The overarching question for anti-doping

[nhowson]

Why does cycling make itself look like the only sport where athletes are doping?

 

[the delgados]

Why does cycling make itself look like the only sport where athletes are doping?

Because the athletes have admitted doping is part of the sport.

 

[nhowson]

Because the athletes have admitted doping is part of the sport.

Then how did cycling break omerta down when other sports haven't able to?

 

[Archibald]

Then how did cycling break omerta down when other sports haven't able to?

While I'm not as offay (sp?) with some other sports, could you point at other athletes of other sports as them being the "Bassons", "Llandis" or "Hamilton" of the specific sport?

Let's face it, the biggest busts in professional sports are the likes of the Festina and/or Puerto - which other sports have had similar sized busts? Could you compare or liken that suitcase found in the Chinese hotel room in Perth at the swimming worlds a few years back to either Puerto or Festina in terms of scale?

 

[Pazuzu]

Why does cycling make itself look like the only sport where athletes are doping?

Does it? There have been numerous doping scandals in cross-country skiing, track and field and major league baseball. Just a couple of years ago, no one was elected to the baseball hall of fame because all of the big names eligible for induction that year were linked to doping.

 

[42x16ss]

While I'm not as offay (sp?) with some other sports, could you point at other athletes of other sports as them being the "Bassons", "Llandis" or "Hamilton" of the specific sport?

Let's face it, the biggest busts in professional sports are the likes of the Festina and/or Puerto - which other sports have had similar sized busts? Could you compare or liken that suitcase found in the Chinese hotel room in Perth at the swimming worlds a few years back to either Puerto or Festina in terms of scale?

The one thing that Cycling has going against it is logistics. The riders are constantly moving, whether it's from stage to stage during a GT/Stage race or with classics held on consecutive days or a few days apart.

Festina were busted because they had to get the goods around from town to town, along with the riders. Motoman was used by USPS for the same reason. This increases the potential to be caught by a long margin.

Even though a Tennis Grand Slam, for instance, goes for 2 weeks the players arrive in the country weeks beforehand and will be based in the same city and even the same hotel for long periods. They also have 1-2 days between matches to get levels correct, flush out substances etc.

IMO anyway, this is why most of the successful busts occur during, or from info gathered during GT's. Between moving doping products constantly and competing every day for such a long period, it's a matter of time before there's a slip up on someone's part.

 

[nhowson]

The one thing that Cycling has going against it is logistics. The riders are constantly moving, whether it's from stage to stage during a GT/Stage race or with classics held on consecutive days or a few days apart.

Festina were busted because they had to get the goods around from town to town, along with the riders. Motoman was used by USPS for the same reason. This increases the potential to be caught by a long margin.

Even though a Tennis Grand Slam, for instance, goes for 2 weeks the players arrive in the country weeks beforehand and will be based in the same city and even the same hotel for long periods. They also have 1-2 days between matches to get levels correct, flush out substances etc.

IMO anyway, this is why most of the successful busts occur during, or from info gathered during GT's. Between moving doping products constantly and competing every day for such a long period, it's a matter of time before there's a slip up on someone's part.

Very good reasoning, this is the sort of answer I'm really looking for.

 

[The Hitch]

Its a good question, one Ive thought about before and which has been addressed on some level here but never directly I guess.

From what ive seen people generally look for satisfying answers. That's because the media generally gives sports fans very simple narratives. eg x is a good guy and wins. Y is a bad guy and loses. Z trains really hard and wins. w watched some tape and changed his technique and won. o got injured and lost. Etc.

So people do try to often satisfying easy to fit answers for this too. A stupid but popular media narritive is that cycling is the only sport where doping really works. The people who actually profit from cycling (cyclists, journos, managers and UCI) say its because cycling is the only sport that combats doping. Equally stupid imo though it has some merits.
People in the clinic might give some similar all encompassing answers. Like that it was down to individuals (ive heard it said on here many times, both with Armstrong and Sky that if they (Armstrong in 1999, Sky in 2012) didn't start doping, doping would have disapeared. I think that's equally stupid.

More logical would be to blame another short term factor- the Festina Affair. If those bags weren't discovered that day, cycling doping history would probably be different. I think much of the suspicion that has been neccesary to bring down cyclists comes from that day. Its been on the back foot ever since, and while the UCI has totally failed at fighting the suspicion, I don't think any body would fair any better.

