UCI Forbids Convicted Dopers from Team Management

[orbis_25]

I've been wondering the same thing. Does the rule apply if you're caught doping before 1 July and become a director after that date, or only if you're caught doping after 1 July?

My other concern with this is that this is a blanket ban on convicted dopers, regardless of their attitudes after being caught. So, someone like David Millar (who now appears staunchly anti-doping. Yes, I said appears, not is. No need to call me out for being naive) is banned from working in the sport, but Alessandro Ballan (the first shady, unconvicted name that sprung to mind) is free to do whatever he wants. It's great that the UCI is trying to limit harmful influences on a new generation of riders, but such a simple limitation is not the answer. This rule prohibits riders who have first hand experience of the dangers (physical, mental, financial...) of doping, and who have repented, from spreading that awareness, while allowing those who played the system and won to pass on that knowledge.

Of course, I don't have a better solution. You can't just arbitrarily ban riders you think are dopers, otherwise we'd have no directors (or riders for that matter).

 

[orbis_25]

Here's the text of the rule:

"Article 1.1.006.2

No licence to participate in the sport as Staff under clause 1.1.010 (general manager, team manager, coach, doctor, paramedical assistant, mechanic, driver 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."


So it appears that this only applies to riders caught doping after 1 July, not those who want to become staff after that date. There's an interesting exception in there, too, which on the face of it seems to allow riders who broke the omerta an opt-in. Or at least those who only got caught once, broke the silence and received a reduced ban for doing so, and can find a job five years later. Good luck with that.

 

[boomcie]

Wasn't DDL talking about going into management as well recently?

Just out of interest - has anyone got a list of all the current management in the PT who have doping convictions or admitted doping?

Admitted:

Riis
Aldag
Holm
Zabel
K.Anderson
González de Galdeano
Vaughters
Stephens
Breukink


Suspected:

Hog
Yates

Others?

Admitted:

Lefevere

 

[sniper]

Admitted:

Lefevere

suspected: Van Poppel

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

Gianetti not PT but notorious enough

 

[LukeSchmid]

Admitted: Allan Peiper
"I tried to race clean, most of the time"
http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/riders/2005/interviews/?id=allan_peiper05

 

[TERMINATOR]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-forbids-convicted-dopers-from-future-team-management-positions

To the extent that the sport needs to remove those that have done it damage from perpetuating the cycle of doping, this is a good policy.

The fact that this regulation will not be applied retrospectively is surely problematic, as is the fact that it requires the individual to be convicted of a doping offence (and so a future rider in the position of Bjarne Riis or Jonathan Vaughters, for instance, who received no such conviction yet have admitted to their doping would still be allowed a team management role).

If the UCI was serious about the "ethical" standard of teams they would be going much further than this to ensure that at the level of team management there is a break with the practices of the past. Why should the UCI arbitrarily exempt so many known users and pushers of drugs from this regulation?

Your take is absolutely correct. 100% of the dopers currently in the sport - this rule will have absolutely ZERO effect.

Even when Lance gets indicted and convicted and then USADA prosecutes him for doping charges, he will still be able to run a team even though he's the biggest fraud in cycling history and everybody knows it.

The UCI is a scam organization. They generate these press releases to make themselves look good and defer public criticism in the wake of Lance's slow train wreck. But even a superficial review of the proposed new rule shows it to be completely worthless.

This is just public relations campaign by the UCI to try to deflect the fact that they helped Lance get away with a career of deceit, the whole time claiming "there's no evidence."

When Lance is indicted and arrested (and he will be for those of you outside of America who think the prosecutors in the U.S. are like the ones in Europe), you'll see all the evidence - the evidence the UCI claims it couldn't find or didn't exist even though it was right in front of their nose.

You also have to remember Pat McQuaid who touts his anti-doping horn whenever he can.....he's the same guy who talks about how the doping statute of limitation is 8 years, but went out of his way to make sure there was no retrospective testing for CERA at the Giro that one year when all those guys got popped at the Tour for it.

Pat McQuaid makes sure most of these rules are never enforced.

 

[fujitourer]

Quite, and where is the equivalent resolution to remove officials who have overseen an era of rampant drug use and corruption from positions in the UCI...?

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Quite, and where is the equivalent resolution to remove officials who have overseen an era of rampant drug use and corruption from positions in the UCI...?

Bingo - and don't forget that Bugno and Roche are members of a UCI committee.

This rule is merely a PR stunt (although not nearly as good as my favorite the "Riders' commitment to a new cycling" - that all rides were forced to sign.)

It should not matter about someones past - the 'rules' in place should be that doping is almost impossible to do even if it is a team called EPO run by Dr. Ferrari.

 

[D-Queued]

Bingo - and don't forget that Bugno and Roche are members of a UCI committee.

This rule is merely a PR stunt (although not nearly as good as my favorite the "Riders' commitment to a new cycling" - that all rides were forced to sign.)

It should not matter about someones past - the 'rules' in place should be that doping is almost impossible to do even if it is a team called EPO run by Dr. Ferrari.

That.

Dave.

 

[isayic]

exactly.

this is just another measurement taken to keep the ignorant happy.

neither Riis nor Bruyneel were ever convicted.



why?
do we have a convicted doper in a teammanager position?

Riis confessed that he won the Tour with EPO. But he does a good job as team manager. Kim Anderson (Leopard-Trek) has a lifetime ban. David Millar wants to build a team after his active career. He's lucky that he will be able to do it. I think that the new rules should be for riders who were caught mor than once.

 

[TERMINATOR]

Riis confessed that he won the Tour with EPO. But he does a good job as team manager. Kim Anderson (Leopard-Trek) has a lifetime ban. David Millar wants to build a team after his active career. He's lucky that he will be able to do it. I think that the new rules should be for riders who were caught mor than once.

