Motor doping thread

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Father seems like one of those super pushy parents that probably never did any sports or did, but was never good at it, and now is trying to live through his kids and any success they get. Think 'soccer moms' in the US. Depending on how far the cheating went with the girl, I'd say don't ban her for life. I am not gonna throw a pity party for her, but she looks terrified in the interview. Maybe I am just naive.

Maybe, but at the same time that's two siblings getting busted by the age of 21. I do get that vibe from him, but certainly it seems like they don't have their talking points in place for how to explain anything away if busted, or if they do, she's really fumbling it. And as has been mentioned before, a mechanical doping case is much harder to wave away than a doping suspension unless several from the same team get busted at the same time; there simply must be at least a small team of individuals involved here, not just a rider going rogue.

Maybe for a 19yo a life ban may be excessive, but this has got to, just GOT to, amount to the four years, two for the breach and the two they can tack on for 'aggravating circumstances'. And it's hard to see the circuit willingly taking back somebody who's had a ban like that either; by being the first to be busted like this they bring the sport into disrepute in a completely new way (oh, cyclist busted for doping, big surprise... cyclist busted for motorbiking? Controversial news. Especially at a World Championships, so harder to hide away from) and it's hard to see her prospective presence at future races ever really being accepted by the pack.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

So this newsletter, it comes out each month? Is the regular issue a couple of doping cases announced each time ? Some months are there more ? The occasional month none ? On a bumper summer issue do we get a number that makes double figures ? Can we find this positive for epo on the UCI website. I have tried searching the UCI site and cannot find it. I am back to my theme that in the new transparent era, the only thing that appears transparent is the word "transparent" that goes before the word "era". I find this conflicts with the reality I am experiencing.

announced just like race results.

seems that the tests only exist like the taxes in greece and italy, for you to subvert them. Nothing too serious, just another game ontop of the main gap. jocularity all around

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Father seems like one of those super pushy parents that probably never did any sports or did, but was never good at it, and now is trying to live through his kids and any success they get. Think 'soccer moms' in the US. Depending on how far the cheating went with the girl, I'd say don't ban her for life. I am not gonna throw a pity party for her, but she looks terrified in the interview. Maybe I am just naive.

Maybe, but at the same time that's two siblings getting busted by the age of 21. I do get that vibe from him, but certainly it seems like they don't have their talking points in place for how to explain anything away if busted, or if they do, she's really fumbling it. And as has been mentioned before, a mechanical doping case is much harder to wave away than a doping suspension unless several from the same team get busted at the same time; there simply must be at least a small team of individuals involved here, not just a rider going rogue.

Maybe for a 19yo a life ban may be excessive, but this has got to, just GOT to, amount to the four years, two for the breach and the two they can tack on for 'aggravating circumstances'. And it's hard to see the circuit willingly taking back somebody who's had a ban like that either; by being the first to be busted like this they bring the sport into disrepute in a completely new way (oh, cyclist busted for doping, big surprise... cyclist busted for motorbiking? Controversial news. Especially at a World Championships, so harder to hide away from) and it's hard to see her prospective presence at future races ever really being accepted by the pack.

Why? What has she done that most of them have not done or will not do in the future given the chance?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Why? What has she done that most of them have not done or will not do in the future given the chance?

Doping bans are a lot easier to be forgotten by the press and the fanbase, especially lower down the totem pole where the details aren't often immediately available. This is a brand new level of mistrust that the sport is generating for itself, and at such a high profile event that it will not really be possible for her to return without any obvious caveat coming with anything she does compared to somebody like, say, Aurélien Duval who was banned for appetite suppressants as a road pro with very little fanfare, and came back as a niche CXer without much attention if any paid to previous indiscretions. It's a lot easier to parrot the "the sport is clean" rhetoric when there isn't somebody who's been busted for putting an engine in their bike in the field.

 

[sniper]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Why? What has she done that most of them have not done or will not do in the future given the chance?

Doping bans are a lot easier to be forgotten by the press and the fanbase, especially lower down the totem pole where the details aren't often immediately available. This is a brand new level of mistrust that the sport is generating for itself, and at such a high profile event that it will not really be possible for her to return without any obvious caveat coming with anything she does compared to somebody like, say, Aurélien Duval who was banned for appetite suppressants as a road pro with very little fanfare, and came back as a niche CXer without much attention if any paid to previous indiscretions. It's a lot easier to parrot the "the sport is clean" rhetoric when there isn't somebody who's been busted for putting an engine in their bike in the field.

it's not brand new.
there were plenty of rumors within the peloton about Cancellara.
In addition to several pros, Lefevere is also on the record saying he thinks Cance used a motor in 2010.

he hasn't exactly been ousted from the peloton has he.

cheating is widely accepted in the peloton. It's what you sign up for when you (try to) become a pro.

