Interesting piece found on a message board in response to an anti -
cycling news item on the BBC website.
Response to Matt Slater
Matt Slater's article 'Tour de Farce'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/cycling/5224304.stm
portrays cycling as a sport riven with cheats and dopers. He argues
that in the light of Tour De France winner Floyd Landis failing a drugs
test for the majority of casual fans, cycling and doping are
inextricably linked. He describes cycling fans as "Belgians and
lycra-clad diehards" who "take a remarkably laissez-faire attitude
to their heroes' refuelling habits". Ignoring the personal nature of
his attack on cycling fans, his criticism of cycling and cycling fans
is misplaced, crass and wrong. It highlights the ignorance and double
standards that are continually applied between cycling and other
sports.
ADMITTING TO A PROBLEM
Ask any cycling fan and they will agree that doping is a problem in
cycling. However, unlike other sports including Slater's own sport of
golf; cycling is one of the few sports that is legitimately proactive
in taking steps to eradicate doping. Golfers such as Fred Funk claim
that "We're self-policing out here, You're either good enough or you're
not good enough. I don't think drugs will help you get better." This is
despite recent reports that 13% of golfers tested in France had failed
dope tests. Whilst the R & A has taken steps to introduce testing in
amateur competitions the professional organisations such as the PGA
continue to resist, denying that there is a problem with doping in
golf. While golf fans, players and commentators continue to naively
believe that the continual exponential increase in the distance being
driven by golfers is due to 'improvements in technology and
training' most cycling fans looking at such arguments would be take a
far more realistic and/or cynical interpretation to these developments.
For a journalist to criticise one sport for doping whilst denying the
problems of their own sports is hypocritical in the extreme.
TAKING STEPS: SIGNING UP TO WADA
Cycling, unlike football, is fully committed to the WADA code. Whilst
cyclists are often criticised for seeming to resist stricter doping
controls this ignores that many sports are similarly resistant. The PFA
under Gordon Taylor is resisting attempts to allow football players to
be tested away from the training ground. Likewise, the threat of strike
action by the England football team after Rio Ferdinand missed a drugs
test and was banned shows that often the anti-doping message put out by
sportsmen and women rings hollow. Weasal words about protecting the
privacy of footballers does not wash with this fan.
The recent Spanish Operation Puerto investigations into blood doping
suggested that 150+ sportsmen were involved and of those over 50 are
cyclists. The question that has yet to be answered is what sports are
the other 100 involved in? Why have cyclists been named and shamed (and
in some cases subsequently cleared) whilst athletes from other sports
have not been named? The man at the centre of the scandal Dr Eufemiano
Fuentes has admitted that he treated footballers, tennis players and
athletics stars - and yet we have silence on these allegations from
the sports involved and the press who cover them.
ETHICAL CODE AND PUNISHMENT
Following the scandal of the Festina team in 1998 the UCI introduced
the 'Ethical Code' this means that any rider who is under any form
of investigation for doping has to be suspended until the investigation
is concluded. Whether this is a police investigation such as Operation
Puerto or the result of a failed drugs test such as Floyd Landis.
Cycling is the only sport that has this. No other sport has such a
strict code. We are left in the ironic position of simultaneously
having BBC articles condemning cycling for drugs problems, whilst
articles the same day are posted announcing the success of Marion
Jones's appearance at a meeting in the UK. Slater condemns cycling
whilst his colleagues laud an athlete whose reputation sits beneath a
dark cloud of doping allegations. If Jones were a cyclist then she
would have been suspended the same way that Jan Ullrich has been
suspended. I note with a wry smile that whilst cycling fans are
condemned for "laissez-faire attitude to their heroes' refuelling
habits" the BBC article on Jones notes her warm reception from the
crowd in London. Condemnation for cycling fans but praise for athletics
fans who cheer a woman who has been married not one but two drug cheats
and whose drug taking has been described in detail by Victor Conte of
BALCO. The fact that Jones has never failed a test despite the
allegations is always noted for fear of libel - I have never once
noted that Ivan Basso being noted the same caveat. Once again we see
the double standards that are applied to cycling as a sport.
While a missed test or test failure in cycling nets you a two year
automatic ban. Footballers such as Edgar Davids, Jaap Stam, Rio
Ferdinand received minimal bans for their test failures. Which sport is
more serious about punishing cheats and dopers? Football or cycling?
PROBLEMS OF PERCEPTION
Slater argues that the big names of cycling are all tainted because of
doping, and yet he ignores that the plethora of 'big names' in
other sports whose reputations are under a cloud. Does he feel that the
involvement of the likes of Jones, Dwaine Chambers or Justin Gatlin
means that athletics is viewed as a sport full of dopers? Does the
arrest of Keiran Fallon mean that Horse Racing and corruption go hand
in hand in the perception of the British public? Do the test failures
of global football stars such as Davids or Ferdinand, or the recent
match fixing scandals in Germany and Italy mean that football is
tainted as a sport that is both corrupt and full of dopers? It is easy
to point to the failure by Landis and Operation Puerto as showing that
cycling and doping are inextricably linked, but if we were to look at
any sport in isolation we could come up with a distorted perception of
the reality. We do not take the red cards given to Zidane and Rooney as
proof positive that all footballers are violent thugs.
COVERAGE
Slater justifies his perception claiming "A look back at our cycling
page over the last 12 months makes very depressing reading - race
report, doping story, race report, doping story and so on and so on."
As other followers of cycling have noted, this is because the only time
the sport ever receives any coverage is when there is a drugs test
failure. Floyd Landis has received more coverage for failing the test
than he did for winning the Tour. Radio Four even managed to get his
name wrong when announcing him as the winner. For 49 weeks of the year
cycling receives minimal press coverage in the mainstream British
media. It is little wonder that the public perception of cycling is
warped. If the perception of cycling held by the public at large is of
a sport riddled with dopers then it is because of the role that the
likes of Matt Slater take in shaping that perception with incorrect,
ill-informed and sanctimonious articles such as his 'Tour de Farce'
article.
Without a doubt cycling has problems - but so do many other sports.
To pillory cycling and neglecting the serious efforts being made to get
to grips with those problems is unfair. To single out cycling for
doping problems and ignoring that the problems exist in all
professional sports is hypocritical in the extreme and not worthy of a
BBC journalist."