what impact a measure like this may have in cycling?

Another great insight. Bravo. And I brought this up to the people at UCI and the anti-doping agencies and the response was not favorable. There was a denial of responsibility...like, "it's not our concern what happens to them once they gone from here..." F'ing savage attitude...

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

... there is general agreement that those with a doping history should not be allowed coach or manage a team. However - to practicably apply this could prove difficult and could have the opposite effect of eradicating those with a doping history. Just as a example - who do you ban? Those who have been sanctioned or those who have admitted?.... However if it is on a confession of a former rider then that only encourages silence and enforcing of the omerta.

Good point. Maybe riders who are caught & confess get a time limited ban, and can come back to the sport as riders or managers / coaches etc later. It's only if people are caught while managing / coaching etc that they get a full life ban?

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

...Do you think that anyone on that list would have knowingly gone ahead and have intentionally walked into this hell of hypocritical shame, while our peers carry on racing - even as we REPORT them, in real time, to the ADA's? The incentives are backwards. There is no benefit to the rider who confesses in this life as the system is currently set-up. I'll never race again because of it, whereas if I'd denied and kept silent I would have been back in Italy on a pro team for 2008...

When I read stuff like this, I wish there was something an ordinary cycling fan like me could do or say. It's just so unjust. You call the UCI's attitude F'ing savage, fair call... the way you guys get treated is F'ing savage too.

 

[rhubroma]

Truer than you could ever even realize...and I mean that. You name all the right guys, myself included, who've done "unethical"/illegal things in the name of riding a bike faster, but owned up to this and broke the omerta. And we all got screwed to varying degrees. Do you think that anyone on that list would have knowingly gone ahead and have intentionally walked into this hell of hypocritical shame, while our peers carry on racing - even as we REPORT them, in real time, to the ADA's? The incentives are backwards. There is no benefit to the rider who confesses in this life as the system is currently set-up. I'll never race again because of it, whereas if I'd denied and kept silent I would have been back in Italy on a pro team for 2008. Confessing to doping and expecting salvation in the here and now is foolish, as the general response will be one of savagery. Hence why I say I hope that in the next or afterlife there is some karmic reward or something positive that comes from the mistakes I made, which were followed by foolish but well-intentioned confessions and revelations. If you people only knew the true extent of what I conveyed to whom and where...if you were an author, and you were writing my story in full, your editor would tell you to tone down the fantasy element a bit - that it couldn't really happen. But it is happening. And maybe it's even worse for BK, JJ, JM and the few others.

Yes, doping sucks and it makes clean sport impossible. But crucifying dopers who confess is just stupid b/c it only encourages other dopers to STFU if caught.

Now there's a great post their Joe! And I'd love to read that book. It's just such a shame that it won't ever be written, or, if it did, would surly be ridiculed by the cycling establishment as a bunch of lies coming from someone who just couldn't cut it in a real man's world.

The hypocrisy with which the UCI and corporate world, in addition to the "Godfathers" of the peleton comport themselves in regards to the "fallen stars" of the sport, is as cynical and unjust as the pirates at sea of old throwing overboard any "superfluous weight" -cargo and bodies- which slowed down their vessel during a time of danger or great escape.

And comments regarding relativism within the micro-social group (as opposed to looking at it from the outside), only partly explain the phenomenon of doping. For there are actually many a cyclist (or athlete for that matter), who simply make no scrupples about taking PEDs. They actually like the ego bolstering and high that knowing you are without reservation or fear (or perhaps it's the fear that attracts), doing the devious practice. They make no ethical reservations about what they do, because they are Machiavellian at heart. Such men are often backed by the entire hierarchical order of the teams: from DS, to massagers, to agents and financeers. It is they who command in the peleton, establish the tone of how the game is to be played and enforce the omertà to conceal and cover-up. It is they who "dispense justice" by rewarding the compliant and punishing the "traitors" as they deem fit.