 

[Freddythefrog]

Re: Re:

In this document it says that the exclution of an elite athlete or his coach will be anounced within 20 days of the verdict on the NADO Vlaanderen website.
http://www.dopinglijn.be/fileadmin/media/nieuws/Studiedag/dopingpreventie_-_gids_voor_sportfederaties.pdf
on page 17 it says:
De disciplinaire uitsluitingen van meerderjarige elitesporters en van meerderjarige
begeleiders van elitesporters worden binnen twintig dagen nadat de sanctie definitief is
geworden, bekendgemaakt op de website van NADO Vlaanderen.

I think this is the website they use for anouncements:
http://www.dopinglijn.be

I cant find Niels van den Driessche on this site. I did find names of other offenders.
You can also find alot of general statistics. Look how dirty motorsport is:
http://www.dopinglijn.be/fileadmin/media/cijfers_stats/2014_jaartotaal.pdf

Once again, many thanks.

Waterpolo Body building, baseball and autosports look pretty filthy. Excuse my ignorance but where is cycling ?

And as you say - no sign of Niels van den Driessche on the website. No trace of him on the UCI site. Good job that newsletter came out otherwise he might not get a mention anywhere.

How many other posiitve cyclists are making off into the mists ?

Is this WADA code compliant or did they take the "we are not a press agency" quote from Brian Cookson too literally ? Still leaving far more questions than answers and this is the internet age.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Why? What has she done that most of them have not done or will not do in the future given the chance?

Doping bans are a lot easier to be forgotten by the press and the fanbase, especially lower down the totem pole where the details aren't often immediately available. This is a brand new level of mistrust that the sport is generating for itself, and at such a high profile event that it will not really be possible for her to return without any obvious caveat coming with anything she does compared to somebody like, say, Aurélien Duval who was banned for appetite suppressants as a road pro with very little fanfare, and came back as a niche CXer without much attention if any paid to previous indiscretions. It's a lot easier to parrot the "the sport is clean" rhetoric when there isn't somebody who's been busted for putting an engine in their bike in the field.

it's not brand new.
there were plenty of rumors within the peloton about Cancellara.
In addition to several pros, Lefevere is also on the record saying he thinks Cance used a motor in 2010.

he hasn't exactly been ousted from the peloton has he.

cheating is widely accepted in the peloton. It's what you sign up for when you (try to) become a pro.

Nothing's proven about Cancellara. The media can sell a Cance win as a win for clean cycling, the way they sell wins by (almost) any rider who hasn't been banned regardless of how suspicious they may be. Riders can continue to spout the clean cycling mantra and be a part of a péloton including Cancellara, regardless how disingenuous they may be. There may well have been motors in bikes for several years, but there's plausible deniability. Lefévère is on the record saying he thinks Cance used a motor. Whether he did or not remains open for debate. So Cance rides on, the issue comes up periodically but without a great deal of media attention being paid other than the same "nothing to see here, move along" that we got with Hesjedal, which similarly attracted attention for a bit then died down.

Femke has been caught with a motor in her bike. Nobody else has. Yet.

 

[Freddythefrog]

Silly me I should have worked it out. Of course cycling is the sport with 40 adverse test results and only 17 cases did not have excuses the Federation's officials could sign up to. They need to go a bit harder and catch athletics' ratio, 11 positives and only 3 convictions, 27% - now that is what I call an athlete friendly Fed.

So where are these 17 cases on the UCI database ? Have I just not been paying attention ?

Just who the heck is watching the watchers - this has always been the problem. the testing is rubbish and even if some numpty goes positive there is a whole mass of officials only too keen to sweep it under the carpet.

 

[doperhopper]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Father seems like one of those super pushy parents that probably never did any sports or did, but was never good at it, and now is trying to live through his kids and any success they get. Think 'soccer moms' in the US. Depending on how far the cheating went with the girl, I'd say don't ban her for life. I am not gonna throw a pity party for her, but she looks terrified in the interview. Maybe I am just naive.

