Inequity in rules application

[Chemainiac]

WADA and the UCI are an utter joke. Rasmussen serves his sentence having never been found to take a performancer enhancer and gets blacklisted. Contador is caught red handed and the powers that be turn it over to the Spaniards to deal with. What a joke. Utterly remarkable that this crap is allowed to continue. No wonder a great sport is in a state of total disrepute. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that Contador can only ride the way he does due to "assistance". It aint rocket science. We need commentators and other riders to take hard positions. This wishy washy journalism I am reading makes me want to barf. Fix this mess. Sanction Contador and the rest of the abusers. Make the penalty 5 years. Get their damn attention. 2 years is clearly not enough. And the Spaniards simply need to be excluded due to their institutionalization PEDs. Federation leadership there seem to clearly think it is okay for Spaniards to dope. No other conclusion can be drawn. Cycling is doomed.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

WADA and the UCI are an utter joke. Rasmussen serves his sentence having never been found to take a performancer enhancer and gets blacklisted. Contador is caught red handed and the powers that be turn it over to the Spaniards to deal with. What a joke. Utterly remarkable that this crap is allowed to continue. No wonder a great sport is in a state of total disrepute. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that Contador can only ride the way he does due to "assistance". It aint rocket science. We need commentators and other riders to take hard positions. This wishy washy journalism I am reading makes me want to barf. Fix this mess. Sanction Contador and the rest of the abusers. Make the penalty 5 years. Get their damn attention. 2 years is clearly not enough. And the Spaniards simply need to be excluded due to their institutionalization PEDs. Federation leadership there seem to clearly think it is okay for Spaniards to dope. No other conclusion can be drawn. Cycling is doomed.

Sorry, but you need to check the rules of the sport & WADA.

Contadors licence is with the Spanish Federation (RFEC) so they are the ones to hear his case.
The problem in the Contador case is with the UCI - the media were the ones to report the positive and the UCI have delayed moving the case forward.

WADA have to be notified by the UCI when there is a positive - which is fortunate as I suspect if it had been left to RFEC & UCI they would have attempted to cover it up.

 

[Master50]

Rasmussen gets what he earned. The UCI did not blacklist him as Rasmussen has shown the world his character and teams can do fine without the headache.
If I undersand your other criticism they are a joke for following the rules as they are written. Others criticize them for not.
So if the Spanish federation does a poor job of adjudicating Contador's case the UCI and Wada will have a chance to appeal. That is also the same system for most Olympic sports so you may as well start some threads for FIS Soccer, XC skiing, international Hockey, and many others.

 

[TERMINATOR]

WADA and the UCI are an utter joke. Rasmussen serves his sentence having never been found to take a performancer enhancer and gets blacklisted.

How is he blacklisted given that neither the ASO or the UCI has any discretion in which teams hire which riders?

If there is a mafiosa within the sport, it's only because the team managers are part of it. And I have little sympathy for any rider on any informal blacklist anyway given that guys like Rasmussen likely doped their entire career and got off with a measely 2-year sanction. Rasmussen was doping going all the way back to is MTB days according to the one infamous Velonews article about the overseas shoebox incident.

 

[TERMINATOR]

WADA and the UCI are an utter joke. Contador is caught red handed and the powers that be turn it over to the Spaniards to deal with. What a joke. Utterly remarkable that this crap is allowed to continue.

WTF are you talking about? All analytical positive cases get handed off to the rider's respective national federation. This was no different. Besides the UCI or WADA can appeal, so relax, Simone LeMond.

 

[TERMINATOR]

Sorry, but you need to check the rules of the sport & WADA.

Contadors licence is with the Spanish Federation (RFEC) so they are the ones to hear his case.
The problem in the Contador case is with the UCI - the media were the ones to report the positive and the UCI have delayed moving the case forward.

This delay by the UCI means that Clendator will absolutely miss the 2011 Tour de France since regardless of who wins the initial hearing before the corrupt RFEC, it will be appealed by the losing party. This appeal will take no less than 5 months to resolve from start to finish, and means that Contador will absolutely miss the Tour since he cannot start with a pending appeal.

How Bjarnie Riis can sign a guy who is going down in flames is beyond me. Riis' conduct is really pathetic - especially how he seems to actually think Clentador is just going to skate through this thing with an incredible excuse that is about as believable as Frank Schleck's excuse for visiting a gynecologist.

The fact that Contador and his legal team don't seem to realize he is going to miss the Tour - not to mention be DQ'ed from the last Tour - is astonishing.

These athletes really surround themselves with some loser attorneys who bleed them for tons of money to mount these silly defenses that have no chance of working.

 

[BotanyBay]

We need commentators and other riders to take hard positions. This wishy washy journalism I am reading makes me want to barf. Fix this mess.

