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how would clean up pro cycling?

May 26, 2010
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if you had the chance to clean it up how would you go about since the powers that be can't or can't be bothered?

this occurred to me that as lots have had a go a JV, i would like to hear how members might make a difference if they had the chance.

Let's say you got the chance to be UCI president, what would you do to clean up cycling and do you think you would be allowed by the omerta?
 

The Devil

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Nov 7, 2010
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I would definitely bring in this:eek: Such is the task .LOL. Call it The Special Deterrent.

elecchair-1.jpg
 
Oct 25, 2010
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Mein Kampf

1) Centralize the doping penalty process for riders on D1 teams (no local federations doing the adjudication process)

2) Lifetime bans for certain offenses such as oxygen vectors, hormones, transfusions, insulin, clenbuterol, etc. Create a Class-1 schedule.

3) No direct-entry back to the D-1 ranks for doping positives after initial suspension is served. Riders must go back and ride continental for a 2-year period of time before they can ride on any Pro-Tour team (or in any Pro-Tour event) again. This way the younger riders feel the pinch.

4) Riders with 8-12 years of ProTour experience must face mandatory retirement upon doping positiive.

5) Lifetime bans for any Director, Team Owner, Soigneurs, team staff members, doctors, physiologists, trainers, coaches, etc who get caught-up in a doping case. Suspensions for those who continue to work privately with such banned people. These people must be eradicated from the sport entirely.

6) Agreement not to personally profit from one's doping story until 5 years after their retirement from the sport.

7) Bio Passport program: Can only be used to target riders for further testing, not as a penalty-based conclusion. A doping positive can not be declared with data obtained solely from the Bio Passport program.
 
Jun 18, 2009
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I've posted this before, but I'll say it again. There has to be internal pressure from teams not to dope. The only real way to do this is to sanction teams for rider's offenses. That way everybody feels it, from the mechanics to the other riders to the owners.

Secondly, the testing and sanctioning has to be completely out of the hands of the sport's governing bodies (i.e. national federations or the UCI). It's a conflict of interest of the highest order.

Those two changes are the only way I see there being any real progress.

Lifetime bans and all that still really aren't disincentive enough. Some riders will always risk it, and riders are easily replaceable.
 
Mar 11, 2009
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The single biggest step towards a cleaner sport would be a re-structuring and re-staffing of the upper echelons of the UCI.

Besides that, I agree with a lot of what Botany Bay and 131313 said. I think four year bans for riders would help, or perhaps two years from all competition and then a further two from top races.

I also agree that the teams need to be self-policing. I think suspending a team from competition for one month for a positive test, plus vacating all wins from the previous month, would go some way towards doing that.
 
Oct 25, 2010
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Jamsque said:
The single biggest step towards a cleaner sport would be a re-structuring and re-staffing of the upper echelons of the UCI.

Besides that, I agree with a lot of what Botany Bay and 131313 said. I think four year bans for riders would help, or perhaps two years from all competition and then a further two from top races.

I also agree that the teams need to be self-policing. I think suspending a team from competition for one month for a positive test, plus vacating all wins from the previous month, would go some way towards doing that.

I agree with you on the teams needing to be held responsible in a much greater way. I think WADA needs to work with the UCI to create a more effective method that the teams can follow for self-police work.

Some teams have created contracts that assign a financial penalty to a rider who tests positive (not that a domestique ever has a million in the bank). And I think we need to (unfortunately) create a "persona-non-grata" list of people whom cyclists are prohibited from working with. Guys like Ferarri, Fuentes, Arnie Baker, Lim, etc. These guys' names come up often in doping cases, and I think it's time that WADA went and did some "field-intel" work to help identify people to be placed on such a list. We need to infiltrate and shut-down the enablers of such programs.

People often wonder why an agent of the FDA (Novitski) is pursuing an EPO investigation. Because EPO is a controlled substance. If there is a weakness in the control system that lets a drug like this be abused on a wide scale, these investigators work hard to fix that weakness. We need to find those weaknesses (people) and take them out.
 