My answers though would be to look more at the structure of cycling.

1 Its the world's biggest endurance sport, and for that matter the world's biggest sport that relies almost entirely on physiological ability. This makes cyclists the biggest targets for those who want to push the narrative that doping only exists in physiological sports.

2 The lack of money in cycling compared to bigger sports creates a greater doping imbalance, with some teams able to afford better doping programmes, or have the contacts for better doctors. Imbalance creates parties who are losing out due to doping, who therefore have a greater interest in anti doping.

3 cycling's weird team structure makes it far easier than pretty much any other sport for information to flow throughout the sport, allowing secrets to become widely known. Firstly there's no base for teams like in other sports since they don't represent a location but a firm, and they spend much of their time in the exact same location (be it Tenerife or the race itself) as loads of other teams. So Cyclists are constantly in contact with eachother accross teams.
They also switch from teams to other teams all the time, decreasing the loyalty and expanding the networks.
Finally there is not much competition between many teams and historically hardly any rivalry between them at all. Which means there is little stopping 2 riders from seperate teams discussing issues like doping.
All this results in 2 riders from seperate teams having the means, the acquaintance and the lack of consequences to discuss doping with eachother.

The relationships in other team sports are closed circuit. The relationship in individual sports are too weak to allow talk like that.
But loose lips sink ships and in cycling the boys talk amongst eachother.

4 The extremely unique non top heavy nature to cycling greatly increases the probability of a scandal. I don't know of any other sports that have 1000 pros but the top guy only earns £5 million.
As a result a) there are a lot of people that can test positive in cycling and b) they do a lot of race days.
Take say 100m where there are about 10 people with a wikipedia page doing 20 races a year, vs 400 world tour cyclists doing 60-80 race days. If you assume both sports dope equally and you were to test each athlete equally on a race day per test basis you would get significantly more scandals in cycling.

The other sports which have similar numbers of athletes and days are all powerful enough to avoid testing. Which brings me to

5) Cycling is powerful enough to have loads of athletes but not powerful enough to fight the media on doping. Like Football and tennis who manage to only test their top guys a handful of times a year can. They also don't have blood passports etc. In short cycling is weak enough to fall under pressure of anti doping.

6) Lack of loyalty to the teams. The teams, being commercial means they can't rely on fan groups ready to defend them. Individual riders can but its not enough.
Perhaps no surprise that the 2 major exceptions to this rule, teams that have been able to fight doping accusations by relying on a fanbase, have been national teams.

 

[the sceptic]

The one thing that Cycling has going against it is logistics. The riders are constantly moving, whether it's from stage to stage during a GT/Stage race or with classics held on consecutive days or a few days apart.

Festina were busted because they had to get the goods around from town to town, along with the riders. Motoman was used by USPS for the same reason. This increases the potential to be caught by a long margin.

Even though a Tennis Grand Slam, for instance, goes for 2 weeks the players arrive in the country weeks beforehand and will be based in the same city and even the same hotel for long periods. They also have 1-2 days between matches to get levels correct, flush out substances etc.

IMO anyway, this is why most of the successful busts occur during, or from info gathered during GT's. Between moving doping products constantly and competing every day for such a long period, it's a matter of time before there's a slip up on someone's part.

I think that's a good point. Certainly in every major team sport everyone can dope in the comfort of their own facilities without having to worry about testing.

Other than that I think cycling isn't powerful enough to sweep the big scandals under the carpet. Does anyone even remember that Juventus used to have a teamwide EPO program for years?

When the same thing happens in cycling, the media will scapegoat the sport, people will call for more tests, more riders will test positive, more outrage. etc etc.

 

[the delgados]

Then how did cycling break omerta down when other sports haven't able to?

My take is that pro cyclists do not have a union to protect the interests of those who participate in the sport and generate money for the sponsors.
A lot of people think that there's an adversarial relationship between the workers and their bosses, but pro sports are different. I'm pretty sure that pro players unions in North America (NFL, NBA, NHL) work together with their bosses to ensure that their is a general consensus among both sides that the PED issue is dealt with in a superficial matter that satisfies the public--i.e. they negotiate a bogus drug testing program that makes it look as though the issue is being dealt with.
Cyclists have always been on their own, and it was only a matter of time before someone almost lost their life (Manzano?) or someone just got ****ed off enough to call BS on the entire system.
P.S. I haven't read other responses to your question, so I apologize if I'm
repeating other responses.

