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France / Adoption of Anti doping Legislation Paper

Jul 2, 2009
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The genesis and effect of French anti-doping policies in cycling

Authors: Christophe Brissonneaua; Fabien Ohlb
Affiliations: a Centre de Recherche Sens Ethique Socit (UMR 8137), CNRS-Universit Paris Descartes, France
b Facult des SSP - ISSEP, Universit de Lausanne, Switzerland


If posted before, my apologies ~


excerpt~

Method

Because of the attacks on professional cycling, on one hand, and the normality of doping in the cycling peloton, on the other, it was possible, after the Festina affair in 1998, to gain access to discourse on professional cyclists' practices and mentality. After being caught or with new doping scandals, many have testified about their experiences, anonymously or otherwise, in publications, before the courts or to journalists. Though people spoke more freely from 1998 to 2003, the resulting material was not always suitable for sociological analysis. Therefore, we chose to meet with French cyclists to conduct first-hand interviews. There is no sample method that can be easily applied for all the cases and periods. Usually, it is not easy to find cyclists who are willing to speak to sociologists. Thus any professional cyclist who was willing to speak was included in the sample of 20 persons who were professionals between 1960 and 2000 and who had taken drugs. Among them, four had officially tested positive and the 16 others had taken drugs without being caught by anti-doping officials. We got in touch with them by using a snowball technique in our sporting and cycling networks, and also through our knowledge of the networks and the cyclists willing to speak to us. We focused on their careers between 18 and 22 years of age. We structured our interviews with a guide but allowed the cyclists to speak using a very comprehensive technique. The guide was simply used as the main framework but we were very attentive to emerging topics.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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La France propre

France now 18th in the medal ranking of the Moskou athletics WC. Two silver, one bronce.
French anti-doping laws/politics do appear to be effective.

Would be fair to have French anti-doping laws become adopted in the entire European Union, even if it means we'd get our athletic EU asses kicked by Russia, China and US big time.

A pitty no Frenchman ran for UCI or, better, WADA president. Any Frenchman would have been a more credible option than Cookson and Reedie.
 

martinvickers

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Oct 15, 2012
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sniper said:
France now 18th in the medal ranking of the Moskou athletics WC. Two silver, one bronce.
French anti-doping laws/politics do appear to be effective.

Would be fair to have French anti-doping laws become adopted in the entire European Union, even if it means we'd get our athletic EU asses kicked by Russia, China and US big time.

A pitty no Frenchman ran for UCI or, better, WADA president. Any Frenchman would have been a more credible option than Cookson and Reedie.

France recently 3rd in the medal ranking in the Barcelona World Aquatics. 4 golds, nine medals, beaten only by USA and China. In a sport where french athltes do a lot lighter international circuit, so spend longer under french jurisdiction.

Or are you telling me swimming is REALLY, REALLY clean, and le creme just rises to the top?
 
martinvickers said:
France recently 3rd in the medal ranking in the Barcelona World Aquatics. 4 golds, nine medals, beaten only by USA and China. In a sport where french athltes do a lot lighter international circuit, so spend longer under french jurisdiction.

Or are you telling me swimming is REALLY, REALLY clean, and le creme just rises to the top?

Please check your numbers. France is 4th, and if you count the total of medals there are actually many more countries with more medals than france.

There is an up and coming generation following the rise in popularity of the sport with Laure Manaudou and Bernard winning golds in previous years, as well as being beaten for many years on the 4x100m relay.

2 of those medals were "at the touch" relay wins, swap those around to silver and France drops to 10th in the rankings.

Now believe me, there are some definitely suspicious performances in French swimming, like Florent Manaudou's for example, but I wouldn't use french swimming to rank France suspiciously in doping standards.

From experience France as a whole is a lot more restrictive on any kind of substances it allows compared to other countries. Even Creatine is illegal in france, and while it's not directly related to sports they took years to even allow red bull to be sold in france.
 

martinvickers

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Oct 15, 2012
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lemoogle said:
Please check your numbers. France is 4th, and if you count the total of medals there are actually many more countries with more medals than france.

I did . They were 3rd. 4th in the overall aquatics (inc high diving and open water, synchro etcetc), but in the actual race swimming?

3rd.

Check for yourself. Wikipedia is your friend. They were also 4th on medals won. Three more countries, not many, three - us, china and aus, had more - no -one else.

There is an up and coming generation following the rise in popularity of the sport with Laure Manaudou and Bernard winning golds in previous years, as well as being beaten for many years on the 4x100m relay.

2 of those medals were "at the touch" relay wins, swap those around to silver and France drops to 10th in the rankings.

Now believe me, there are some definitely suspicious performances in French swimming, like Florent Manaudou's for example, but I wouldn't use french swimming to rank France suspiciously in doping standards.

From experience France as a whole is a lot more restrictive on any kind of substances it allows compared to other countries. Even Creatine is illegal in france, and while it's not directly related to sports they took years to even allow red bull to be sold in france.

Jamaica's been saying the same thing for years. Hell, GB has said the same thing in cycling.

My point is not that France dope, not at all. My point was rather that pointing to France's poor World Athletics was meaningless as an indicator of France's drug laws working, and other more successful nations being dopers, because France is a world leader, certainly european leader, in the pool.

Same laws. Completely different result. Hence results doesn't prove anything about Laws.
 
martinvickers said:
I did . They were 3rd. 4th in the overall aquatics (inc high diving and open water, synchro etcetc), but in the actual race swimming?

3rd.

Check for yourself. Wikipedia is your friend. They were also 4th on medals won. Three more countries, not many, three - us, china and aus, had more - no -one else.
Ok you're right :)

Jamaica's been saying the same thing for years. Hell, GB has said the same thing in cycling.
Except Jamaica is completely dominating sprint. France has a few top athletes and are competing in relays ( medley was a massive surprise and isn't really one of the main events ) and a few crazily contested individual events.
There are probably 10 guys that can win the 100m free style, even with the missile magnussen there.

My point is not that France dope, not at all. My point was rather that pointing to France's poor World Athletics was meaningless as an indicator of France's drug laws working, and other more successful nations being dopers, because France is a world leader, certainly european leader, in the pool.

Same laws. Completely different result. Hence results doesn't prove anything about Laws.

Sure I agree with you, although you should really take into account the cultural/popularity/investment aspect of the sport in the countries you're comparing, but your point makes sense. Although I would say that athletics is a long standing event that has had similar popularity accross european countries and allows for easier comparison
 
Aug 13, 2013
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Little French cycling trivia:

How many major wins did the poor French score in the period of 2000-2012 (worlds, grand tours, 5 classic monuments)?

BIG FAT ZERO.

And just one podium (2005 WC - Geslin).

Looks like statistically significant decline of a great cycling nation.
 
peterst6906 said:
Um, no.

Since you included GTs, it's more than 1. Several stage wins in that time, which are major wins in cycling.

Doesn't make the intent of your post wrong though.

I'd hesitate to include single stage wins in as an indicator, they're just too random & are just going to add noise, not signal. I'd be cool with Jersey winners being included though ..., there's a decent correlation in past positives to jersey winners, who never quite made it to the top step on the podium, but were obvious black swans.
 

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