Oct 5, 2010
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i think that EVERY single rider should be sampled at every stage and at out of competition controls. Only a sample of those riders are tested but if questions come up then you have other riders and other events to test.
Contador claims contaminated meat and that everyone in Astana ate the same meat but he was the only rider tested. If the samples from the other riders all came back with the same low level positive as Contador it seems like that would reinforce the contamination claim.
 
Oct 25, 2010
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Dimtick said:
i think that EVERY single rider should be sampled at every stage and at out of competition controls. Only a sample of those riders are tested but if questions come up then you have other riders and other events to test.
Contador claims contaminated meat and that everyone in Astana ate the same meat but he was the only rider tested. If the samples from the other riders all came back with the same low level positive as Contador it seems like that would reinforce the contamination claim.

I think this is an excellent idea. A blind sample program. Every rider sampled, but perhaps only 10 "tested" and perhaps a few "targeted" for more in-depth work.
 
Jul 29, 2010
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* Testing done by WADA or IOC, not UCI
* Determine the feasibility of Lemond's idea: sealed powermeter to establish athlete's baseline physiology/abilities.
* Put DS's w/ checkered past on VERY short leash.
* 2yr initial ban, then 3yrs, 3 strikes and you're out for lifetime.
 
A

Anonymous

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1) Immediately farm out testing to an independant body, with the UCI taking part in no testing, and that independant body to then pass results to the UCI, the national federations etc. National and regional federations given permission to deal directly with that independant body regarding suspicions etc.
2) Four year ban for all doping offences
3) Life ban on a second offence
4) Potential to reduce bans to 1 year if the rider involved names names
5) Authority given to the testing body to ban ds's, doctors, soigneurs etc found guilty of being part of organised doping
6) Riders who co-operate and given a reduced ban are protected by the UCI and the UCI works to find them a new team.
7) Only ten teams get top level status, reviewable yearly, any teams with doping offences on the teams in the previous two years (except for bans already enforced) automatically do not qualify for Top level status. Top Level teams guaranteed entries into all major races.
 
Oct 31, 2010
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BotanyBay said:
1) Centralize the doping penalty process for riders on D1 teams (no local federations doing the adjudication process)

2) Lifetime bans for certain offenses such as oxygen vectors, hormones, transfusions, insulin, clenbuterol, etc. Create a Class-1 schedule.

3) No direct-entry back to the D-1 ranks for doping positives after initial suspension is served. Riders must go back and ride continental for a 2-year period of time before they can ride on any Pro-Tour team (or in any Pro-Tour event) again. This way the younger riders feel the pinch.

4) Riders with 8-12 years of ProTour experience must face mandatory retirement upon doping positiive.

5) Lifetime bans for any Director, Team Owner, Soigneurs, team staff members, doctors, physiologists, trainers, coaches, etc who get caught-up in a doping case. Suspensions for those who continue to work privately with such banned people. These people must be eradicated from the sport entirely.

6) Agreement not to personally profit from one's doping story until 5 years after their retirement from the sport.

7) Bio Passport program: Can only be used to target riders for further testing, not as a penalty-based conclusion. A doping positive can not be declared with data obtained solely from the Bio Passport program.

8) One body should be the test facility, not WADA, not UCI, not CAS, but a body made up from representations of each the current bodies whereby they pass judgement on an innocent till proven guilty basis, leaks to the press pre any judfement nullify the claim against the rider(s) bought into question. Appeal based should be heard in a proper Court of Law whereby sentances and/or damages can be dished out, as per the Law (unfortunatly each Country has thier own Laws so I'm not too sure how/where this could be held)


You Sir should apply for the UCI Presidency. You speak a lot of sence, try calling Pat up one day and have a chat will you.
 
Jun 27, 2009
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Nobody is willing to do what needs to be done to fix this problem, which is why it won't be fixed.

