FGimondi said:
These are all vallid points and precents a balanced view of the situation, but are probably more worth when discussing the matter logically than legaly.
Legaly the rules are in place and Cantador is in breach of them. The question to me comes down to wether one should treat Cantador differently because he's successfull and arguably the most important man in cycling. It is in this setting the UCIs handling of the case and atempt to brush it under the carpet becomes extremely damaging.
There are other potential reasons to treat this case differently that you don't mention. And you define the UCI actions as a carpet brushing. I think I am more cautious in jumping from half-questions and answers to full conclusions.
Before anything else: if this starts as "I'm defending Contador", I'm not.
Laws are drawn up and frequently have unintended consequences if followed to the letter. Logic & "Law" always go hand in hand. At some point, someone, after it is established that technically a law was broken, has to make the human judgement if prosecution for it is fair and in the public's interest. The more official the rules, the more important it is that it is done proper.
So the "made this a blip case" is settled, but people's "thus all these consequences happen too" are ignoring that that simply is not the case. Never. Not in "real" law. And not in pretend law, like a cycling stature book. It always involves humans who apply some sort of logic to case and circumstances. These can be wise sages and corrupt bureaucrats. And everything in-between.
At this point a lot of stuff gets dropped. Most of it for the right reasons. It's not always malignant when it's dropped. Not even if it is done by the UCI.
Nor is it per se a cover up if this is not a public and transparent process.
I'm sidestepping the question if the UCI is the ideal arbitrator for this shall-we-won't-we call in doping cases. They are, they made the call.
But it is a fact that when most of the "if a test is positive" were written in a time when testing for pico traces was no option. In other words, you had to be really positive, to get a positive, as anything in the grey zone would never register, no matter how big or minuscule the grey zone was, or if it was even understood how big or small this grey zone was. No-one needed to worry what level of micro traces can be picked up environmentally, innocently. You couldn't look that deeply.
I know poor rules can be followed to the letter, but I have no beef if people inject a decent and fair attitude to them instead, even if that means it ain't always done to the letter. Treat each case on its merit. I think there is value in that.
Tests that were known to penetrate to levels that show the "natural/reasonable" levels too, gave clear thresholds. Taking into account the state of science and frequently added a comfort zone that was convenient/appropriate for the rule makers.
Again, sidestepping the question if it is even possible to get the level that was found in Contador innocently", when you start to venture into picogramme territory, in tests that are only applied to a single individual in the entire field, or maybe one or two more at most, you will have to get something on paper that is fair to all parties, and grounded in sound science. Guilt
has to be beyond reasonable doubt. They owe it to riders, we owe that to riders.
Now we are into picgramme test-lab territory, I probably have more issues with a zero-tollerance WADA attitude "because that is the rule", than a more measured approach that takes the real and complex world of micro-biology into account. Not saying the UCI is reasonable and measured, but here they just might have been (or tried to be in good faith). Poor rules ought to be ignored and amended. Pronto. it's why you can be guilty without penalty. Or not even get to the "being judged" stage. Happens all the time.
Maybe someone judged that the rules as it was, to the letter, no longer was fair and appropriate, at this level. In good faith, and probably as a reasonably informed non-expert.
I'm not interested if the same call was made in all cases, as circumstances will vary. What I am interested to know is: if it was a sound, honest and fair call.
In general, sure, for all banned substances, with ongoing improvements in detection machinery, reasonable and realistic thresholds will need to be set do
eliminate reasonable doubt.
"Zero tolerance" set in time when tests were so weak that a registration meant, de-facto, that there was no need to look into "what is actually a reasonable doubt level in this case", were fine at the time of writing the rule. Applying the letter of the law as written then, to insanely precise test results now, might actually be a failure in the duty of care that the lawmakers have to the people it is applying it to.
It sounds people are as keen to try to burn the UCI down for anything that looks a bit whiffy, and just so you know, I too will be among the last ones to shed a tear if it is gone.
But a cover-up and sweeping under carpets require malicious intent. That case isn't proven at all here, and the details of "what happened how when", that we know of, suggest rather the opposite I think. Again: in this case.
I really think that the position that the UCI took, "hey that is indeed a blip, but it's bloody small and enough below the precedent to trigger additional complications in a strict ruling. This genuinely might be beyond what we feel is fair and intended when we set the rule, as it might actually genuinely be a false positive (against what we tried to identify), albeit a factual real one. Or someone incompetent made the wrong call, but in good faith, and all machinery around it responded accordingly, also in good faith.
The thing is, even after all the scrutiny it has had over the last week, it apparently still isn't settled at expert level what is actually happening at microlevel and what is and isn't possible in the environment that we have created for ourselves. So at the bare minimum, this case is striding into scientific terrain that is still muddy and unclear. Which makes the initial call by whoever made it not to throw the book at Contador seem all the more reasonable. To me at least.
Is it really unfair that a non-expert responsible for this, knowing full well the draconian consequences that come with it, took the stance: let's treat it as too insignificant, or too unsound, to take that type of action on.
You can read that as "sweeping under the carpet" or "protecting the dirty rat Contador" or whatever.
As long as it is also possible that non-experts really did make a fair and reasonable judgement regarding this case, I think the benefit of the doubt should go with the person who made it. Assuming a very normal, reasonable and human action is equally plausible, and still fits all the facts as we know them. In this case: no cover-up, no sweeping.
If the UCI judged it to be too unsound to follow up on, they would have failed the duty of care it has to Contador by placing it in the public domain as a "he's been found positive". It might have been wiser to handle it differently, but there are a lot of competing interests at stake here. Knowing that a lab had "a" registration, telling Pat, and just keeping it on file, without posting it straight into the clinic here, does not add up to "cover up" as the only option. It depends. And I haven't heard nearly enough depending to prove to me
a) this is the type of positive that we were after
b) it is beyond doubt that the UCI felt it was dealing with an actual offence
let alone
c) it took active steps to brush a "guilty on A" and "oh boy, this is a real solid B" under the carpet.
Some people are connecting dots based on wish-fulfilment, not because they show expertise in drawing solid lines
About all things clinic, we all have our opinions here, and that is fine. We are still mostly the blind leading the blind. Six
experts looked at the blood passport and no 2 opinions matched. We are stuck in a forum full of non-experts who are utterly convinced, and posting daily, about "what it all means", usually settled on 1 option only. And based on fractions of the expertise and data that those experts have access to.
We all know bits of the puzzle, some more than others. But if the real experts can't make it all fit into a watertight case one way or the other, and are still exploring the finer intricacies and multi-faceted complexities of it all, you have to be seriously deluded to think we can settle it "in stone", one way or the other, on this forum.
Anyone who comes in declaring "he's the guy, this is what happens" usually has me running for the salt dispenser. Especially if you see which 2 dots they drew a line between without much reflection on alternatives.
That his falls in murky terrain might have suited a lot of people. But that doesn't alter that if you want to nail people for dirt, you still need to be fair and reasonable, and not jump on "too murky to call" as the nail to drive home.
The irony is that apart from these micro traces of "is it real mud or not". we appear to be swimming in a much bigger pool of more potent water and sand, and getting genuine mud-wrestle orgies to blib is much harder work for "some" reason. It's why I don't like the UCI in general.
If you are gonna use science to prove anything, you're first gonna have to get some experts to agree on what the science actually says. And in the meantime keep one eye on reasonable doubt thresholds, even in "zero"-tolerance cases that are still on the book as such, even if a dirty fish might have slipped the net.
Imposing draconian measures on dodgy science and rules will make a bad situation worse, not better.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram