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Should JV and DM be steering cycling wrt cleaning it up?

Sep 2, 2012
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Whilst these guys should be applauded for the efforts they are making in forging a cleaner future, and I really do respect them, I don't think they go far enough. Not by a long way. Perhaps it's because they have one hand tied behind their backs due to their own past mistakes - I can understand that they would not wish to be labelled hypocrites.

It concerns me that they are regarded by many as the future blueprint for how teams should be run. But are they?

DMs tweets today regarding Rabobank disappointed me, as does their reluctance to adopt a zero tolerance policy.

Sponsors have to run a risk assesment - and cycling like it or not, is high risk for sponsors.

Sad as Rabobanks departure is for the clean riders and staff on the team - it is dramatic actions like these, voluntarily or otherwise that really enforce change.

Perhaps this would clean up cycling:

i) The responsibility of doping control is removed from the UCI and given to WADA, or a newly formed independant body.

ii) A rider testing positive will be immediately suspended, and his Teams licence suspended until confirmation of the positive.

iii) If the positive is confirmed, the rider is invited to make a full disclosure to WADA - ie names, dates, doctors, dealers, everything.

iv) If the disclosure is forthcoming, the Team immediately regains its licence, and the rider is suspended for 6 months.

v) If the disclosure is not forthcoming, the Team cannot reapply for its licence for 12 months, and the rider is banned for 2 yrs.

Individual and collective responsibility - carries more weight, no?
 
Should Vaughters and Millar be steering cycling wrt cleaning it up?

In a word, no. I know there are many who are suspicious of some of their motives or of the purity of their actions, and not without good reasons, but while their words carry much clout, their words are also tinged with a touch of the father saying "do as I say, not as I do". Because of this, while they can be important public figures in the cleaning up of cycling, and can lobby all they can and use their positions to their fullest (and if we can believe everything JV tells us, for the most part they do do this), I don't think they (or any other single rider or team manager for that matter) are in the position to be steering cycling. That change has to come from higher up, and deeper entrenched in the sport.

Christophe Bassons for UCI President.
 
Sep 2, 2012
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Libertine Seguros said:
Should Vaughters and Millar be steering cycling wrt cleaning it up?

In a word, no. I know there are many who are suspicious of some of their motives or of the purity of their actions, and not without good reasons, but while their words carry much clout, their words are also tinged with a touch of the father saying "do as I say, not as I do". Because of this, while they can be important public figures in the cleaning up of cycling, and can lobby all they can and use their positions to their fullest (and if we can believe everything JV tells us, for the most part they do do this), I don't think they (or any other single rider or team manager for that matter) are in the position to be steering cycling. That change has to come from higher up, and deeper entrenched in the sport.

Christophe Bassons for UCI President.

+1.

It concerns me that whilst the ship doesn't have a Captain (in that the UCI are evidently emasculated), the void may be filled by those who aren't raising the bar high enough. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for real, hardcore change.
 
Sep 2, 2012
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Well they seem to think they should.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/ot...t-Team-Sky-and-says-it-is-doomed-to-fail.html

Nice of JV to tell Brailsford how to do his job via the media. Classy.

No wonder Fran is stressed out.

Let's not forget tho, that the very reason DB appears to be sliding into a doping related scandal is because he ditched a strict zero-tolerance policy and turned it into the sort of wishy washy pap that JV advocates.

Maybe JV should get over the fact that he personally would be unable to lead a zero tolerance Team, and DB should just start the necessary purge.

Rabobank gone, don't let Sky be next.
 
Sep 29, 2012
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Let's not forget Wiggins became the superstar Sky are hanging their hat on while riding for Garmin.
 
Oct 16, 2009
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Dear Wiggo said:
Let's not forget Wiggins became the superstar Sky are hanging their hat on while riding for Garmin.
No he didn't. Garmin-Wiggo wasn't half the rider he is today.
 
