P McQ practically defends doping

[goober]

the fans care, the AFLD seem to care but are not allowed to contribute. this sport is a sham. if floyds claims go nowhere i am out of this sport completely. The UCI is so complicit it may as well be selling the EPO themselves.

Can I have your bike?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

With blood boosters, yes.

But one could argue the benefits of steroids and HGH in the NFL are almost equal to that. Probably not the same level as cycling, but a big benefit.

But wasn't part of the reason for the clampdown in cycling the health and safety aspect of it?

To whit, 5 footballers (soccer players) are documenting as dying on the field of heart-related injuries from the years 1970-1989. In the 1990s there were eight (plus one who died after the ball struck his chest). Since 2000 there have been 22. At what point do you start investigating?

According to the London Times, 22 out of 92 league soccer teams in England are on at least one strike for failing to provide whereabouts details or falsifying whereabouts details for their players in order to help them evade testing. This includes five Premiership clubs. Almost a hundred players are on at least one strike for evading testers - the very same thing that made Michael Rasmussen a pariah in cycling - many of which are on two. Nothing is done unless they deliberately do a runner (see Rio Ferdinand, now England captain) or miss three tests. The average Premiership footballer is tested four times a year. It is reasonable to expect that the testing is less common lower down the ladder but also to expect that the doping is less institutionalised there. Compare that to Rabobank's testing details that cyclingnews published. Even Pedro Horrillo, who of course had been out of competition since his horrific crash last May, had been tested more than the average Premiership footballer, and he was the least tested rider. If Denis Menchov were a footballer he'd have been tested above the average by 950%.

Yet soccer is the most played sport in the world, soccer fans regularly pop onto cycling forums to laugh at the dopey doping dopers, and live in ignorant bliss, feeling smug about how they follow a major sport without institutionalised doping. Is it any wonder Pat McQuaid aspires to that?

 

[Roland Rat]

Yet soccer is the most played sport in the world, soccer fans regularly pop onto cycling forums to laugh at the dopey doping dopers, and live in ignorant bliss, feeling smug about how they follow a major sport without institutionalised doping. Is it any wonder Pat McQuaid aspires to that?

It'll never happen, in part due to the proximity of the pro cyclists to the amateurs. Normo's working 9-5 (with enough training) can rock up to a premier calendar etc and compete with the pro's, and so are being directly cheated. If you had The Red Lion XI v Juventus in a tournament, then The Red Lion may care more about it.

 

[thehog]

More here: http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/4...controls-too-predictable-to-be-effective.aspx


Pierre Bordry, the president of the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD), has expressed his concerns that the doping controls carried out by the International Cycling Union (UCI) during this year's Tour de France will be ineffective. On a program set to be aired on German TV channel ZDF this evening he claims that the riders are too familiar with when they will be tested.

"They [the doping controls] are organized so that riders are aware before they intervene," he said, leaving time for potential cheats to manipulate their test results.

"There are not enough targeted and random checks, so it allows those who want to cheat to know the system perfectly."

Several significant positive results were recorded during the 2008 edition of the Tour de France when the AFLD was in charge of the testing. The list includes Manuel Beltran, Moises Duenas, Riccardo Riccò and Dimitri Fofonov. Subsequent retroactive testing was also done by the French lab and found Leonardo Piepoli, Stefan Schumacher and King of the Mountains winner Bernhard Kohl all positive for EPO.

Bordry reiterated that the UCI has refused to entrust the AFLD with their "whereabouts" system so they could actively test the riders preparing for the race in France. The two bodies had a dispute that dates back to the 2009 Tour de France, where the AFLD and the UCI worked in partnership to collect samples during the race.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Good posts guys.

I'm almost to the level of Hillavoider.

 

[rikdewy]

Good point. Seems FIFA, the NBA and NFL learned that long ago.



This year is going to be interesting to see what kind of police surveillance there is, and just how many raids there are.

Anyone want to bet that somewhere in France OCLAESP has gone to the French courts, applied for, and received, permission to wiretap or use video surveillance on specific teams, riders and support personnel when in the country?

I'll put a wager on that too. I fear that the 'dopers' will be aware of this and take extra measures to hide their actions. They must've been hiding their doping better and better over the years and are doing less these days anyway.

I can't believe this hasn't been done in recent years. Surely 'probable cause' has existed before now to obtain the warrants.

I really hope that there is already some video, audio or other evidence out there that has been withheld until now. eg. Flandis, some anti doping journalist that has been previously gagged.

I concur, some great posts here and I completely agree with the sentiments expressed. It still sh!t$ me that Operation Puerto was effectively (and purposefully) bungled. If Flandisgate amounts to the same, my bike will be on ebay... well, one of them anyway.

