Time for zero tolerance?

[Broccolidwarf]

Yet another doping scandal, this time Cardoso.

These things keep cropping up in cycling, and continuously destroy the sport.

In this day and age, where the world tour teams are such professional organisations, there is absolutely no way a rider can use EPO, without the team knowing about it.

That teams keep feigning innocence, whenever a rider is caught, is ridiculous.

I think it is time for the UCI to impose a zero-tolerance position on doping.

I suggest:

- Any rider caught doping, will result in his/her team being banned from competition for 6 months
- Any rider caught doping, will receive a lifetime ban from the sport, including in an administrative capacity
- All former dopers are banned from the sport, including in administrative positions

(yeah, the last one is impossible, I know, but I still think it would be the right way to go )

 

[portugal11]

I want epo to be legal. Cycling is full of hypocrites, everyone is a doper

 

[BigMac]

pitchfork out

I think governmental forces should just arrest everyone at the Aigle building, set an interim administration and do some proper cleansing to the sport.

 

[miguelindurain111]

Re:

I want epo to be legal. Cycling is full of hypocrites, everyone is a doper

Agreed. However hct/hb limits are still needed to prevent riders to get full *** and killing themselves. Would be bad for the business.

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

I want epo to be legal. Cycling is full of hypocrites, everyone is a doper

Agreed. However hct/hb limits are still needed to prevent riders to get full *** and killing themselves. Would be bad for the business.

I agree

 

[hrotha]

I don't want a drug with important medical uses to be freely available in an open market thankyouverymuch.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Tme for zero tolerance?

These things keep cropping up in cycling, and continuously destroy the sport.

We have anti-doping tests. No one - no one - believes doping will ever be eradicated: we can't eradicate speeding, bank robbery or rape, why should we succeed with doping? Curtailed and controlled is the best that is hoped for. So: we are always going to have someone testing positive. What do we do when we get someone testing positive? Do we take heart that someone has been caught? Or do we scream and scream and scream and condemn the system and demand new, harsher penalties? Why lifetime bans? Is Caruso a recidivist? What is the evidence of recidivism that says the existing bans aren't sufficient? Is there any evidence - any at all - that longer bans will offer more of a disincentive to dope? Historically, as we moved from six months in the off-season to two years and four years, is there any evidence to suggest that increasing the punishment decreased the incidence of doping? Yet still the cry goes up: longer bans! I'm sorry, it's a typical, ill-informed knee-jerk response and I really do wish we could get past these things at this stage.

 

[King Boonen]

Zero tolerance doesn't work.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

I want epo to be legal. Cycling is full of hypocrites, everyone is a doper

Agreed. However hct/hb limits are still needed to prevent riders to get full *** and killing themselves. Would be bad for the business.

So let's follow this logic to its ultimate conclusion:

1) Anti-doping system doesn't work
2) Legalise doping (with EPO)
3) To protect athletes, set hct/hb limits
4) To ensure that hct/hb limits are working implement an anti-doping system
5) Anti-doping system doesn't work

 

[spalco]

Re:

Zero tolerance doesn't work.

It could also be legally questionable if people are unreasonably barred from working; especially the team-ban idea, because that would include innocent people also in athletes and staff.

I don't know exactly what legal precedence exists on this, but my initial feeling is that a punishment like that wouldn't be in accordance with EU law.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

It could also be legally questionable if people are unreasonably barred from working; especially the team-ban idea, because that would include innocent people also in athletes and staff.

And yet a variant of the team ban currently exists: whole teams can be put on the naughty step. Odd how so many seem to have not noticed it.

And banning riders from working in the sport? We failed to get it backdated but we do do it.

No licence to participate in the sport as Staff under clause 1.1.010 (general manager, team manager, coach, doctor, paramedical assistant, mechanic, driver, riders’ agent or other function as specified on the licence) shall be granted to a person who has been found by an appropriate body to have violated as an athlete the UCI’s Anti-Doping Rules or the anti-doping rules of any other organisation.

However, a licence may be granted if all three of the following conditions are fulfilled:

(1) the person concerned committed a violation only once,

(2) the said violation was not sanctioned with an ineligibility for two years or more, and

(3) five years have elapsed between the moment of the violation and the first day of the year for which the licence is granted.

Furthermore, no licence to participate in the sport as a staff member under clause 1.1.010 shall be granted to a person who has been found by a court of law or other competent body to have been guilty of facts which can reasonably be considered to be equivalent to a violation of the UCI’s Anti Doping Rules and who was a medical doctor at the time of such facts.

This clause applies in case of violations committed as from 1st July 2011.

 

[Catwhoorg]

Re:

Zero tolerance doesn't work.

Sadly.

It was my desires years, ago, then I got to know more about the systems.


I do think WADA ought to look at certain classifications of drugs that there is zero chance of accidental ingestion, such as EPO and some other hormones, and create a separate level of offense for them.

