limerickman said:I'm all for testing and for the removal of cheats from the sport.
I look at this entire issue on a cost/benefit basis.
The UCI could easily eradicate doping if it introduced draconian levels of punishment.
Draconian levels would include all of the following ;
1.On being found to have doped, a rider is banned for life from competitive racing.
2.On being found to have doped, all money won by that rider is to be redeemed by the UCI to the riders he has beaten.
3.On being found to have doped, the UCI will have an option to decide whether or not retrospective results were achieved through clean riding and can decide to redeem any/all prize money earned.
In other words make it so prohibitive to dope that any rider who chooses to dope makes their decision in the knowledge that they run the danger of financial and employment meltdown in the sport.
this certainly makes a hash of my opinions. the banishment, very appealing. the vacating of results also very appealing. & i'd certainly like to see the cheats treated to the sternest measures possible, but i think we'd need to pull the trench line back a bit closer to the border. draconian punishment without some chance at "salvation/redemption" makes the punishment fit the crime in a most grotesque fashion. and as for repayment of the winnings, what would be the next step when the convicted just declares bankruptcy? sterner measures (which has been the path taken so far, growing from a few minutes penalty on gc to a two year first time offence banishment with little check against doping being seen for all that) coupled with a reduction in banishment for helping to rip apart the clandestine blackmarket supply chain would be better suited to benefit the community. since these blackmarket suppliers rarely specialise in service to cyclists, the society in general may find benefit in the destruction of the crime networks working in the shadows or our western sociieties. as for the supply chain of legally available ped's which are administered by legally practising physicians, i suppose some sort of professional sanction against them by whatever organisation administers their affairs would be helpful. my thinking being that their help in setting up a treatment/doping regime for a healthy body would put them in opposition to a portion of their hippocratic oath (first do no harm, i believe) or some other portion.