Micron,
I agree with every word that you have posted here.
We can do bugger all about it, debating it here.
But.
I recall when Armstrong's latest doping allegations were highlighted (and rightly so) by L'Equipe, some here attempted to portray WADA as being on a witch hunt.
Let's be clear WADA was created because individual sporting national doping federations were turning a blind eye to doping in their own jurisdictions.
And this is the bind : I believe that the fans do have some momentum in the issue of doping.
if the fans create sufficient critical mass, I believe it can help to change the sport for the better.
That critical mass can be created through not supporting teams who do dope,
not buying products from companies who have been seen to provide financial support to riders who dope, by writing to publications expressing dismay at how cheating has ruined the sport and by writing to the tossers who run the UCI under.
In addition, I would ask members here to not **** off WADA just because their favourite rider has been caught cheating.
WADA are doing the job which the national federations willfully chose not to do.
Finally, I do think the criminalisation of doping would be a good measure as well in the war on cheats.
I welcome the approach taken in recent years by the civil authorities and police forces.
micron said:
and we can debate this in forums until the cows come home but there's bugger all we can really do about it - boycott products maybe? or simply stop turning out to watch races or don't subscribe to channels that show cycling? And you think that would make any difference? There'll always be fans who don't care or are in denial.
No, the change has to come from the top - from the sponsors who gloss over the scandals and from the UCI who are so desperate not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg that they will do anything to give the big stars a free pass.
The Spanish are passing a law to make dopers in sport liable to prison sentences. Italy has a sporting fraud law. France has the most stringent testing and list of banned substances of any cycling federation. And until this becomes uniform across all nations involved in cycling there isn't a hope in hell that testing will ever be anything but (and very reluctantly at that) reactive and not proactive.
The latest UCI investigation into the Armstrong affair will seek only to find out who leaked the information - because it's more important to defend the reputation of golden goose Armstrong than to actually find out why UCI testing doesn't work. After all, Museeuw isn't under investigation because he failed a dope test - on the contrary Museeuw, like Armstrong, has never tested positive.
So, it's more of the same - the smaller fish taking the rap and the bigger fish getting a free pass - so long as they're not stupid enough to get caught. Armstrong didn't think he'd be caught because there was no EPO test in 1999 - or rather the UCI had not validated the urinary EPO test. The UCI were finally forced to sign up for the WADA code or face exclusion from the Olympics - and for a sport desperate to globalise, losing a place in the largest sporting showcase on earth is not a clever thing to do. Nor is killing the golden goose that potentially opens up the great American market...