 

[biokemguy]

ride more watch less

Don't sell your bike. Just watch less racing and spend that time riding.

 

[Hillavoider]

yeah i'll do that, but i am not renewing my race license with the UCI, they can go to hell

 

[Poppert]

Yeah, McQuaid is a major douche, but can you blame him? Look at the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, ATP, FIFA, etc. They all have minimal testing and minimal penalties. Positives are bad for business and fans in those sports don't really care.

Totally agree with this (except I acctually DO blame McQuaid! ;-)). UCI is out on a dangerous path.

i get your point about FIFA, NBA...etc, but cycling is different in that comparatively MASSIVE advantages can be made by using PEDs compared to the gains a tennis player or a football player gets on a field. thats why its so much worse.

Exactly! If they don't do everyting to catch the cheaters, then this sport is pointless.

I don't understand McQuaid's comment about "we dont want to work with AFLD", etc. What gives him the right to say this? Isn't that like some company saying "we refuse to work with IRS or the police"? Shouldn't he just shut up and accept the rules?

What's the relation between UCI, AFLD, WADA, etc? Can UCI somehow dictate the conditions for testing being done by WADA (sounds like it in this article http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/bordry-critical-of-uci-testing?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=news_headlines). I don't understand what role UCI plays when it comes to testing.

 

[thingswelike]

ok - so lets give Pat the benefit of the doubt. Lets say he hasn't got any ties to dopers, but over the last 5 years has formed the opinon that all the positive doping tests have resulted in a negative image for the sport, reduced income for those involved and made it harder to grow the racing calendar.

Are those things true?
In my eyes those things are only true if high profile riders get caught, get caught in a high profile way and with unfortunate timing.

So how do you stop that?
1) Well one way is to announce tests, never surprise people and keep genuine anti-dopers from getting good at their job. Try and keep the playing field level by supporting the biological passport, meaning that at least everyone's blood values are within 'healthy' limits. Some tests for dangerous substances should stop any high profile deaths.

Or...
2) You can get so obviously damn good at your anti-doping job that every cheater gets caught early in their careers and is very aware that the system works. Some existing established cheaters will just have to get caught and most will have to change their ways (some losing their edge).

Option 1 is easy. It requires no money and just a bit of politics.
Option 2 is expensive, technically difficult and has no guarantee of success. Every so often a new method of doping will be discovered, a test made and a potentially high profile positive will pop up.


So I can have a small degree of sympathy for anyone in the position of promoting pro cycling.

 

[python]

ok - so lets give Pat the benefit of the doubt.

sorry, but it's just not a reasonable/credible assumption in pat's case.

he, the guy who should know the sports history and the imperfections of dope testing, publicly declared some riders clean and others suspect.


the president of the uci should either never name names or remain silent. what if the sworn clean rider gets caught ? sure, the president can't afford to publicly lose face and he'll have to issue a vrijman report 2.0 or something...

the fact that he regularly does the opposite, names names and risks his reputation tells me he is either stupid/unfit for the job or complicit.

i gravitate towards the latter.

 

[Benotti69]

Option 2 is expensive, technically difficult and has no guarantee of success. Every so often a new method of doping will be discovered, a test made and a potentially high profile positive will pop up.


So I can have a small degree of sympathy for anyone in the position of promoting pro cycling.

can't give P McQ benefit of nothing but lining his own pockets by using the professional sport of cycling.

you can ensure that riders caught doping receive a penalty that makes it ridiculous to consider doping in the first place...humans cheat, yes a given. but if enough think its wrong and will damage their sport and livelyhood then those who cheat will be caught or driven out of the sport.

it is pretty simple to create a demand from those who live and earn a living from sport to demand it remain honest and that can start from the top down, but usually it starts with the fans as we see on this forum, the majority in favour of clean racing. its guys like LA who cannot accept being a good classics rider and winning them is enough and need to dope to win a GT, sad really....

 

[Anonymous]

World Championships 2007

When the Mayor of Stuttgart wanted to exclude Bettini for anti-doping reasons McQuaid's response was right out of the can.

"The UCI would very much like to denounce the actions of(the mayor) Doctor Eisenmann in this situation, because it seems to us that she is following a strategy which is political and commercial," he said. After explaining the reasons why the UCI did not have the power to exclude riders for non-signature of the Riders's Commitment for a New Cycling, he went on to question Eisenmann's motives for her statement this morning and the court case started today."

McQuaid later said in an Italian press conference, "Italy loves cycling, and the UCI loves Italy!"

In other words, "You gotta dance with the one that brought you to the dance."