Benotti69 said:
The authors of the CIRC report admit that no rider came forward to voluntarily admit an anti-doping violation and several people including riders, scientists, ex-riders and former UCI staff refused to be interviewed.
This tells us all we need to know about the mindset of the sport. Not one rider came forward to admit to doping!
Doping is still a part of the fabric of this sport and this report will not change that.
But we know this. We just have to see how apart from Armstrong all those other dopers are doing fine, grand fondos, clothing lines, still riding, coaching, etc etc..........
To what gain would they confess?
If you're young, you can say you don't know the old ways have have a legitimate excuse for not talking. If you're older, you're beating the system and prolonging your career, maybe even winning, why on earth would you go confess? With something as ingrained as it is, you have to think that the riders are all pretty much okay with it.
If you look at the long view, riders wouldn't even acknowledge doping in previous eras. You're still hard pressed to get straight talk out of old school guys. They'd argue that it didn't work and couldn't help. There was all sorts of bullsh*t, they even argued against in-competition testing because the races were won with out of competition doping and training. Out of competition testing was a downright invasion of privacy..
Now, we know it works, pretty decisively. We know many of the techniques. We know many of the doctors that have facilitated programs. Riders can't deny that it happened. That's huge.
There are riders who claim to be against it, that's a step. Then this CIRC report basically admitting that it's still broken is another big step; I'd say we kind of knew this already as the performances have not been any less dramatic but they codified it. It all comes down to what actions are taken. It seems like another important step on what will be a long road.
There are still some pretty backwards incentives, the sponsors don't get burned; just look at Trek before and after Lance. the teams have relatively little incentive to prevent their mid-tier riders from doping. Riders have no incentive to "whistle blow." We will see what happens with Astana but dopers need to become enemies to their teams and sponsors, until then it's just a risk, perhaps a smallish one for a known gain.