Illustration by Anders Bendixen

The depth, the breadth, and the method by which the information was released was revolutionary and unparalleled. Not only did the UCI, WADA, WTA and other organisations with vested interests have an opportunity to immediately read all the supporting documents, but the general public as well has also been allowed to “look behind the curtain” unlike at any other time in the past.

So far, we’ve been witness to admissions from previously-unsanctioned riders Tom Danielson, David Zabriskie, Michael Barry, George Hincapie, and Christian Vande Velde. We woke up the day after “10/10″ to see the Belgian Cycling Federation commence proceedings against Johan Bruyneel in light of the evidence. We’ve seen Team Sky’s David Brailsford let Geert Leinders go, apparently in anticipation of Levi Leipheimer’s confession.

We’ve also witnessed the chaotic ramblings of several individual who refuse to let go of the Armstrong mythology in spite of the avalanche of evidence. Nike. Sean Yates. Lance himself. Trek and Oakley at the time of this writing are still on the fence, which is itself a rather sad statement of their business affairs.

We’ve also seen the UCI themselves attempting to spin themselves out of their responsibility, beginning with Hein Verbruggen stating “And I never said that Armstrong never doped.”  However it’s pretty hard to deny the following comments he made to ad.nl in May of 2011, as reported by cyclingnews.com, where he said:

That’s impossible, because there is nothing. I repeat again: Lance Armstrong has never used doping. Never, never, never. And I say this not because I am a friend of his, because that is not true. I say it because I’m sure. Even if we would like, it would not be possible to bury a positive test. Test results are not only to the UCI, but also to the WADA. So once and for all: under my chairmanship have such practices never occurred at the UCI.

This in itself represents why these events continue to occur. Cycling has been stuck with men at the top who refuse to acknowledge their own accountability as leaders in the sport.  As Daniel Benson, the well-respected managing editor of cyclingnews.com noted in this editorial, now is the time for the UCI to lead us into a new era. They missed an opportunity during the Festina affair. They missed an opportunity with Operacion Puerto. They missed an opportunity during the CERA busts. Now they’ve been handed an opportunity after their yellow-fleeced goose was cooked by the Travis Tygart-led team at USADA.

Unfortunately, with Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen in charge of things, it will be another missed opportunity.

What will McQuaid’s legacy be? (photo courtesy AFP via cyclingnews.com)

The pattern has worked so many times for both of them, and for the complicit management committee. Deny, deny, deny. Make strong statements. Strategically sue those who are attempting to “distort” their message. Bully the press into submission by threatening to blacklist. Offer up a few sacrificial lambs. Back to business as usual. Since it’s been so successful for them in the past, why won’t it work now? Why is the zebra now changing its stripes?

Social media.

The trouble is that Hein and Pat have become analog gangsters in a digital era. Information is shared around the globe instantaneously via Twitter, Facebook, and the vast network of bloggers who have dedicated themselves to cycling. It’s a fact that this vast network has helped the confidence of many key cycling journalists push onward with the truth. The dons of cycling’s mafia can no longer control the message the same way they used to. In point of fact, this is what Armstrong is also currently experiencing, in spite of the fact that he has an extensive digital team attempting to stem the tide.

As a colleague of mine noted in a conversation yesterday, the ability to hide and conceal illegal activities is becoming harder and harder as investigative methods become more and more cost effective and technologically advanced.  Let us remember that WADA has been playing catch-up since their inception, but because of their use of technology, they have caught up with lightning efficiency and speed (still not enough, but it’s getting better). Cycling truly was, as David Howman characterised in an interview with Benson on Thursday, the “Wild West” when it came to rampant doping in the peloton. It was the norm, rather than the exception.

The irony in all of this? McQuaid sits on the WADA executive committee. That’s right. The man who exchanged blows with USADA and its jurisdiction and almost came to blows with WADA over the Armstrong business sits in on all the important meetings the organisation holds. And yet, he insists on his bitter and confrontational battle against the organisation, and the national  anti-doping agencies that purport to do battle against the cheats.

Is McQuaid’s participation with WADA merely to keep tabs on what the organisation does in the name of anti-doping? Is it a way for him to figure out ways in which he and Verbruggen can personally profit at the sport’s expense? It’s rather a sad irony that an individual who has been so adversarial is allowed to participate in the highest level of decision-making process, that the president of an organisation which waited until the eve of the 2004 Olympics to ratify the WADA code is part of the UCI’s operating procedures.

