Doping Will Not Decrease With Passport System
Doping news abounds this week. Earlier this week, UCI and WADA met for what was called the International Doping Summit. The big revelation that came out of this meeting is that a new biological passport program will begin before the 2008 season. This program will take blood tests on a regular basis from pro riders to establish a normal baseline for that rider to which in-competition test results could be compared. If a test differed from the passport norms, that rider could be sanctioned.
This new passport program was met with alot of fanfare from the general cycling press, but what it really shows is that the UCI and WADA still don’t understand the real problems in cycling.
It is still very obvious that the system is biased against the rider’s rights. Beyond the problem of being anti-rider, the new passport system doesn’t really solve any problems. The way that WADA and the UCI are trying to eradicate doping in cycling seems very similar to the War on Drugs that we have had in America for over 30 years now. The United States has spent serious money on building jails and giving hard time to drug users, but drug use seems to be as prevalent today as it was 30 years ago. In that time lots of people have gone to jail, been separated from their families, and ripped away from their ability to make money in an attempt to get rid of drug use in the general population. It hasn’t worked. There are meth labs all over my town and yours. There is marijuana all over the public schools that your kids attend. The system has failed for many years, and it proves that a system that is 100% aimed at punishing the end user doesn’t work. Punishing only the doper in cycling won’t work either.
David Walsh’s book “From Lance to Landis,” makes it clear that the cycling teams play a big role in the doping problem. Walsh has taken a beating to his credibility because of some of his methods in getting his information for the book, but it is hard to argue, after reading the book, that the cycling teams themselves are not culpable in the doping epidemic. His sources told him of organized doping systems that pro teams had set up which riders were compelled to be a part of. The systems were called “medical programs,” and many riders would choose a team based on what “medical program” was available. Many riders have corroborated the fact that the doping programs have been organized by the teams and not the individual riders. Just this week, admitted doper, Patrik Sinkewitz told German authorities that his former teams, T-Mobile and Quickstep, administered doping products to its riders. He spoke of, “the ways and methods doping substances were administered by doctors and team doctors,” said Peter Barth, chairman of the German cycling federation’s sports court. Sinkewitz told the authorities that the doping program continued even after the team leader, Jan Ullrich, was kicked out of the 2006 Tour de France because of doping suspicion in the Operation Puerto blood doping scandal.
The problem in cycling is some teams that think that they must have a doping program in order to compete. Many riders would never dope if it weren’t for their team insisting that they do it. Here is a good idea…….Instead of making the riders pay a huge fine for doping, the UCI and WADA should wake up to the real problem and start to punish the teams that are running organized doping schemes. Teams should have to pay two year’s worth of sponsorship money when they are caught with an organized doping program. On top of that they should serve a two year suspension from running a cycling team on any level. Oh, and on top of that, the team should serve another two year suspension from running a pro-tour team.
Nothing good is going to come out of cycling until the authorities in the sport start to tackle the real problems. Doping is inherent in the sport because it is pushed on the riders by the teams that employ them. Look at Astana. It is very apparent that there was some organized doping going on there last year. Since the system doesn’t punish the teams for anything, Astana was able to hire new riders the very next year that are even better than what they had in 2007. They should be kicked out of the sport for the crap that they pulled. They made the 2007 Tour de France look like a total joke. Instead, they are almost a lock to win the Tour de France next year. Hopefully the organizers of the Tour de France will be smart enough to leave them out of the Tour field.
Hey UCI and WADA……..Wake Up!!!!!!!
In fact, it is the same problem we have here in the United States when it comes to punishing average drug users by throwing them in jail. Building more jails and throwing average people that may have gotten themselves into some trouble by
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