If you seriously wanted to fix the problem..

1) Make professional cycling a supervised league with oversight at the team level. The people running this league would have to be committed to anti-doping. Each team would be assigned a compliance officer responsible for keeping the team in line. It goes without saying that all current DSes and UCI honchos would need to be banned from the sport, as every one of them are/have been complicit in organized doping, and each of them have had way more chances to reform then they deserve.

The new professional cycling league should be a administrated by a grass-roots non-profit organization (democratic, community-based, accountable). The main goal of this organization should be promoting cycling as a sport AND as a clean lifestyle, making the relationship between amateur and professional cycling more organic. There would still be sponsors to bring in the money.

2. All dope testing is carried out by an independent body of scientists with no financial or other relationship to cycling teams and sponsors. The funding for the testing comes from the sport's advertising and sponsership revenue.

3. All riders/managers get paid the same salary, so that the racing is more about glory than profit. The base salary should be large (at least 100Kish) to ensure that cyclists are not starving. Some athletes might be able to keep a small % of outside sponsorship deals but the overwelming majority of funds from sponsorship deals should go towards promoting cycling as a sport and a healthy lifestyle and funding the dope testing programs.

4. Similarly, all doping penalites are team penalites. Every individual doping offense should result in suspensions for entire teams. This is a no-brainer, but will never happen with the current corrupt leadership.

None of this will ever happen because there is no incentive for the people currently making big bucks from the sport (ie Riis, JV, Bruyneel, McLame, etc.) to enact real change. It's easy to fool 98% of the fans with press releases and manipulation. Nobody wants to think about doping or consider the notion that their heroes are lying to them--so omerta is the best solution for everyone short of a drastic makeover for cycling.

Half-measures won't work. Any reasonable plan for reform should begin by banning the leading enablers and profiteers from the sport permanently.....McQuaid, Verdruggen, Riis, Bruyneel, Echevarri, Vaughters, Stapleton. Eject all of this ilk and start fresh.

I know this may sound very draconian but there it is. The profit motive and doping in sports go hand in hand--you have to eliminate the profit motive to eliminate doping. That's not to say that people won't still dope even if there's no money to be made from it (eg for glory). However, the rationaliztion for such doping will be far less convincing to the people who stand to lose when the doping is exposed. If there is no longer a compelling reason to practice omerta, then everybody might just get tired of it.
 
Oct 25, 2010
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ludwig said:
1) Make professional cycling a supervised league with oversight at the team level. The people running this league would have to be committed to anti-doping. Each team would be assigned a compliance officer responsible for keeping the team in line. It goes without saying that all current DSes and UCI honchos would need to be banned from the sport, as every one of them are/have been complicit in organized doping, and each of them have had way more chances to reform then they deserve.

Unfortunately, this could only happen with an organized, mass abandonment of the current system, with an organized situation awaiting the migrants. Of course, people would bring their guns and knives with them and it would be bloody as hell.

Perhaps the riders themselves (if they could agree to collectively "go clean") could take ownership of pro cycling. It's their effort! They own the league, create the teams, hire management and utilize a representative system to help govern it. They could partner with organizations such as ASO and the organizers of the Giro, Vuelta, TOC, TDU, Langakwi, etc to provide a circuit of events at the ProTour level. Man, I'd sure like to see the riders take control of their own destinies for once. Perhaps they'd make the right choices? Provided they ditched guys like Lance, etc.

It's an impossibly difficult situation.
 

buckwheat

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Sep 24, 2009
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BotanyBay said:
Unfortunately, this could only happen with an organized, mass abandonment of the current system, with an organized situation awaiting the migrants. Of course, people would bring their guns and knives with them and it would be bloody as hell.