Maybe, but at the same time that's two siblings getting busted by the age of 21. I do get that vibe from him, but certainly it seems like they don't have their talking points in place for how to explain anything away if busted, or if they do, she's really fumbling it. And as has been mentioned before, a mechanical doping case is much harder to wave away than a doping suspension unless several from the same team get busted at the same time; there simply must be at least a small team of individuals involved here, not just a rider going rogue.

Maybe for a 19yo a life ban may be excessive, but this has got to, just GOT to, amount to the four years, two for the breach and the two they can tack on for 'aggravating circumstances'. And it's hard to see the circuit willingly taking back somebody who's had a ban like that either; by being the first to be busted like this they bring the sport into disrepute in a completely new way (oh, cyclist busted for doping, big surprise... cyclist busted for motorbiking? Controversial news. Especially at a World Championships, so harder to hide away from) and it's hard to see her prospective presence at future races ever really being accepted by the pack.

Life ban on the first occasion is not excessive - on the contrary, this is the only way not to end up with the peloton full of the new generation zakarins, motocrossgirls, or (not to forget older generation) valverdes or bassos.

Of course no penalty can eradicate doping, but there should be some level of risk/reward ratio, so that it does not look like a complete joke.

 

[ray j willings]

Life ban , Its a corrupt sport. One gets a life Ban the other carry's on riding and cheating and winning and will never get caught.

This is and has been the way cycling and sport works. Money talks.

We need to find out more about these bikes and how much of this is going on and who's involved but I doubt we will.

 

[MarkvW]

The life ban idea is awful. That's why it is absolutely perfect for the UCI.

The UCI blames everything on the riders. Teams are free to pressure the riders, without any consequence. Mechanical doping is a team sport. If the UCI comes down hard on a 19 year old girl and gently on her supportive team, then it is living down to all my expectations.

Let the filthy circus go on!

 

[hrotha]

Life ban unless they speak. Easy.

 

[Brian Butterfield]

Re: Re:

Indeed, for all we know the motor era in road cycling has already been and gone.

Nailed it.

 

[markene2]

If Life bans are on the table, we will never see a big name getting caught, only small timers. Not because the big riders wont use a motor, but because of UCI wont devalue cyclings market value, money speaks and always will.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Re: Re:

It was on a descent for God sakes! Was he trying to reach 140 km/h? Plus he was not alone, he was not even the first in that group!

Well obviously the motor started as an effect of the crash.
There is absolutely no explanation for that kind of a movement of the bike, if not for a motor. Nada, zero, none.

That last bit is hyperbole. One person with a knowledge of physics put forth an argument based on conservation of angular momentum.

https://twitter.com/EricGregg300/status/507692600740950016/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Oh yeag righ, forgot about that genious of physics

 

[sniper]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Why? What has she done that most of them have not done or will not do in the future given the chance?

Doping bans are a lot easier to be forgotten by the press and the fanbase, especially lower down the totem pole where the details aren't often immediately available. This is a brand new level of mistrust that the sport is generating for itself, and at such a high profile event that it will not really be possible for her to return without any obvious caveat coming with anything she does compared to somebody like, say, Aurélien Duval who was banned for appetite suppressants as a road pro with very little fanfare, and came back as a niche CXer without much attention if any paid to previous indiscretions. It's a lot easier to parrot the "the sport is clean" rhetoric when there isn't somebody who's been busted for putting an engine in their bike in the field.

it's not brand new.
there were plenty of rumors within the peloton about Cancellara.
In addition to several pros, Lefevere is also on the record saying he thinks Cance used a motor in 2010.

he hasn't exactly been ousted from the peloton has he.

cheating is widely accepted in the peloton. It's what you sign up for when you (try to) become a pro.

Nothing's proven about Cancellara. The media can sell a Cance win as a win for clean cycling, the way they sell wins by (almost) any rider who hasn't been banned regardless of how suspicious they may be. Riders can continue to spout the clean cycling mantra and be a part of a péloton including Cancellara, regardless how disingenuous they may be. There may well have been motors in bikes for several years, but there's plausible deniability. Lefévère is on the record saying he thinks Cance used a motor. Whether he did or not remains open for debate. So Cance rides on, the issue comes up periodically but without a great deal of media attention being paid other than the same "nothing to see here, move along" that we got with Hesjedal, which similarly attracted attention for a bit then died down.

Femke has been caught with a motor in her bike. Nobody else has. Yet.

fair points.