Based on these few points alone, we are far from the end of rooting out doping and the corruption that surrounds the activities of doping. When it takes the news of one thousand pending pages of documentation for Team Sky to “dismiss” a suspect doctor, but yet still employs a directeur sportif who became part of the supporting evidence owing to his connections with an alleged transporter of doping products, we still have a long way to go. When in spite of the mounting evidence supporting a management committee’s complete ineffectiveness to combat doping problems, they continue to preside over the sport, we have a long way to go.

We need to remember the UCI has nothing to do with the positive steps that have transpired recently. It was the work of national federations, national investigative agencies, an international anti-doping agency, and the willingness of witnesses to come forward that has created the path towards a clean sport. In fact, when Jörg Jaksche came forward to McQuaid himself, nothing was done. Nothing. Ever. Jaksche didn’t see the light of day beyond the Freiburg investigation until his name appeared in the Armstrong debacle. This was a man more than willing to participate, yet he was ostracized by the very organisation that was supposed to protect him.

Instead, cycling’s leaders are taking their 21 days to determine their course of action. The UCI touted their “fight against doping” and touted their “biological passport programme,” yet the tide of doping continued. Doping didn’t stop for everyone in 2006 and 2007, as we might be led to believe by the admissions of Leipheimer, Danielson, Vande Velde, Barry, and Hincapie. Who were some of the highlights the past four years? Bernard Kohl. Davide Rebellin. Riccardo Ricco. Stefan Schumacher. Ezequiel Mosquera.  Danilo di Luca.

Let’s pray the fallout continues beyond Armstrong. Let’s pray that the pro peloton pulls their heads out of the sand. Let’s pray that team owners take this as a wake-up call and follow the footsteps of several World Tour and Pro Continental teams to truly and emphatically “walk the walk” and not just talk about clean sport. Let’s pray the continental federations and national federations start listening to their constituents rather than the sponsors. Let’s pray the fans and manufacturers continue to put the pressure on for a clean peloton via the methods available to them, including social media.

Armstrong’s fall returns us to square one. It’s up to all of us to ensure we don’t pedal backwards like we did in 1998 and 2006. No more dodgy doctors. No more dubious directeur sportifs. No more “kind of” statements against the cheats.

We all need to walk the walk.

Dave: Hi everyone, my name is Dave and I’m a doper.

Everyone: Hi Dave.

Dave: I used to think about doping every day, I was abused by my team doctors, directeur sportif and in particular my team captain. He used to… he used to…

Jon: It’s OK Dave, take your time, we’re all here for you.

Dave: *sniff* doping used to be so great, once I was so good I even beat my captain by one second in a time trial. We were all so happy, all except captain Lawrence, that is. He got so angry with me … he told the doctor to give me less blood afterwards because he was jealous. I was so reliant on it, I needed it every (rest) day. I was addicted to earning money at the time, so I could buy more and more expensive and rare comic book figurines for my collection…

Jon: Then what happened Dave?

Dave: Then one day I hit rock bottom and by chance I met Jon, he had gone clean and told me the joys of not using needles. My FTP has dropped from 437w to more like 396 now, but I don’t regret it at all, even though I don’t win as much. I’m happier. I’ve been clean 5 years now.

The group clap politely whilst Dave looks longingly at Jon.

Jon: Thanks Dave, you are very brave, I predict big things for you today. Now we’re going to talk to Christian.

Christian: Hi everyone, I’m Christian and I’m a doper.

Everyone: Hi Christian!

Christian: *sigh* I used to dope all the time. I was the worst kind of doper, I was a U.S. Postal mountain domestique.

Everyone gasps.

Tom: That’s disgusting! You’re disgusting!

Other Dave: Now Tom we’re not here to judge anyone…

Christian: No Other Dave, it is disgusting, I am – or rather I was – disgusting, and if it wasn’t for Jon I would still be a climbing dom on Katusha or some shit … even today…

Christian looks at Jon, as if for support.

Jon: Carry on, Christian…

Christian: I used to transfuse blood almost every week, I was the lowest of the low. Lawrence, my team captain, made me do it, he always told me I was a good boy and he paid me lots of money. It took him a long time to convince me though, and he used to bully me. Once he made me inject myself so many times, I couldn’t find a vein anymore… I… I… I… can’t go on I’m sorry.