A classic "pecking order" that winds its way up into the very top echelons of the UCI, which has no real interest nor insentive to expose this mafia which fills its bank accounts annualy. For which, consequently, there are no limits to their hypocrisy, nor depths to their baseness when dealing with the likes of you and the other "fallen stars."

You who should, if not be sanctified, at least be treated with the dignity you have earned from admitting your mistakes and trying courageously to break the omertà and "pecking order," have rather been sacrificed at the altar of the special interests of the powerful. Rather naturally in a historical sense, whenever a power structure feels its priviledges and well-being to be threatened, you are simply branded as heritics and so burnt at the stake in the "common interest" of those who are running the show.

 

[Steel4Ever]

My solution?

Ride the absolute f*cking bejezzez out of each and every last one of them!

Seriously, make the races like 744+ hours long, forget distance. Those riders who want to dope, let them dope; those who don't, they ride clean.

Put them all out on the road for days and days and days and days. Again and again and again and again. For the dopers, pump them so incredibly full of the sh!t that their organs will explode before the end. For the non-dopers, their bodies will break and stop working. 99.99% DNF's, but they will get to recover to race again.

Now, onto a solution for bankers and politicians....

 

[usedtobefast]

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE57P5MP20090826

meanwhile here in the usa

 

[rhubroma]

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE57P5MP20090826

meanwhile here in the usa

It's all about money...

When the economic benefits of exposing doping in sport, are weighed against those of maintaining the status quo...well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how the courts under pressure from "the establishment" are going to rule. While government is a mere puppet manipulated by its corporate lobbies.

Justice and democracy? These are just catch words sold out on the cheap to the masses, while the rich corporations who control the stadiums do whatever they please and replace those ideas with their own financial interests, which, in turn, become the pillars upon which our civilization rests and they its overlords.

You could have just as easily written: meanwhile back in the new Middle Ages.

 

[usedtobefast]

It's all about money...

When the economic benefits of exposing doping in sport, are weighed against those of maintaining the status quo...well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how the courts under pressure from "the establishment" are going to rule. While government is a mere puppet manipulated by its corporate lobbies.

Justice and democracy? These are just catch words sold out on the cheap to the masses, while the rich corporations who control the stadiums do whatever they please and replace those ideas with their own financial interests, which, in turn, become the pillars upon which our civilization rests and they its overlords.

You could have just as easily written: meanwhile back in the new Middle Ages.

"Welcome to the Occupation" @ REM

 

[the truth.]

the bikepure people said on their twitter they sent an initial outline of this to mc quaid with no reply.

Does mc quaid not listen to his uci members ? is he a king?
\

 

[joe_papp]

the bikepure people said on their twitter they sent an initial outline of this to mc quaid with no reply. Does mc quaid not listen to his uci members ? is he a king?
\

Without treading into the area of disclosing personal conversations or otherwise commenting or making claims about specific individuals, I can say that I have contacted and been responded to by, and/or been contacted by and responded in-kind to those @ the top(S) of USADA, USAC, and UCI. Those in power can afford to "listen" all they want, and will give this impression if it suits the interests of those who hold power (either individually or collectively, transparently or opaquely).

However, it seems at times that it is wholly at their pleasure that they respond to a request or suggestion or claim or accusation by the little(r) guy(s). Much is said by how the response comes or what form it takes - or what action does or doesn't follow.

Again for the record, I deserve all of the official, on-paper punishment I receive for cheating, but what drives me mad is when there is some gesture of reconciliation collaboration proposed by the groups that sanctioned me, and then for reasons unknown or unexplained at the time, the offer isn't rescinded, it's just never spoken of again or responded to by the other party. This happened to me twice this summer, and it is more morale-crushing than anything. The building up of expectations of a positive outcome derived from an active, meaningful and genuine contribution to the clean-sport movement is followed by a complete shattering of my hope when the matter is either intentionally (or less likely) unintentionally dropped by the other without even an acknowledgment that it's being scrapped.

