When it comes to doping in cycling, it’s clear from the USADA report focussing on Lance Armstrong’s systemic doping practices that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. Men’s international road cycling has perpetrated an extraordinary and wide-ranging fraud on the spectators, the sponsors and those athletes who wanted to compete in the sport of cycling — clean.
Overnight the UCI announced that they have decided to recognise USADA’s decision to ban Armstrong for life. The UCI, and the Tour de France organisers, have previously stated that Lance will now be stripped of his seven Tour victories. Further, they have agreed that they won’t be awarding Lance’s yellow jerseys to the riders who had come second, as would ordinarily be the case. They can’t: many of the second place riders during Lance’s reign have already gone positive or otherwise admitted to doping. It is clear that many of the riders were forced, or expected, to dope to remain in the professional teams; whether they were the stars or the supporting hacks in the peloton.
So where to from here?
Federal Minister for Sport Kate Lundy has apparently asked the Australian Sports Commission to “do everything necessary to re-establish confidence in the sport of cycling, including undertaking whatever investigations are necessary to achieve this”. Cycling Australia’s Klaus Mueller has attempted to facilitate a discussion on how best to save his sport and suggested an amnesty for doping athletes, and the criminalisation of doping. Given the Australian Sports Commission allocated $8.84 million to cycling in the 2011-12 financial year, the Cycling Australia board has indicated it will be conducting an internal investigation to reassure Lundy cycling is (or will be) clean.
Cycling Australia has already accepted resignations from vice-president Stephen Hodge and elite men’s road national co-ordinator Matt White. Other employees, riders and contractors are under increasing pressure to confess to their involvement in doping.
In an article last week, I raised my concern about the suggestion from CA that doping athletes should be given an amnesty. This is not to suggest that doping athletes should be banished from the sport, and locked away in eternal purgatory. I totally agree with the comments of Jonathan Vaughters that anti-doping agencies have a lot to learn from “fessed up” doping athletes. Vaughter is one of the 11 former US Postal Service riders who admitted using performance-enhancing drugs, and who testified against Armstrong.
I assisted UK Anti-Doping to set up their intelligence unit, and UKAD has been extremely proactive in involving banned cyclist David Millar, for example, in their anti-doping education programmes and in learning from Millar about how to improve their drug testing programs. Millar is also a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Athlete Committee for the same reason. To ignore the positive contribution to sport by people such as Hodge and White, particularly since their athletic retirement, is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
That doesn’t mean, however, that we absolve everyone involved in doping from their responsibilities with the mere sweep of an arm. My concern is to ensure that we investigate the role the administrators, doctors and other support personnel played in assisting or turning a blind eye to the doping practices. An amnesty, or proposed UCI “truth and reconciliation” process, must not allow those responsible at CA, and the UCI, to avoid answering their critics. Those supporters and leaders in the sport must be called to account; to explain what they knew, and how they assisted in the cover-up and resulting corruption.
The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority was granted the power to prosecute athletes on behalf of the sports when it was established in 2006. Since the introduction of ASADA’s enhanced powers, there has been plenty of time for Cycling Australia, and other national sports organisations in Australia, to take a stronger stance against doping in their sports.
What has led to this lack of strong leadership, and abject failure to act in the face of debilitating threats to the integrity of sport? The fear of speaking out may come from people being involved in the sport so long that they have become part of the system. They can’t speak out against a system that supports them. Once you start to enjoy some of the spoils, you are stuck not being able to rail against the lies. You then become part of a corrupt system, and so it perpetuates.
*Catherine Ordway works with national and international sporting organisations to provide policy advice on integrity and anti-doping issues. This article was first published at Women’s Agenda.
Can your first couple of paragraphs be serious. What fraud are you alluding to. The bicycles were real, the riders were real the times took to win were real.
The competitors, all on drugs, were on a more-or-less level playing field. The Chinese prefer this approach – the one where you just use whatever you can and see what happens. What are you going on about with your use of the word ‘clean’. Who has ever been clean? What does the word mean, stripped of the faux outrage. Who decides anyway. Who in their right mind actually gives a toss. These are people riding bicycles, often round and round in circles. It’s not as if they are doing anything of great import.
The Lance armstrong victories were a great story – testicular cancer and all. give the righteousness a rest, or employ it to attack something worth while like laissez-faire capitalism, failure to address climate change. Get some perspective.m.
“The competitors, all on drugs, were on a more-or-less level playing field” – Malcolm, that is garbage. 1) Not all riders were using PEDs. 2) It boosted performance for some riders far more than others.
It would help a great deal if anti-doping agencies could get together a couple of positive dope tests and explain why Armstrong never tested positive. Perhaps the agencies are as corrupt as the players? Also, most of the members of these agencies should resign – they clearly can’t perform the job they are being paid for.
I hope that if the official Tour de France asks Armstrong to return the prize money he tells them to piss off. After all, he (and a few others) made the Tour what it is, brought the global TV audience and delivered the goods. This is straight out commerce – there’s no moral high ground (or if there is, who are the wankers trying to stand on it?).
The ONLY thing that will save Oz Cycling Sport is an ” AMNESTY for ALL SPORT ! When you look at Steve Hodge’s career ,the period following contains Aussie riders caught up in 1998 with Festina and 2006 Spanish Debacle . Do we see Neil Stevens or Alan Davis being mauled by the Aussie Media ?
On 13th Oct i blogged about Mat White’s resignation and then i read several days later , the 17th , that he is being ” fired “! Is this the way Cycling Oz intends to clean their Image ? How do you fire someone that has GONE ?
Amnesty for Racers that ” Doped “, not for the criminal element that supplied & distributed Product !
Change.org Petition will help to alert WADA to the need to ACT on their speculations : http://t.co/oFWgsHA7
ACT NOW for the benefit of future generations of ATHLETES !
All that money, all that prestige – all those sponsors – who could have guessed that temptation to fudge would prove too hard to resist?
Now they want scapegoats to sell more ad space?