I recently had a conversation with Frankie Andreu about this. As you probably know, he does post-stage interviews for Versus. The basic jist is this: Just like the teams are in need of sponsors, the TV networks need them too. They are terrified of scaring them away, so the unwritten rule is: Don't talk about doping. And only address doping if you'd look like an utter moron for not mentioning a red-hot news topic like a bust that very day. Also, some specific sponsors (such a Gatorade) could really care less about the morality of doping, but they DO care about the eyeballs, so they have demanded silence on the matter. If Phil & Paul mention it next to a slot sponsored by Gatorade, they view that as an association with a dirty sport (or they fear viewers will).

So the short version is: Phil & Paul are not journalists. They are color commentators. Frankie is not a journalist. He's there for comments on the race. Commentators will not be taking this up. Sports Illustrated might. L'Equipe might. Versus? Never. NEVER.

 

[BotanyBay]

Rasmussen lied to his own team. That'll get anyone blacklisted faster than doping will.

Unfortunately, doping forces one to become a liar. It soon becomes second nature to do it, and they start to lie about everyday stupid ****. And often times, the lies are what do the most damage to the inner fabric of their lives, not the dope.

 

[DirtyWorks]

The fact that Contador and his legal team don't seem to realize he is going to miss the Tour - not to mention be DQ'ed from the last Tour - is astonishing.

These athletes really surround themselves with some loser attorneys who bleed them for tons of money to mount these silly defenses that have no chance of working.

It's theater. The lawyers do stuff. Mostly, they are sociopaths who do whatever needs doing and can sleep well at night anyway. Blame a butcher? Sure. Throw a few cycling worker-bees under the bus? Done. Moreover, the UCI's complicity in working the message needs a couple hundred UCI Lawyer hours for which Contador will need to pay the federation.

The original post is missing some basic facts. The UCI has to hand these positives off to the rider's country of residence. Otherwise, the UCI would make itself out as having supra-national laws. As for the inconsistencies mentioned, it's what the UCI has been doing for a very long time. This is why there are no end to calls for replacing the execs at the UCI. (Hein at the IOC too.)

This thing isn't done yet. My gut says Contador satisfies Pat's every request, it's 80% likely he rides the Tour of Spain. I don't have a clue how the TdF will handle it. If Pat gets his way, Contador's 2010 title gets an asterisk.

 

[DirtyWorks]

How is he blacklisted given that neither the ASO or the UCI has any discretion in which teams hire which riders?

And yet, there are stories about some riders and not others just cannot seem to get a slot on *any* UCI Continental or better team after a positive (or not) finding.

While Rassumussen(sp???) deserves his situation, (IMHO) a look at the *process* by which his UCI career ended is pretty disturbing. The process is, there is no consistent process and a rider doesn't actually need a positive finding to be blacklisted. It looks to me like a popularity contest.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The OP means inequality, not inequity.

The inconsistency of the application of the rules is pretty ridiculous, granted.

1st tier: The "if you hire this guy you will have a tough time" group
Heras - not seen or heard from again since the '05 Vuelta
Rasmussen - can't get a top tier ride for love nor money

2nd tier: The "they've been banned and aren't popular with organisers" group
Riccò - problematic character
Schumacher - struggling to find a better ride
Sevilla - long since persona non grata

3rd tier: The "they've been banned and are accepted back but not especially popular" group
Sella - back to ProConti level but not really accepted by peers
Sinkewitz - back to ProConti level but struggled to find a ride for a while
Scarponi - back to ProConti and now back to ProTour after time elapsed

4th tier: The "they've been banned but are accepted back without much trouble" group
Vino - straight back to the top
Basso - ditto

5th tier: The "they haven't been banned but are exiled to the Continental ranks" group
Zaballa, Blanco, Bernabéu - disappeared to Portugal post-Puerto, have only just got out

6th tier: The "they haven't been banned but serve a stay of execution at a lower level" group
Plaza - two years in Portugal before returning to the top

7th tier: The "they haven't been banned and they're somehow still out there without anything against their name" group
Vicioso - seriously, how the hell?

8th tier: The "collective amnesia about their dodgy pasts" group
Fränk Schleck - yea, had no idea what he was asking for

9th tier: The "will be actively protected" group
You know who belongs here, and they all have a link through one Belgian man.

 

[fatandfast]

Sorry, but you need to check the rules of the sport & WADA.

Contadors licence is with the Spanish Federation (RFEC) so they are the ones to hear his case.
The problem in the Contador case is with the UCI - the media were the ones to report the positive and the UCI have delayed moving the case forward.

WADA have to be notified by the UCI when there is a positive - which is fortunate as I suspect if it had been left to RFEC & UCI they would have attempted to cover it up.

this is exactly right and is the 1,000000th reason that pro cycling should be under one federation. Spanish cycling has enough to worry about trying to keep the grassroots programs in place. The 1000's of rider they serve are getting totally screwed. As the org that that has a 3000:1 ratio amateur to pro riders is asked to hand out a punishment to Alberto. If his highness gets popped in the US why in the world would USA Cycling be burdened with handing out the punishment. US fed has @48,000 riders and only a couple hundred "pros".

 

[Chemainiac]

Well said.