How do you stop doping?

[Treky]

Ever since the doping allegations that surfaced right before TDF last year I have felt professional cycling is loosing it's credibility very rapidly. Then it got worst. Landis tested positive after winning TDF. May be some of you think pro cycling has not had much credibility since the late 1980s or 1998 doping scandal hit the news. But there must be a way to remove this cloud over pro cycling.

1. More testing & better, more strict procedures for testing or

2. Each athlete must be monitored constantly through out the year or

3. You cannot prevent doping, remove doping restrictions, let them all do it, or

4. Pro cycling is going to be a joke, let's form a fedaration like WWF and turn it into an entertainment

Any more options? Seriously, how do you stop doping?

 

[Mtventoux]

Assign an independant observer to each team at all major competitions. The observer has access to all team appointments, all sessions with doctors or support personal, and can have inspection at any time of riders rooms, baggage, team busses and cars.

Riders must submit DNA, and like the Slipstream team in the US, weekly blood and urine tests. Weekly allows a certain biological model of that individual so any inconsistency shows up.

Start suspending team officials and directors, coaches if a rider on the team tests positive. Not only will this stop encouraging riders to cheat, but the team will take a proactive role in ensuring that they do not!

 

[cdy291]

I think they should just all wake up and stop cheating, just cuss its the right thing to do. But that alone wont stop them I'm afraid.

 

[thunder]

I think I have a solution, but it seems inequitable, and too Orwellian.

You forget testing through the UCI. You only need test 60 riders in the peloton, and they should be tested upwards of 150 times each. 10,000 tests.

The top 10 flat/cobbled classics guys. The top 10 hilly classics guys. The top 10 sprinters. The top 10 Tour prospects, Giro prospects and Vuelta prospects.

You test both biomarkers, and traditional blood and urine analysis.


The key is to eliminate the Red Queen Effect, which is the arm's race theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen

You prevent the winner from doping, you create a inverted arm's race. That is, if the winner and top tier talent is clean, they will intimidate the new breed from usurping their status with dope.

One of the advantages of doping for the elite tier is it is a funadamental barrier to entry, and the richer you are, the more detailed and effective plan you can afford. Anyone entering the peloton faces a choice, and this already creates a selection from those who do not completely embrace the culture.

No the barrier to entry becomes an effective "clean status". If Rumsas rides into the top tier one year, and has to go clean, and subsequently drops out of the top 100 when he comes under the testing regime, he becomes a pariah, if he was not already. The top tier will intimidate the dopers. Can you imagine Armstrong allowing a doper to threaten his status if he was clean? It would be bizzaro world Simeoni mk deux.

Can you prevent them doping with testing? This is the salient question.

There are studies that exist which indicate hematocrit will never rise more than a few gross points, so how can riders like Armstrong come in at 48% with natural 42 crits. You can test their crit before the startline, not 3 hours before. All bio-markers should mitigate any doping gains.

Once you have the winners riding clean, the process of the Red Queen Effect, is effectively inverted!

How do you know who to test? Quite simple, just poll the managers prior to the start of the season. For the Tour it is simple, there will be no winner outside Vino, Klodi, Valverde, Levi, Sastre, Evans, Schleck, Menchov, Kashechkin, Contador, Rogers. They submit to this comprehensive regime.

Once the process starts to work, the reversal of the culture begins. Dopers will be intimidated. Teams will be intimidated to have dopers winning second tier races. They will understand, that it is no real worth having someone dope to win the Criterium International, and make no real gains towards entry into the top tier, and face the opprobrium of the peloton.

This is effective cultural change. Aradigm shift in doping culture: approbation > opprobrium.

 

[JohnO]

As long as cheating will result in more money and greater fame for the individual, people will cheat. It's not just cycling, it's most sports where endurance and strength are a major factor. If there is enough money, people will find a way to work around whatever tests are devised. Puerto is proof of that - hard to detect, and very profitable, for both the athlete and the doctor.

The only way to stop cheating in cycling is to remove the motivation. Take away the money and the fame. And that seems to be happening, by default.

 

[ad9898]

I dont think you can totally stop it, however lifetime ban in sport before and after retirement would be as good a deterent as any.....i mean look what could have happened Bjarne Riis could now be emptying my bins, Richard Virenque unblocking my toilet how different life would have been for them.

 

[whiteboytrash]

The only problem is testing is aimed at the rider.... there currently is no test for a pushy DS, a dodgy doctor or a manic sponsor or “I need to write a book about my recovery from cancer and need a sporting achievement to go alongside it to give it some chutzpah”.... devise a test for these and doping will be gone forever.

Ever since the doping allegations that surfaced right before TDF last year I have felt professional cycling is loosing it's credibility very rapidly. Then it got worst. Landis tested positive after winning TDF. May be some of you think pro cycling has not had much credibility since the late 1980s or 1998 doping scandal hit the news. But there must be a way to remove this cloud over pro cycling.

