observations of John Hoberman

[arjanh]

With all this in mind, there's now one thing that doesn't make sense to me: how in the world could USADA get cycling's biggest star to date thrown out of the sport? Has somebody been asleep at the watch?

 

[DirtyWorks]

With all this in mind, there's now one thing that doesn't make sense to me: how in the world could USADA get cycling's biggest star to date thrown out of the sport? Has somebody been asleep at the watch?

The trail of destruction was so wide there was still plenty to get the job done. I think there were a number of people that caused that desctruction that had no idea they'd ever get something from WADA.

 

[Tinman]

With all this in mind, there's now one thing that doesn't make sense to me: how in the world could USADA get cycling's biggest star to date thrown out of the sport? Has somebody been asleep at the watch?

Tygart managed to stay under the radar until it mattered and no-one could affect the outcome he drove. Lance tried very hard, succeeded with Birotte via political means but it appears his team did not have the clout and was too late with USADA. When Tygart had what he needed his timing and information release was impeccable.

1. his early investigations concluded he needed lots of witness testimony
2. he was patient with his timing to get these witness testimonies, leveraged the Fed investigation ie. under oath testimonies
3. his Marion Jones work taught him that this was going to be a public media battle foremost
4. he delayed the release to UCI and media twice to heighten media interest, build impact and not give UCI any option but to accept it
5. he released both reasoned decision and testimonies simultaneously on the web. Public support dropped so quickly that any legal wrangling (SoL, etc) was going to be futile for camp Lance

Masterful stuff and will make a great case study for courses on sports administration, ethics, etc etc. It's the stuff they teach at Harvard, Oxbridge, Insead, etc. Some folk here better qualified ought to consider writing this up for publication.

 

[doperhopper]

The guy does not talk poop. Well informed. IOC, UCI, FIFA, UEFA, all the same mtf's.

Yep, let's hope that such experts and qualified journalists will soon shift the discussion from the current headlines of whether "the doping should be permitted"
to "the doping WAS effectively permitted" by UCI/etc and one has to start with a major cleansing starting from the very top (and no, that fake offender-appointed comittee to investigate the offender is not enough - btw, any news from that one?).

 

[DirtyWorks]

Yep, let's hope that such experts and qualified journalists will soon shift the discussion from the current headlines of whether "the doping should be permitted"
to "the doping WAS effectively permitted" by UCI/etc and one has to start with a major cleansing starting from the very top (and no, that fake offender-appointed comittee to investigate the offender is not enough - btw, any news from that one?).

Well, again, it starts at the IOC. The IOC is the doping enabler. Remember, the IOC is a privately owned multi-national organization with extraordinary political and media influence. Will you ever see a media report where the IOC's role in enabling doping? Probably not.

I agree the UCI has problems too. Just understand if the IOC were legitimately interested in anti-doping, they would give national WADA agencies the power to open cases and fund back-dated testing. It's that simple. The problem is, that would destroy their every-four-year-world-record-breaking-athletes sports highlight show.