So you're perfectly okay with a rider who doped more than once or even doped throughout their entire career...so long as they were only caught once?

Thanks for the esoteric insight, jackass.

 

[TERMINATOR]

Riis confessed that he won the Tour with EPO. But he does a good job as team manager. Kim Anderson (Leopard-Trek) has a lifetime ban. David Millar wants to build a team after his active career. He's lucky that he will be able to do it. I think that the new rules should be for riders who were caught mor than once.

Riis and Millar doped far more than they ever admitted to, and likely for years. Don't get stupid on me.

It's funny how Millar claimed he only doped one time years before he was caught, but when the police raided his house they found EPO. You would have me believe it was the same vial from the one he admitted to using when he won worlds a few years prior.

Surely you don't believe that, do you? And when you say "once" - do you mean like 1 injection or for one race? Because the doping program for the Tour de France takes place over a period of many months (micro-dosing, blood draws months prior followed by re-infusions, cortisone, testosterone, human growth hormone). So by one time, what do you mean?

 

[SpeedWay]

How about instituting a rule in this forum that you are required to think for more than 5 seconds before you post something? Half these threads aren't solving any mystery except the ignorance of the poster who started it.

Looks like there's a new sheriff in town. What happens if it takes you less than 5 seconds to post - can you be considered exempt from the thinking rule, Deputy Dawg?

 

[ElChingon]

Riis and Millar doped far more than they ever admitted to, and likely for years. Don't get stupid on me.

It's funny how Millar claimed he only doped one time years before he was caught, but when the police raided his house they found EPO. You would have me believe it was the same vial from the one he admitted to using when he won worlds a few years prior.

Surely you don't believe that, do you? And when you say "once" - do you mean like 1 injection or for one race? Because the doping program for the Tour de France takes place over a period of many months (micro-dosing, blood draws months prior followed by re-infusions, cortisone, testosterone, human growth hormone). So by one time, what do you mean?

Funny how Millar kept the EPO in the fridge a year later, why not put it on the mantel or coffee table, I mean he wasn't going to use it right?

 

[luckyboy]

Seems ok on the surface, but after a moment's thought it is just PR while Gianetti, Riis etc. are running teams.

David Millar wants to build a team after his active career. He's lucky that he will be able to do it.

 

[Nearly]

Seems ok on the surface, but after a moment's thought it is just PR while Gianetti, Riis etc. are running teams.

It has still got value going forward e.g. the likes of Vino would be less tempted to take the risk of going out with a charged bang at the TdF if he wants to run teams going forward.

 

[Magnus]

Riis and Millar doped far more than they ever admitted to, and likely for years. Don't get stupid on me.

So how much did Riis dope?

 

[Magnus]

So you're perfectly okay with a rider who doped more than once or even doped throughout their entire career...so long as they were only caught once?

Thanks for the esoteric insight, jackass.

If you want people to speak out about the past it seems rather stupid to punish them for it.

 

[luckyboy]

Wow I just read a more in depth look at it on Velonation, and literally nobody will fall foul of it. Riders need to commit more than one violation and they need to be suspended for two years or more for each of them. And then they can just wait 5 years and get in anyway.

This is dismal, at least some of the other stuff they've put in place is of some use.

 

[Mshengu]

A rule with Vino in mind.... The UCI should be fair to everybody, if a rider dopes and takes his punishment he should be free to ride and manage a team.

 

[Damiano Machiavelli]

Wow I just read a more in depth look at it on Velonation, and literally nobody will fall foul of it. Riders need to commit more than one violation and they need to be suspended for two years or more for each of them. And then they can just wait 5 years and get in anyway.

This is dismal, at least some of the other stuff they've put in place is of some use.

I have not read the Velonation piece but that sounds like a misreading of the rule that was posted above. The exemption required a suspension of less than two years and one offense and a five year wait. All three have to be true. One offense with the standard two year suspension would disquality a rider from a management license. The rule might induce riders to cooperate enough to get a suspension reduction.

 

[ElChingon]

The only rule that will actually matter would be if ASO (le Tour) did not allow any rider or team that had a rider or DS banned, at ANY time (period). (obviously mean team if the DS was previously banned) Same would apply to other ASO races. Which was the rule ASO was applying till the whole ASO governing body was let go (I think it was more of a pushed out of their position for being so strict on doping). Heck I would even be glad to see ASO have one year with only French teams, it is after all the French National race (better not have any stages outside the country that year while they're at it).

Note: This is just an idea, not an ASO statement in case somebody reads it as such. If you didn't read this far well, whatever.

 

[D-Queued]

The only rule that will actually matter would be if ASO (le Tour) did not allow any rider or team that had a rider or DS banned, at ANY time (period). (obviously mean team if the DS was previously banned) Same would apply to other ASO races. Which was the rule ASO was applying till the whole ASO governing body was let go (I think it was more of a pushed out of their position for being so strict on doping). Heck I would even be glad to see ASO have one year with only French teams, it is after all the French National race (better not have any stages outside the country that year while they're at it).

Note: This is just an idea, not an ASO statement in case somebody reads it as such. If you didn't read this far well, whatever.

Agreed.

If Marion's teammates lost their gold medals, then why not doping cyclists?

If your teammate tests positive in a grand tour, then the team should lose any/all stage wins (especially the TTT) and all individual stage placings. It cannot be denied that a doping teammate could help a teammate do well in a stage.

There is only the possible exception of ITT's. But, much simpler just to nullify the entire team's results.

Dave.

 

[laziali]

I have not read the Velonation piece but ... [babble] ....

Don't let that stop you expressing an opinion, though