 

[D-Queued]

Why does cycling make itself look like the only sport where athletes are doping?

You have somehow managed to overlook swimming and athletics. Both are long notorious. Moreover, please consider the 'sport' of body building. Where would it be without steroids?

Fair enough to overlook these, and Pazuzu's examples, though.

With respect to Hitch's, sceptic's, and 42x16ss' observations, yes, there may be some structural issues that catalyze or exacerbate the situation, but these are peripheral to the fundamentals of the sport itself.

If there were no advantage to doping, there would be no doping. Ergo, where there is considerable advantage to doping then we can expect the fundamental opportunity for a strong association.

Thus, to your question, please consider this continuum:

Aerobic capacity / muscular strength <-----------------------> Skill

Yes, there are drugs that can help with concentration, but doping's benefits are far more obvious when physical capacity alone is the primary competitive advantage.

Thus, it should not be surprising that sports like weightlifting, track sprinting and women's swimming have long doping pedigrees.

On the other hand, Oxygen vector drugs are not going to help much with darts or billiards. Nor are steroids.

In cycling, think of the donkey to racehorse analogy.

In fact, let's think of racehorses specifically.

A jockey can hold a horse back to increase the odds for their next race. And they can hold them back so that they don't go too fast out of the gate or along the backstretch. But, a jockey can't run for the horse. For the horse to win, doping is more likely than the jockey to make the horse fast.

You can't teach a horse to shoot pool or perform brain surgery, but you can dope them to go fast.

Horse racing features some of cycling's old friends like Testosterone, morphine/heroin and Amphetamines along with diuretics like Lasix (estimated to be in 95% of all racehorses today)... Should we be surprised that what works in horses has often then been applied to cyclists? Is there any surprise that EPO doping is a problem in horse racing?

Doping in horses is not limited to the track. 'Soring' is endemic in Tennessee Walking Horse competitions to make them raise their hoofs higher.

Nice.

Thus, first and foremost, cycling is associated with doping because doping provides such an enormous benefit to race outcomes, and because many a cyclist has elected to volunteer for the doping program.

That cycling cannot kick the habit is strongly influenced by the factors that others have cited.

But, doping comes first (sic). Literally and metaphorically.

If there were some other, better way for Lance to win, he and others would have pursued that option instead. His much documented bribery of fellow cyclists gets nowhere near the coverage that it would seemingly otherwise deserve.

Dave.

 

[MarkvW]

Then how did cycling break omerta down when other sports haven't able to?

Pro cyclists lack anything like a meaningful union. They could fight for a CBA that gives them negotiated antidoping provisions, but they don't. They're not organized at all.

 

[Netserk]

I guess cyclists are forever doomed as Les Forçats de la Route.

 

[melkemugg]

Drug crazed freaks are part of the charm imo

 

[the sceptic]

Drug crazed freaks are part of the charm imo

The doping circus in cycling definitely makes it more entertaining.

JV becoming the anti doping messiah, Walsh turning into a PR bot for sky, Cookson spinning faster than vortex to bring cycling into the "new era" is all highly entertaining. That stuff would never happen in other sports where "the tests are working" is still all you have to say.

 

[Electress]

Part of it is that doping is now enshrined within the media narrative about the sport in a way that hasn't happened in more mainstream sports. Yes, this is because bigger sports are better able to protect themselves, but it is also partly related to the media narrative coming out of the 80s in regard to doping in mainstream sports like athletics - i.e. that it was the Evil Empire beyond the iron curtain that were mainly doing it, with only the odd naughty American trying to level the playing field…that established a kind of holier than thou / good versus evil approach to say, athletics which I think still makes readers and fans a bit reluctant to delve too deeply into their underbelly. Added to which, cycling continues to be an effective lightning rod for doping for all those other sports.

Changing a narrative is very hard once it's established…'Cyclists don't dope!' is hardly a shocking exclusive from the point of view of selling newspapers.

 

[zebedee]

Why does cycling make itself look like the only sport where athletes are doping?