The thing is, from where i'm standing, i haven't yet seen many indications to suggest 'the pack' is going to absorb/deal with motorized cheats in a much different way than they deal with normal doping.
Rasmussen sticking up for Hesjedal is a case in point, and the poor number of riders calling out Cancellara in spite of quite serious evidence (see the Roux video).

Sure, there is a good chance Femke will not be accepted back. But that won't be any different from what we've seen happening with the likes of Jaksche and Ricco. If you get caught too many times (Ricco), and/or spill beans on others (Jaksche), you're seen as damaging the sport, and you'll be scapegoated/blacklisted. Like with Ricco, no doubt many will abuse the case of Femke to score easy PR points.

 

[MarkvW]

Re:

Life ban unless they speak. Easy.

Agreed. I'm sick of half-ass Basso confessions.

 

[Metabolol]

Re:

The life ban idea is awful. That's why it is absolutely perfect for the UCI.

The UCI blames everything on the riders. Teams are free to pressure the riders, without any consequence. Mechanical doping is a team sport. If the UCI comes down hard on a 19 year old girl and gently on her supportive team, then it is living down to all my expectations.

Let the filthy circus go on!

No, with life bans people will spill the beans out of anger and spite.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Why? What has she done that most of them have not done or will not do in the future given the chance?

Doping bans are a lot easier to be forgotten by the press and the fanbase, especially lower down the totem pole where the details aren't often immediately available. This is a brand new level of mistrust that the sport is generating for itself, and at such a high profile event that it will not really be possible for her to return without any obvious caveat coming with anything she does compared to somebody like, say, Aurélien Duval who was banned for appetite suppressants as a road pro with very little fanfare, and came back as a niche CXer without much attention if any paid to previous indiscretions. It's a lot easier to parrot the "the sport is clean" rhetoric when there isn't somebody who's been busted for putting an engine in their bike in the field.

I would guess that the Femke's family know about a lot more 'motor doping' going on and if they are ostracised a lot of people are going to be getting nervous.

That 'motor doping' is happening shows again that professional athletes have no morals, so why will Femke be ostracised? It is not like the rest are not doping, chemically or motorised!!!

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

Indeed, for all we know the motor era in road cycling has already been and gone.

Nailed it.

Not if this person has been caught, it is has not gone.

 

[sniper]

Re:

Silly me I should have worked it out. Of course cycling is the sport with 40 adverse test results and only 17 cases did not have excuses the Federation's officials could sign up to. They need to go a bit harder and catch athletics' ratio, 11 positives and only 3 convictions, 27% - now that is what I call an athlete friendly Fed.

So where are these 17 cases on the UCI database ? Have I just not been paying attention ?

Just who the heck is watching the watchers - this has always been the problem. the testing is rubbish and even if some numpty goes positive there is a whole mass of officials only too keen to sweep it under the carpet.

The fox is still guarding the henhouse.
The only authority UCI would theoretically have to 'answer' to, WADA, has quite recently proven itself to be completely toothless at best, complicit in the corruption at worst.
Like Coe/IAAF, Cookson/UCI too are (a) relying heavily on the Lausanne Lab, (b) buddies with Reedie and (c) in bed with Russia. Not reassuring.

 

[the delgados]

Re: Re:

The life ban idea is awful. That's why it is absolutely perfect for the UCI.

The UCI blames everything on the riders. Teams are free to pressure the riders, without any consequence. Mechanical doping is a team sport. If the UCI comes down hard on a 19 year old girl and gently on her supportive team, then it is living down to all my expectations.

Let the filthy circus go on!

No, with life bans people will spill the beans out of anger and spite.

And no one would expect a 19-year-old to spite her father. I'm not a shrink, but based on reading her body language in the Sportza interview, she seems to be trying to separate herself from her father.
Life-long ban is way too much.
I'm not saying the two situations are the same, but I can't help but think of Genvieve Jeanson and her coach. It took years for her to come out and admit what was going on.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

fair points.

The thing is, from where i'm standing, i haven't yet seen many indications to suggest 'the pack' is going to absorb/deal with motorized cheats in a much different way than they deal with normal doping.
Rasmussen sticking up for Hesjedal is a case in point, and the poor number of riders calling out Cancellara in spite of quite serious evidence (see the Roux video).

Sure, there is a good chance Femke will not be accepted back. But that won't be any different from what we've seen happening with the likes of Jaksche and Ricco. If you get caught too many times (Ricco), and/or spill beans on others (Jaksche), you're seen as damaging the sport, and you'll be scapegoated/blacklisted. Like with Ricco, no doubt many will abuse the case of Femke to score easy PR points.