Sep 29, 2012
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goggalor said:
No he didn't. Garmin-Wiggo wasn't half the rider he is today.

They paid Garmin $2M transfer fee and him $2M (1.5M GBP?) - based on his 2009 Tour performance.
 
No way. Especially Millar. He is not a leader. While espousing the clean riding mantra he could have done a lot more. He didn't want to rock the boat. Millar no way. There could still be some skeletons dangling around in his closet.
 
Oct 29, 2009
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Don Quixote said:
Perhaps this would clean up cycling:

i) The responsibility of doping control is removed from the UCI and given to WADA, or a newly formed independant body. Agree, this has to be done.

ii) A rider testing positive will be immediately suspended, and his Teams licence suspended until confirmation of the positive. Good in theory but some riders will still dope without their teams knowledge. Sponsors wont be happy having their license suspended, could lead to more pullouts like Rabo.

iii) If the positive is confirmed, the rider is invited to make a full disclosure to WADA - ie names, dates, doctors, dealers, everything.

iv) If the disclosure is forthcoming, the Team immediately regains its licence, and the rider is suspended for 6 months. I'd have it 2 years if they tell all. 6 months is too soft for serious offence.

v) If the disclosure is not forthcoming, the Team cannot reapply for its licence for 12 months, and the rider is banned for 2 yrs. If they dont tell all, ban should be 4 years for blood doping/steriods.

Individual and collective responsibility - carries more weight, no?

Millar and Vaughters could do more yes, but if everyone did as much as those two are in the fight against doping the future would look a lot brighter.
 
One of the main problems is that riders fear if they speak their career might be over. So, make the choice easier for them. If they don't speak, they get a life ban. If they speak, they get a normal 2-year suspension.

In practice, it might be a good idea if this didn't apply to specified substances.
 
May 27, 2010
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lol JV and DM are dopers too but they suddenly become heroes.
How about real clean guys like moncoutie, bassons, pinotti.
 
Sep 29, 2012
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dlwssonic said:
lol JV and DM are dopers too but they suddenly become heroes.
How about real clean guys like moncoutie, bassons, pinotti.

Bassons missed a doping control today and has been suspended for a year. He quit with 20km to go and drove 2.5 hours home. He was notified at home, and it was too late to return.
 
maltiv said:
That's funny, he just got suspended for a year for missing an anti-doping control.

Yes, just when you thought things couldn't get more crazy:
http://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme-sur-route/Actualites/Christophe-bassons-suspendu-un-an/320914

https://twitter.com/inrng

Bassons was riding the French MTB marathon champs and abandoned, then drove home. But he was picked for a post-race control and didn't know.

That's why the rule exists, has to be strict & equally applied. Tragic to see Bassons caught but it hardly dents his reputation & integrity
 
Dear Wiggo said:
Bassons missed a doping control today and has been suspended for a year. He quit with 20km to go and drove 2.5 hours home. He was notified at home, and it was too late to return.

Holy cow. I've seen to happen to almost nameless racers before. Was he perhaps framed? Who initiated the test? French ADA? Cycling Fed?
Please let us not have to doubt him! Although this does make it easier to find a clean winner for the races vacated due to USADA fallout.
 
Sep 2, 2012
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hrotha said:
One of the main problems is that riders fear if they speak their career might be over. So, make the choice easier for them. If they don't speak, they get a life ban. If they speak, they get a normal 2-year suspension.

In practice, it might be a good idea if this didn't apply to specified substances.

I think 6 months is long enough if they tell all - as you say, you want them to talk. If they don't talk and as I suggested the team loses its licence for 12 months - that is effectively a life ban. No team would resign him and the peleton wouldn't have him back.

Filthy doctors and staff would soon realise that omerta is severly weakened, they'd realise risks now outweigh rewards,and they are far more likely to peddle their sh1 elsewhere.
 