I'll backpedal a bit and clarify that I think that without athletes coming forward denounce cheating colleagues or expose corruption, there can be no serious movement towards a cleaner sport. 100% drug-free will never happen, yet the incentives and punishments related to doping must be aligned to the interests of all stakeholders. So a first-time offender, even though he may have been cheating for some time, should be given the opportunity for less severe punishment or some favorable treatment in exchange for genuine cooperation with the ADA or civil authorities. But when the first-time offender refuses to cooperate or otherwise maintains the omerta during his period of ineligibility, upon returning to competition a second positive test should be a lifetime ban (subject to being reduced to say, 8 years if at that point the offender's head is removed from his bum and he cooperates). But by the same token, doping doesn't happen only with the participation of the end-user. Trust me...there are many involved in facilitating or covering-up the process, and I think that CycleSport2.0 should take this into consideration...breaking the back of the athlete with a lifetime ban or criminal prosecution does not break the system of corruption. Rather, it simply removes one end-user, who may or may not be replaced by another eager doper.

I will continue to do what I can, cooperating with whichever authorities want me to cooperate with them, while speaking honestly and openly about my role in all this and detailing the experiences pre, during and post for those w/ an interest, but without seeing doping as systemic, money-driven, disease-model-related for the end user and similar to narcotrafficando in its other components, no real change will come, or success achieved.

I miss being just a boy in Pgh who loved to ride his bike and spent winter mornings before training reading 10-year-old copies of the magazine "Winning Bicycle Racing Illustrated." There's not much I wouldn't give to recapture that innocence, and there is little I have left to resist the total obliteration of those feelings, that hope and faith in goodness. <Sigh>

As I usually say at the end of these semi-melancholy-type posts, if there are any juniors or other young cyclists out there reading this and you're considering CERA or HGH or even some old ephedrine, please be aware that successful doping does not lead to guaranteed glory, and it may ultimately deliver you to the final few km's of the sporting path on which I've been lost since '06, which meander through an almost-perpetual state of sports-semi-despondency.

Totally not worth it in the end. Absolutely, 100% not worth it for me in the end. Wish I'd never done it and would give anything to be able to go back to '01 and never return to full-time racing. Can't, of course, so the only thing left to do is squint with eyes forward and hope there is some redemption ahead somewhere, if in no other place than my own mind. (ie, forgive myself and get on with my life )

So in principle I support a petition like CycleSport2.0, if it helps influence other riders such that they do not ultimately make the same kinds of decisions that brought me to where I am now. Gosh, why would you touch doping with a 10-foot pole if you knew that there was even a 1-in-100 chance of getting caught and having your world collapse like mine did? I'll emerge from this hell eventually, probably soon after any official cooperation or work with any official agencies that might not have begun finally comes to a close, but until then...no vale la pena, chico!

PS. Please, no one call suicide hotline or anything like that ...I just felt the need to not cover-up how devastating a positive test can be.

 

[Dude17]

It's all about money...

When the economic benefits of exposing doping in sport, are weighed against those of maintaining the status quo...well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how the courts under pressure from "the establishment" are going to rule. While government is a mere puppet manipulated by its corporate lobbies.

Justice and democracy? These are just catch words sold out on the cheap to the masses, while the rich corporations who control the stadiums do whatever they please and replace those ideas with their own financial interests, which, in turn, become the pillars upon which our civilization rests and they its overlords.

You could have just as easily written: meanwhile back in the new Middle Ages.

Really? The government went beyond what their search warrant specified. In the US, you normally can't use evidence obtained like that. That's how the court ruled. If the government can show that the evidence would have been found anyway or was innocently obtained, then they win on appeal.

I don't see "big evil corporations" as "putting pressure" on the courts (good luck with that when federal justices are appointed for life). Maybe they are just better at framing the argument than the government.

So, is the government (which lost in this case) or the faceless evil corporations the "establishment" in this scenario?