Perhaps the riders themselves (if they could agree to collectively "go clean") could take ownership of pro cycling. It's their effort! They own the league, create the teams, hire management and utilize a representative system to help govern it. They could partner with organizations such as ASO and the organizers of the Giro, Vuelta, TOC, TDU, Langakwi, etc to provide a circuit of events at the ProTour level. Man, I'd sure like to see the riders take control of their own destinies for once. Perhaps they'd make the right choices? Provided they ditched guys like Lance, etc.

It's an impossibly difficult situation.


ASO/TdF could do it. They own two of the GT's and two of the monuments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaury_Sport_Organisation

Would take bold action and not incremental steps

Anyone who thinks it can be done through the current system is kidding themselves.

There is no will to do it amongst the involved parties.
 
Oct 25, 2010
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buckwheat said:
ASO/TdF could do it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaury_Sport_Organisation

Would take bold action and not incremental steps

Anyone who thinks it can be done through the current system is kidding themselves.

Agreed. The UCI is not an organization capable of any tangible kind of reform. The only course of action that could possibly work, must come from the riders and teams themselves. And by teams, I don't mean the current ones. The current team owners need to be forcibly retired (or left behind).

What we have now is not much different than a large, dysfunctional family all going to Disneyland together. No one can decide what ride to do first, but everyone thinks they've got the right idea. And the dope-addicted older cousins are leading smaller groups to the rides of their choice, but not before stopping and showing the little kids how to shoot-up in the bathroom.

Time for the little kids to run away from home.
 
Oct 11, 2010
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131313 said:
I've posted this before, but I'll say it again. There has to be internal pressure from teams not to dope. The only real way to do this is to sanction teams for rider's offenses. That way everybody feels it, from the mechanics to the other riders to the owners.


I don't think that this would prevent doping. You think the riders who dope are concerned with how their actions might effect others within the team? They are concerned with one thing-- individual success. The worst thing that can happen in their eyes is possibly getting caught and not being able to race anymore-- that's the only risk. I highly doubt that they consider the teams mechanics when jamming a needle in their a$$.
 
Jul 14, 2009
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Testing only done by the UCI. With C,D samples sent to other labs and all tests sent to auditing company to ensure UCI is not skipping positives at big profit events. Anybody making more than 2000 dollars or Euro equiv is a pro and cannot participate in Olympics. test top 5 riders in any race that has 15,000 dollar prize list. top 3 in 10k races and 3 random riders. Test all DNF riders. Salary deferment so that you get paid quarterly bonus but if you come up positive you forfeit the cash. 3 years 1st offense.On return year no races that have greater than 20k purse. All riders getting paid to ride sign generic contract to be tested every 4 months at their expense as long as they hold the license. Monthly testing for all riders that had a positive test upon return.. Banned substance passport to be given to any doctor or pharmacist before treatment.. rider 100% responsible for the contents of their body.
 
Apr 8, 2010
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sida-mot said:
The goal was given in the question right? To clean up the sport?

Sure. But what does it mean to clean up the sport. I might be a cynic but clearly there will never be zero doping in sport?

Just like that there will never be zero drugs in society in general.
 
Apr 8, 2010
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fatandfast said:
Testing only done by the UCI. With C,D samples sent to other labs and all tests sent to auditing company to ensure UCI is not skipping positives at big profit events. Anybody making more than 2000 dollars or Euro equiv...

Dude it's cycling. Amounts have to be CHF :p
 
Jun 18, 2009
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Altitude said:
I don't think that this would prevent doping. You think the riders who dope are concerned with how their actions might effect others within the team? They are concerned with one thing-- individual success. The worst thing that can happen in their eyes is possibly getting caught and not being able to race anymore-- that's the only risk. I highly doubt that they consider the teams mechanics when jamming a needle in their a$$.

I completely disagree. How many guys ever win a single race? How many professional cyclists are out there? No offense but your comment shows a bit of a lack of understanding of how professional cycling actually works.

If a rider is forced to sit out a 6 month suspension because he has a teammate who's caught doping, guys will be forced to be their brother's keeper, and the pressure will come from the team management and the other riders to ride clean.
 

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