1. More testing & better, more strict procedures for testing or

2. Each athlete must be monitored constantly through out the year or

3. You cannot prevent doping, remove doping restrictions, let them all do it, or

4. Pro cycling is going to be a joke, let's form a fedaration like WWF and turn it into an entertainment

Any more options? Seriously, how do you stop doping?

 

[CelikOk]

Assign an independant observer to each team at all major competitions. The observer has access to all team appointments, all sessions with doctors or support personal, and can have inspection at any time of riders rooms, baggage, team busses and cars.

Riders must submit DNA, and like the Slipstream team in the US, weekly blood and urine tests. Weekly allows a certain biological model of that individual so any inconsistency shows up.

Start suspending team officials and directors, coaches if a rider on the team tests positive. Not only will this stop encouraging riders to cheat, but the team will take a proactive role in ensuring that they do not!

I think this is a good solution, but I wonder if it is workable. Weekly blood and urine tests would be too much. I suspect logistics and the cost would be prohibitive.

 

[limerickman]

Good suggestions all.

I would remove the UCI - I think that this is the crux.
The UCI set the context in which the sport of cycling, operates.

It's obvious that they wanted faster and faster speeds to increase viewer numbers, to attract more lucrative sponsors/money, in to the sport.
The only way to get faster speeds if for riders to dope.

The UCI is a major factor as to why doping and dopers were allowed to prosper.

 

[kennf]

The only problem is testing is aimed at the rider.... there currently is no test for a pushy DS, a dodgy doctor or a manic sponsor or “I need to write a book about my recovery from cancer and need a sporting achievement to go alongside it to give it some chutzpah”.... devise a test for these and doping will be gone forever.

I was going to add jail-time convictions for the doctors, but the problem with that is the teams would go back to the old-school doping methods without the guidance of doctors, which would only make the sport more dangerous. The PDM fiasco in 1991 comes to mind.

 

[Treky]

The only problem is testing is aimed at the rider.... there currently is no test for a pushy DS, a dodgy doctor or a manic sponsor or “I need to write a book about my recovery from cancer and need a sporting achievement to go alongside it to give it some chutzpah”.... devise a test for these and doping will be gone forever.

Why would the sponsers want to be associated with cheaters? Would it not reflect really badly on them? But I think there are things they can do to prevent doping. Some teams are doing just that. They test their own riders and maintain a record of tests. May be the tests should be paid for by the teams and performed by a third party who gets paid no matter what the outcome.

 

[Eldrack]

I wonder how many cyclist (and other athletes) have a pyschological dependency on the PEDs? When they start taking them they'll have a massive boost in performence etc. When you come off them your performence drops, but also there's the fact that the athlete will think they can't win without them, given how much of an effect they had. So once they start they can't really stop themselves maybe?

 

[helmutRoole2]

I think I have a solution, but it seems inequitable, and too Orwellian...

I like this idea. You could make it something like the way teams try to get into the Pro Tour. A rider with points in a designated area of expertise, say sprinting, could petition for PT rider status.

With it comes a minimum salary, guaranteed entry into certain PT races and GTs, and massive testing, chaperones and audits.

 

[CelikOk]

...

You prevent the winner from doping, you create a inverted arm's race. That is, if the winner and top tier talent is clean, they will intimidate the new breed from usurping their status with dope.

...

That sounds like a good idea. But do you think it will stop those who are not being tested from doping to challenge the top cyclists? But yes, it should, because as soon as they get higher up in the classification they will be tested too and their game will be up. So, yeah, I think this would work.

The bottom line is you cannot stop doping with the current regulations. But there are ways to improve the situation and improve the credibility of pro cycling.

 

[Frihed89]

Traditional (non-gametheoretic) economic approach:

1. Increase the probability of detecting dope in a cyclist's system.
2. Increase both the scope and magnitude of penalties dramatically for a person who is caught.
3. Increase the financial cost of doping and the financial cost of avoiding detection.

 

[thunder]

Traditional (non-gametheoretic) economic approach:

1. Increase the probability of detecting dope in a cyclist's system.
2. Increase both the scope and magnitude of penalties dramatically for a person who is caught.
3. Increase the financial cost of doping and the financial cost of avoiding detection.

1. difficult to impossible, when the money is on the avoidance side of the testing. There will never be enough money in prevention.

2. relative punishment tenet. Should not be too odious.

3. this is not necessarily a solution. Numerically, this can influence the result. However, doping is, by its nature, a barrier to entry. And the pros, especially, the pros at the top, like it that way. So, you are only reinforcing the entry cost. There will always be preternaturally talented competitors that have their doping program subsidised by benefactors, be it pro team, or local club.