Proof of use through positive or police work, being enough to trigger a higher level ban (I'm thinking double, so 8 years for first offense)

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

I do think WADA ought to look at certain classifications of drugs that there is zero chance of accidental ingestion, such as EPO and some other hormones, and create a separate level of offense for them.

Pat McQuaid was pushing for that, but for some reason people believed Brian Cookson ought to replace him. (McQuaid, it should also be said, was boss when the rule banning future participation in the sport was brought in.)

The problem with the two tier system is that you are seen as being soft on - condoning the use of - the lower tier of doping products. Look at the way the effective two tier system we currently have deals with clenbuterol and the annoyance expressed by many when someone skates for eating a dodgy steak.

 

[Benotti69]

How do you change a culture that doesn't want to change?

Nearly everyone ( i would argue 99.999999999%) in the sport accept doping as part of the sport and all benefit from it whether from win money or just simply keeping their job.

Need to destroy the sport and rebuild it from the bottom with people who dont have the previous culture of doping as an acceptable part of the sport ingrained in their DNA. Not going to happen.

 

[StryderHells]

Re:

Zero tolerance doesn't work.

Spot on! It amazes me that people think Zero tolerance works when it comes to drugs on any level of society

 

[Pazuzu]

Re: Re:

I want epo to be legal. Cycling is full of hypocrites, everyone is a doper

Agreed. However hct/hb limits are still needed to prevent riders to get full *** and killing themselves. Would be bad for the business.

So let's follow this logic to its ultimate conclusion:

1) Anti-doping system doesn't work
2) Legalise doping (with EPO)
3) To protect athletes, set hct/hb limits
4) To ensure that hct/hb limits are working implement an anti-doping system
5) Anti-doping system doesn't work

It would basically be a CYA to show the UCI was doing its due diligence to protect riders from themselves. if a rider exceeded the sanctioned limits and dies, it'd be his or her own fault.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

I thought tolerance was already on the ban list

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

Zero tolerance doesn't work.

It could also be legally questionable if people are unreasonably barred from working; especially the team-ban idea, because that would include innocent people also in athletes and staff.

I don't know exactly what legal precedence exists on this, but my initial feeling is that a punishment like that wouldn't be in accordance with EU law.

I'm sure it is legally questionable. Many take sport very seriously but we have to remember that it's just a job. People do things all the time in different jobs for a variety of reasons that are wrong and we don't ban them for life from that job, the same must be true in sport.

And you are correct about banning whole teams, it's probably on very shaky grounds. I don't really have a problem with it as long as it's proportional, there has to be some way to hold teams to account, but it needs to be done as fairly as possible.

[quote="King Boonen":w38n15yk]Zero tolerance doesn't work.

Spot on! It amazes me that people think Zero tolerance works when it comes to drugs on any level of society[/quote]

Yep, and not just with drugs. Zero tolerance just pushes the activity underground and stops people talking about it. Bans on alcohol, the death penalty and so on are very good examples of where zero tolerance has failed and does fail to make a difference.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

I'm sure it is legally questionable.

And yet we have the ban and no one's questioning it. Explain, please.

And you are correct about banning whole teams, it's probably on very shaky grounds.

I've not heard many rumbles when the teams that have been banned so far get sent to the naughty step - have you?

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

I'm sure it is legally questionable.

And yet we have the ban and no one's questioning it. Explain, please.

And you are correct about banning whole teams, it's probably on very shaky grounds.

I've not heard many rumbles when the teams that have been banned so far get sent to the naughty step - have you?

The explanations are in the parts which you deleted.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

The explanations are in the parts which you deleted.

If they were I wouldn't be asking you for them.

You speak of these rules as if they were hypothetical. They're real. Where are the legal challenges against them you - and others here - say you believe would arise?

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

The explanations are in the parts which you deleted.

If they were I wouldn't be asking you for them.

You speak of these rules as if they were hypothetical. They're real. Where are the legal challenges against them you - and others here - say you believe would arise?

Seriously? You're a journalist(?) and you are asking me to link this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/cas-overturn-british-lifetime-olympic-ban-for-drug-cheats-7697509.html

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

Seriously? You're a journalist(?)

? Not something I've ever claimed.

The Oly ban is nothing like the working in sport or team bans. Try harder.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

Seriously? You're a journalist(?)

? Not something I've ever claimed.

The Oly ban is nothing like the working in sport or team bans. Try harder.

Oh, I though you were. wasn't implying you'd claimed it, just that your posts seem like a journalists.

It's exactly what Spalco and I were both talking about.

It could also be legally questionable if people are unreasonably barred from working

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

It's exactly what Spalco and I were both talking about.

It could also be legally questionable if people are unreasonably barred from working

Okay, I'm getting bored now but the last time: two such bans exist - stooping riders from working in the sport and stopping teams from racing - WHERE ARE THE LEGAL CHALLENGES?