Sep 8, 2012
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Don Quixote said:
ii) A rider testing positive will be immediately suspended, and his Teams licence suspended until confirmation of the positive.

iii) If the positive is confirmed, the rider is invited to make a full disclosure to WADA - ie names, dates, doctors, dealers, everything.

iv) If the disclosure is forthcoming, the Team immediately regains its licence, and the rider is suspended for 6 months.

v) If the disclosure is not forthcoming, the Team cannot reapply for its licence for 12 months, and the rider is banned for 2 yrs.

Individual and collective responsibility - carries more weight, no?
Agree with others on ii) being a no go for the team but the rider should be immediately suspended. Also if he is named by another should be suspended until investigation into them is finished. iii) is needed. iv) 6 months is far too lenient you want to clean up cycling should be alteast 1 yr if not 2.

v) life ban. Unashamed dopers or ones upholding omerta should not be in the sport you need to be ruthless this will clean up cycling. 2 years is and always has been too soft. Also any manager/doctor implicated first time 2year ban and second time life ban. It is important to get the dodgy athletes out but more important to get the people behind them out. If the manager/doc know they will cop 2yr or life ban they will be more stringent in enforcing anti-doping procedures. Also anyone caught doping gets all of their results up until that date annulled as you can only think that they have been doping the whole time.

I also believe in the amnesty only anyone that confesses only gets 1 year ban and must talk (rat out others) to get that. If they are subsequently caught and did not confess they should cop a life-ban.

Its time cycling got more ruthless with their penalties.
 
Don Quixote said:
Whilst these guys should be applauded for the efforts they are making in forging a cleaner future, and I really do respect them, I don't think they go far enough. Not by a long way. Perhaps it's because they have one hand tied behind their backs due to their own past mistakes - I can understand that they would not wish to be labelled hypocrites.

It concerns me that they are regarded by many as the future blueprint for how teams should be run. But are they?

DMs tweets today regarding Rabobank disappointed me, as does their reluctance to adopt a zero tolerance policy.

Sponsors have to run a risk assesment - and cycling like it or not, is high risk for sponsors.

Sad as Rabobanks departure is for the clean riders and staff on the team - it is dramatic actions like these, voluntarily or otherwise that really enforce change.

Perhaps this would clean up cycling:

i) The responsibility of doping control is removed from the UCI and given to WADA, or a newly formed independant body.Agreed

ii) A rider testing positive will be immediately suspended, and his Teams licence suspended until confirmation of the positive.Teams should only be suspended if the positive is confirmed: they´d soon learn to control their riders

iii) If the positive is confirmed, the rider is invited to make a full disclosure to WADA - ie names, dates, doctors, dealers, everything.

iv) If the disclosure is forthcoming, the Team immediately regains its licence, and the rider is suspended for 6 months. I do wonder if we need different tarriff for different drugs: recreational drugs + over the counter mistakes are NOT as serious as injecting blood

v) If the disclosure is not forthcoming, the Team cannot reapply for its licence for 12 months, and the rider is banned for 2 yrs.

Individual and collective responsibility - carries more weight, no?totally agree

Nice to see some positive suggestions about the way forward on this forum, instead of the usual splatter approach of "they´re all at it, ´cause I say so"
 
Don Quixote said:
Nice of JV to tell Brailsford how to do his job via the media. Classy.

No wonder Fran is stressed out.

Let's not forget tho, that the very reason DB appears to be sliding into a doping related scandal is because he ditched a strict zero-tolerance policy and turned it into the sort of wishy washy pap that JV advocates.

Maybe JV should get over the fact that he personally would be unable to lead a zero tolerance Team, and DB should just start the necessary purge.

This is foolish.

Sky's nominal "zero tolerance" policy has led them into a situation where they look dishonest or hypocritical, because they can only apply "zero tolerance" to people who were caught. They can't apply it to people who weren't caught... and then if something is subsequently revealed or their name turns up in some enquiry or other, Sky are left scrambling around.