I'd question your premise as I don't think cycling does look like the only sport.
Athletics must give cycling a close run at least.

For a explanation of the phenomenon generally, Professor Hoberman's dissertions remain hard to beat, e.g:-

http://velonews.competitor.com/2012...explores-cultural-phenomenon-of-doping_265230

It's somewhat ironic that Hoberman comes from Austin, Texas.

 

[grizzlee]

The doping circus in cycling definitely makes it more entertaining.

JV becoming the anti doping messiah, Walsh turning into a PR bot for sky, Cookson spinning faster than vortex to bring cycling into the "new era" is all highly entertaining. That stuff would never happen in other sports where "the tests are working" is still all you have to say.

Look can you please stop derailing every ****ing thread with JV.

Im really getting ****ed off about this. There is a thread specifically about JV. Can you please post in there. Im not exaggerating when I say you bring his name up in every thread in here. You have an unhealthy obsession with him and its getting quite boring. I am in no way sticking up for JV or saying that I believe what he says. Its just there are just as many other topics on doping to talk about and not just J ****ING V.

Are there any mods left in here at all?

RANT OVER

 

[More Strides than Rides]

Agree with everything mentioned so far, but two more.

A doped football player, or tennis player, or golfer(!) gets on the cover of magazines with their shirt off. Doped athletes become an idealized image of athleticism. A doped cyclist without their shirt on: that incredible picture of Rasmussen, or Wiggans. Think about the way LA rallied support and was able to portray his narrative of hard working natural athlete through imagery/media.

Also, while the clinic seemed to have debunked the "epo caused deaths in the peloton" myth, there was still a myth. I can't think of another sport with as direct of a relationship (real or imagined) between doping and death. We do get some "Steroids make your balls shrink" blah blah loz, but that is usually only in the conext of body builders, not the athletes on magazine covers showing off how much of a man they really are.

 

[nhowson]

Look can you please stop derailing every ****ing thread with JV.

Im really getting ****ed off about this. There is a thread specifically about JV. Can you please post in there. Im not exaggerating when I say you bring his name up in every thread in here. You have an unhealthy obsession with him and its getting quite boring. I am in no way sticking up for JV or saying that I believe what he says. Its just there are just as many other topics on doping to talk about and not just J ****ING V.

Are there any mods left in here at all?

RANT OVER

He just used it as an example man, chill out. JV is an interesting character and he certainly feels that way, and as a result it's at the forefront of thesceptic's mind. Nothing unusual. It's just like how I use the attack to Tours in 2013 more than Fuenté De when talking about Contador because I watched that stage but didn't get a chance to see Vuelta 2012 because I was in Wales with no TV/internet coverage at all.

 

[grizzlee]

He just used it as an example man, chill out. JV is an interesting character and he certainly feels that way, and as a result it's at the forefront of thesceptic's mind. Nothing unusual. It's just like how I use the attack to Tours in 2013 more than Fuenté De when talking about Contador because I watched that stage but didn't get a chance to see Vuelta 2012 because I was in Wales with no TV/internet coverage at all.

Its not that I have a problem with JV being referenced to doping, hell he deserves most of it. But doping didn't start or END with him. Its the constant reference and smart comments that is annoying. Its getting very childish, surely to god there is other ways to convey a point?

 

[ray j willings]

Its a good question, one Ive thought about before and which has been addressed on some level here but never directly I guess.

From what ive seen people generally look for satisfying answers. That's because the media generally gives sports fans very simple narratives. eg x is a good guy and wins. Y is a bad guy and loses. Z trains really hard and wins. w watched some tape and changed his technique and won. o got injured and lost. Etc.

So people do try to often satisfying easy to fit answers for this too. A stupid but popular media narritive is that cycling is the only sport where doping really works. The people who actually profit from cycling (cyclists, journos, managers and UCI) say its because cycling is the only sport that combats doping. Equally stupid imo though it has some merits.
People in the clinic might give some similar all encompassing answers. Like that it was down to individuals (ive heard it said on here many times, both with Armstrong and Sky that if they (Armstrong in 1999, Sky in 2012) didn't start doping, doping would have disapeared. I think that's equally stupid.

