Here's why I don't care about not punishing riders who admit to previous doping offences in a T&R commission.
Firstly, I do not believe that the riders themselves are the ones largely at fault for doping. Yes they make a decision about whether to inject or not to inject, to pop that pill or not to pop that pill, but it is my belief that the ones to blame are largely the institutions of the sport. Corrupt national and international federations, generations of managers pressing doping onto riders from a young age. In life, most people follow societal rules not official rules. We behave as society tells us, not as the law does; often law influences society, but occasionally it does not. You have here a situation where young men enter a tight-knit community in which it must be difficult to maintain friendships outside of this world - they are desperate to fit it and do what they can to do so, and it doesn't feel wrong because everyone is doing it.
It is my view that bans are in place not necessarily to punish a rider per se but to set up an incentive structure to try and get them not to dope, or at the very least to make doping harder. As such, when a good proportion of those likely to be testifying are either retired or at the tail-end of their careers, I don't think you can say that any post-dated result-stripping and/or fines are an incentive to get one of the desired results; less doping. All they are is a disincentive to get other desired results; the truth being one, and possibly as a consequence of that truth, less future doping as rotten individuals are rooted out.
If this is done correctly, it will be a one-off. The aim is to clean things up and I don't believe the message sent out will be "it's fine, I can dope, in 20 years there will be a T&R and I'll get off free". Frankly all the confessions we are going to get are from those who have already gotten away with it. Without this process and some kind of incentive to confess (or at the very least removal of the huge disincentives currently in place) we will never hear these stories. It is not as though backdated testing is suddenly going to implicate 500 riders and the T&R is a handy way of them getting immunity from impending punishments. They are already immune.
In this situation, it is clear in my view that punishments for riders are counterproductive. There are plenty of other people who could be punished. Administrators, managers and doctors will all likely see testimony against them and need not be protected by the T&R. Those people can be punished if charges stick, or if not then at the very least their positions will be put under scrutiny. A team hiring a doctor who doped riders for 10 years will be asked "What is he doing on your staff?". Managers found to have been pressuring young riders into doping can be asked "Are you fit to run a cycling team?". Administrators shown to have turned blind eyes and taken bribes will be asked "Are you fit to be running a sport?". There are plenty of people who share a lot of blame for the condition of cycling as it is now who stand to lose a lot from this commission, and I think that is why we are not going to see it. Even if there are no official consequences for anyone, it is not hard to see that we will have unofficial ones whatever happens.
The Clinic is often accused (fairly) of being extremely speculative - drawing potentially damaging conclusions from limited facts. What is not examined by those who like to make that accusation is why there are so few facts. There are few facts because there are concerted efforts in place to suppress facts about doping coming out. To me the fact that Pat McQuaid does not want us to hear something is, in itself, more or less a good enough reason for wanting to hear it. Is this drawing a line under past doping? Yes, in a sense, but unlike previous lines it will not be drawn by those in charge, they will not even be able to control it. Does it say "Past offences are okay."? No, I do not believe it does. To me it says "they are what they are, but for the sake of the future we have to do some things that in an ideal world we might not". We are always told by cycling's powers that be "the past was the past, let's look to the future" without actually knowing what the past was. This is a once in a generation opportunity to find out what it was, and to use that information to better the future. I suggest we take it.
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