Until somebody actually got busted for motorized doping, no rider is going to draw attention to it. Some maybe genuinely can't believe their colleagues would stoop so low even as they themselves gobble up EPO. Some may be on a team that uses it or have friends on a team that uses it so it's in their interest to dismiss such allegations. But now somebody HAS been busted for motorized doping, the situation changes.

Cyclists are used to dealing with the media reaction to a doping positive. An EPO positive for a 19yo female cyclocrosser would maybe get five posts on the forum. She'd return in two years' time, and she could continue to get reasonable results and be seen as a promising young rider and only those who looked into it would find the doping ban (same as with some like Ilaria Sanguinetti who broke out last year but has already had a suspension as a teenager that's been mostly forgotten) unless she started mauling the field in a particularly egregious fashion (Hanna Solovey says hi, btw). Maybe that it happened at the Worlds would make it a bigger deal, but by the time the sample had been analyzed we'd be a couple of weeks down the line, and that would be that. Not only is this the first time motorized doping has been found, but it's swift and immediate: the news is instant, because the cheating can be seen with the naked eye, and not in the Riccardo Riccò way where you could plainly see he was doped, but with the motor it can be seen literally. And because after a few years of speculation it's the first time this has been actually found, this has blown up too big for Femke to ever be able to make a return quietly. Also, the fact that it's now been shown that motorized doping is a thing, one teenager's lack of subtlety will raise the attention paid to this, people who'd been getting away with it suddenly can't because the heat is on, and so on. Just like how a lot of the people most angered by Sella talking were those who'd been using the same network as Priamo.

 

[Metabolol]

Re: Re:

The life ban idea is awful. That's why it is absolutely perfect for the UCI.

The UCI blames everything on the riders. Teams are free to pressure the riders, without any consequence. Mechanical doping is a team sport. If the UCI comes down hard on a 19 year old girl and gently on her supportive team, then it is living down to all my expectations.

Let the filthy circus go on!

No, with life bans people will spill the beans out of anger and spite.

And no one would expect a 19-year-old to spite her father. I'm not a shrink, but based on reading her body language in the Sportza interview, she seems to be trying to separate herself from her father.
Life-long ban is way too much.
I'm not saying the two situations are the same, but I can't help but think of Genvieve Jeanson and her coach. It took years for her to come out and admit what what going on.

I was more talking in general terms, more people will talk if they are kicked out for life (and it should include not just riding, but being involved with teams in any capacity). In this case the ban should of course extend to everyone who was involved. Can they find the father's fingerprints on the motor?

 

[Anaconda]

Re: Re:

Silly me I should have worked it out. Of course cycling is the sport with 40 adverse test results and only 17 cases did not have excuses the Federation's officials could sign up to. They need to go a bit harder and catch athletics' ratio, 11 positives and only 3 convictions, 27% - now that is what I call an athlete friendly Fed.

So where are these 17 cases on the UCI database ? Have I just not been paying attention ?

Just who the heck is watching the watchers - this has always been the problem. the testing is rubbish and even if some numpty goes positive there is a whole mass of officials only too keen to sweep it under the carpet.

The fox is still guarding the henhouse.
The only authority UCI would theoretically have to 'answer' to, WADA, has quite recently proven itself to be completely toothless at best, complicit in the corruption at worst.
Like Coe/IAAF, Cookson/UCI too are (a) relying heavily on the Lausanne Lab, (b) buddies with Reedie and (c) in bed with Russia. Not reassuring.

Re UCI sanction list and cases missing

http://www.uci.ch/mm/Document/News/CleanSport/17/32/52/20160108SanctionsADRVEN2.0_English.pdf

"This table lists the license-holders currently serving a period of ineligibility as a consequence of an Anti-Doping Rule Violation, over which
the UCI has results management authority. The sanctions imposed by other anti-doping organisations are not included in this list, unless
such sanctions have been expressly recognised by the UCI Anti-Doping Commission. "

I recall last year wondering why some riders from my country that I knew were banned by the NADO were not on this list. See above. List is not a complete world-wide list of sanctions in cycling, just the cases that were managed by the UCI.

Re the UCI or any other NADO having to worry about problems from WADA... Well if the IAAF has actually been caught extorting money from athletes with positive tests/suspicious passports and not been called non-compliant by WADA, I'd say nothing to worry about?