More logical would be to blame another short term factor- the Festina Affair. If those bags weren't discovered that day, cycling doping history would probably be different. I think much of the suspicion that has been neccesary to bring down cyclists comes from that day. Its been on the back foot ever since, and while the UCI has totally failed at fighting the suspicion, I don't think any body would fair any better.

My answers though would be to look more at the structure of cycling.

1 Its the world's biggest endurance sport, and for that matter the world's biggest sport that relies almost entirely on physiological ability. This makes cyclists the biggest targets for those who want to push the narrative that doping only exists in physiological sports.

2 The lack of money in cycling compared to bigger sports creates a greater doping imbalance, with some teams able to afford better doping programmes, or have the contacts for better doctors. Imbalance creates parties who are losing out due to doping, who therefore have a greater interest in anti doping.

3 cycling's weird team structure makes it far easier than pretty much any other sport for information to flow throughout the sport, allowing secrets to become widely known. Firstly there's no base for teams like in other sports since they don't represent a location but a firm, and they spend much of their time in the exact same location (be it Tenerife or the race itself) as loads of other teams. So Cyclists are constantly in contact with eachother accross teams.
They also switch from teams to other teams all the time, decreasing the loyalty and expanding the networks.
Finally there is not much competition between many teams and historically hardly any rivalry between them at all. Which means there is little stopping 2 riders from seperate teams discussing issues like doping.
All this results in 2 riders from seperate teams having the means, the acquaintance and the lack of consequences to discuss doping with eachother.

The relationships in other team sports are closed circuit. The relationship in individual sports are too weak to allow talk like that.
But loose lips sink ships and in cycling the boys talk amongst eachother.

4 The extremely unique non top heavy nature to cycling greatly increases the probability of a scandal. I don't know of any other sports that have 1000 pros but the top guy only earns £5 million.
As a result a) there are a lot of people that can test positive in cycling and b) they do a lot of race days.
Take say 100m where there are about 10 people with a wikipedia page doing 20 races a year, vs 400 world tour cyclists doing 60-80 race days. If you assume both sports dope equally and you were to test each athlete equally on a race day per test basis you would get significantly more scandals in cycling.

The other sports which have similar numbers of athletes and days are all powerful enough to avoid testing. Which brings me to

5) Cycling is powerful enough to have loads of athletes but not powerful enough to fight the media on doping. Like Football and tennis who manage to only test their top guys a handful of times a year can. They also don't have blood passports etc. In short cycling is weak enough to fall under pressure of anti doping.

6) Lack of loyalty to the teams. The teams, being commercial means they can't rely on fan groups ready to defend them. Individual riders can but its not enough.
Perhaps no surprise that the 2 major exceptions to this rule, teams that have been able to fight doping accusations by relying on a fanbase, have been national teams.

Or because since day 1, taking substance's was a must to survive a race round a whole country and also the UCI are crap.

 

[Benotti69]

Look can you please stop derailing every ****ing thread with JV.

Im really getting ****ed off about this. There is a thread specifically about JV. Can you please post in there. Im not exaggerating when I say you bring his name up in every thread in here. You have an unhealthy obsession with him and its getting quite boring. I am in no way sticking up for JV or saying that I believe what he says. Its just there are just as many other topics on doping to talk about and not just J ****ING V.

Are there any mods left in here at all?

RANT OVER

JV is an important component in the myth building that doping is done by a minority.

The more this myth is dispelled the better. JV cant get slammed enough IMO.

 

[blackcat]

While I'm not as offay (sp?) with some other sports, could you point at other athletes of other sports as them being the "Bassons", "Llandis" or "Hamilton" of the specific sport?

Let's face it, the biggest busts in professional sports are the likes of the Festina and/or Puerto - which other sports have had similar sized busts? Could you compare or liken that suitcase found in the Chinese hotel room in Perth at the swimming worlds a few years back to either Puerto or Festina in terms of scale?

au fait


see most Athletics World Champs from a decade ago and backwards, always found hypodermics in the rooms when the maids were cleaning them out

 

[DirtyWorks]

Very good reasoning, this is the sort of answer I'm really looking for.

IOC is okay with doping, just don't affect their sponsors. That's the core of all the doping stories in IOC sport.

Cycling isn't even the first of the worst. The Hoberman link provided really breaks it all down beautifully.