Unless Sky are planning on running a team for espoirs only, it is impossible for them to build a team and support staff which has no links at all to doping in the past. It was simply too widespread, so anyone with any experience will either have doped or have been involved with teams where other people were doping and Sky have no way of telling the two apart.

The declaration idea is PR driven stupidity. It will likely have no effect whatsoever (does anyone really think that anyone who has hidden a doping past until now will have moral difficulty with lying one more time?). But if it does have any effect it will be that of a disincentive for people to come clean and help the anti-doping authorities. Clean riders with a dirty past are essentially being told that if they confess and cooperate they will be sacked. That can only strengthen omerta.

Sky aren't going to become an espoirs team. They are going to continue to hire people with experience, as riders, in DS roles, in other support roles. And that means that they constantly risk hiring people with dirty pasts. They can't control that, no matter what their public stance is.

So they can be honest about that, as, to their credit, Garmin are. They don't pretend that nobody in their team has a dirty past. But they do have a public stance that they must (a) be clean now and (b) cooperate with official enquiries into their past. Or they can be dishonest about it, pretend that they would never hire someone with a past, even though they have no way of knowing who has a past, and then end up getting embarrassed and looking silly when names start popping up.

I have no problem with the idea of a "no dirty pasts" team, by the way. But the only way to actually do that with any degree of certainty is to only hire kids as riders and support staff with little or no experience. No World Tour team can realistically do that. And because they can't realistically do that, "zero tolerance" for people with dirty pasts is just hypocritical posturing.
 

Dr. Maserati

BANNED
Jun 19, 2009
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Don Quixote said:
Whilst these guys should be applauded for the efforts they are making in forging a cleaner future, and I really do respect them, I don't think they go far enough. Not by a long way. Perhaps it's because they have one hand tied behind their backs due to their own past mistakes - I can understand that they would not wish to be labelled hypocrites.

It concerns me that they are regarded by many as the future blueprint for how teams should be run. But are they?

DMs tweets today regarding Rabobank disappointed me, as does their reluctance to adopt a zero tolerance policy.

Sponsors have to run a risk assesment - and cycling like it or not, is high risk for sponsors.

Sad as Rabobanks departure is for the clean riders and staff on the team - it is dramatic actions like these, voluntarily or otherwise that really enforce change.

Perhaps this would clean up cycling:

i) The responsibility of doping control is removed from the UCI and given to WADA, or a newly formed independant body.

ii) A rider testing positive will be immediately suspended, and his Teams licence suspended until confirmation of the positive.

iii) If the positive is confirmed, the rider is invited to make a full disclosure to WADA - ie names, dates, doctors, dealers, everything.

iv) If the disclosure is forthcoming, the Team immediately regains its licence, and the rider is suspended for 6 months.

v) If the disclosure is not forthcoming, the Team cannot reapply for its licence for 12 months, and the rider is banned for 2 yrs.

Individual and collective responsibility - carries more weight, no?
Great stuff, you asked a good question -and you gave a great answer. You should have asked the mods to close it quick.;)

As pointed out, the simple answer is no.

As an aside though, while both are vocal - I am not sure they want any particular role. But as they are among the few to be vocal it looks like they have a bigger input.
But I don't think they should be silenced, they know what went on - so they are in a great position to know the solutions too.

They do have roles to play, but it should be minor and they should stick to them.
JV should concentrate on his team, ensuring that it is an environment that is clean.
Millar - he really should not go beyond what he knows, and just talk about his experiences, particularly his downfall. Saying this team or that team is stupid.


Quite frankly - I dont understand why they get discussed so often, a lot of bandwidth is wasted on their every comment.

The solutions you propose are the way forward, and if you look none of them have to do with what a team owner or rider would have to say. Its a system.
 
Suspending a team's licence if a rider tests positive and then doesn't name names isn't a terrible idea in principle, but the details could be extremely problematic.

Particularly when quite a number of caught dopers aren't going to be overly concerned about the length of their suspension because they are effectively finished anyway (eg they are at the end of their careers or they were doping to find a new contract). In other words, the type of dopers least likely to be doing it at the behest of their team are also the type of dopers with the least to gain by cooperating.

There's also the broader point that teams really can't absolutely prevent riders from doping. They can create an environment where riders are pressured not to dope rather than pressured to dope. But they have no real means of stopping a rider who is absolutely determined to dope and clever enough to get around internal as well as external controls.

Say you are a clean rider on a team that is, at least to your knowledge, also clean. Then some dude who is on the verge of unemployment because he's not making the grade, goes and, on his own initiative, gets hold of some EPO, takes it inexpertly, gets popped and, knowing that his career is over anyway, doesn't cooperate. Should you really have your career seriously screwed with?
 

Dr. Maserati

BANNED
Jun 19, 2009
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Don Quixote said:
<snipped to point>

Perhaps this would clean up cycling:

i) The responsibility of doping control is removed from the UCI and given to WADA, or a newly formed independant body.

ii) A rider testing positive will be immediately suspended, and his Teams licence suspended until confirmation of the positive.

iii) If the positive is confirmed, the rider is invited to make a full disclosure to WADA - ie names, dates, doctors, dealers, everything.

iv) If the disclosure is forthcoming, the Team immediately regains its licence, and the rider is suspended for 6 months.

v) If the disclosure is not forthcoming, the Team cannot reapply for its licence for 12 months, and the rider is banned for 2 yrs.

Individual and collective responsibility - carries more weight, no?

Overall you have hit it.
My thoughts have always been that a system should be in place that it would not matter if Bruyneel started a new team called Amgen and had Ferrari as their Doctor the system would quickly expose any problems.

I completely agree that more than a rider needs to punished.
However - I do think points 2 and on need minor adjustments.

If a rider was to test positive under that scenario he could pull a 'Frei' - I did it on my own without the teams knowledge.

The other side is - what happens if a rider is found by the team to have doped, but not by the ADA? We can call this the Sky dilemma- there needs to be a way that a team would not be punished for removing that rider.

However - there needs to be some protection for riders too (the Gusev dilemma) - where a team cannot just fire or remove someone by suggesting they doped (by error, or worse by deceit).
Appreciate any thoughts on the points.
 
Sep 2, 2012
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Dr Maserati - thanks for the feedback, not sure if this makes sense:

How the system would work in practice wrt (ii-v):

Teams would insure themselves against this risk.

Each rider would carry his own risk profile based on factors the insurers would no doubt decide - they are pretty good at risk assessment.

Factors possibly affecting a riders risk profile, and corresponding premium:

Past doping convictions.

Previous associations with suspect teams and doctors.

Age.

Year of contract.

Substantial team discounts maybe available for:

Full team release of 12 month blood data.

As you can see, it's simply more expensive for Teams to employ ex-doped or suspect riders because they carry more risk.

If riders want to lie about their history when they're risk assessed, they're committing insurance fraud. If the Teams are turning a blind eye - they are taking a very large gamble indeed.

Pulling a Frei - The Team still loses its licence. Do you think it would legally be a difficult condition of the licence to enforce?

The other side is - what happens if a rider is found by the team to have doped, but not by the ADA? We can call this the Sky dilemma- there needs to be a way that a team would not be punished for removing that rider

If a Team discovers something they would be legally obliged to make disclosure to the insurers. Also a licence condition would also be to notify the ADA. There would be no Team punishment in this scenario.

However - there needs to be some protection for riders too (the Gusev dilemma) - where a team cannot just fire or remove someone by suggesting they doped (by error, or worse by deceit)

If a rider is unhappy with his risk rating, he could argue his case with the insurer. Perhaps he could reduce his premium by individually releasing all his blood data and volunteering for extra controls/testing.

Any thoughts?