Christian quietly sobs and the group looks on sympathetically, even Tom is taken moved.

Jon: It’s OK, Christian. Could you show us on the Credit Lyonnais plushy Lion where he injected you?

Christian sniffs up an extra long snot trail and places his finger on the lion…

More gasps, louder this time. Jon’s jaw drops and stares at Christian. Christian looks down, ashamed.

Jon: Now that really IS disgusting… but it was a long time ago and Christian has been clean for years now… uhhhmmm right, everyone we’ve lost focus and we’re coming to the end of our session now, it’s time for our group hug. Don’t get any of that snot on my new Hawaiian shirt, Christian!

Everyone stands up and hugs, although Tom is initially reluctant to make contact with Christian.

Jon: Oh shit, team tactics, we’re leading out Tyler again, don’t crash this time Tyler…or beat the shit out of anyone.

Everyone off the bus to the sign-on! Quick! Quick! Can someone go and wake up Ryder please?

Sorry, Lance, it's not #unconstitutional

Given the recent failures by federal prosecutors to secure convictions against athletes in court which can be traced back to doping (the Roger Clemens acquittal being the most recent), the USADA case is a welcome change and the appropriate venue for the Lance Armstrong case. Since the USADA was established it “has worked to preserve the true integrity of competition.” With that in mind, it is a non-governmental, non-profit agency whose sole focus is to ensure that all sport competition and athletes under the United States jurisdiction compete fairly and without the assistance of illegal substances.

This mission is different from the FBI, FDA and other governmental agencies which have a role of enforcing federal criminal law. Cheating is not a federal crime; doping is cheating, and that is why Armstrong and company are not being investigated for federal narcotic offenses specifically. The criminal investigation was centered on various aspects of doping, but he was being investigated for crimes relating to racketeering (RICO) and fraud.  Even if federal charges were brought against Lance Armstrong, federal prosecutors would have to prove to a 12-person jury of his peers beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed those offenses.

As someone who has brought cases against individuals, it is a significantly high burden, and rightly so. However, what the Bonds and Clemens cases have proved is that it can be very difficult to achieve a unanimous verdict.  In an adversarial system, there is no such thing as a “slam dunk” case. Now that the USADA has initiated their case, if charges are brought, Armstrong’s accusers will face a significantly lower burden to prove he committed specific anti-doping violations.  Unlike “beyond a reasonable doubt” in a criminal case, the accusing party will only have to prove to a “comfortable satisfaction” (Article 3.1-WADA Code) that Armstrong committed anti-doping rule violations.  This is significantly less than beyond a reasonable doubt and usually compared to standards set in professional misconduct cases.

There is little doubt that criminal cases should require the highest burden of proof.  Some argue that the burden in doping cases is too low, and skews the advantage well in favor of anti-doping authorities and creates an unfair advantage against athletes.  Whether or not you agree with it, that is the burden Lance Armstrong’s accuser must meet if and when he is charged, and if the case is eventually brought to the CAS.

In a criminal case, the government has the sole responsibility of proving a defendant is guilty of a crime. Since in our system the Constitution specifies that anyone accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty, they have no responsibility to prove they are innocent of the crime. In other words, the defense simply needs to raise enough doubt in the eyes of the jurors to prevent the government from meeting their burden of proof. In a doping case, the accused athlete is still required to account for specific evidence or account for a positive test or other accusation against them, unlike a criminal case, nothing is required of a defendant even though they still present their own evidence but only to raise doubt. In the case that will more than likely be brought against Armstrong, he will not have the luxury to simply sit back for force the USADA to make their case without responding directly to the accusations against him, participate and not simply raise doubt in the minds of the arbitrators responsible for hearing the case.

Recently, many Armstrong supporters and even Lance himself have thrown out the term “unconstitutional” or as Lance tweeted, #unconstitutional. I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to figure which amendment violation he could be claiming to be a victim of.  I have yet to fully determine why Lance would allege this, but will assume he believes it is in violation of the 5^th amendment or “double jeopardy.”  This term refers to being tried for the same offense more than once after a criminal case has been brought and adjudicated or ended under specified conditions.

However, the current USADA investigation is not of a criminal nature. The USADA case against Lance Armstrong will not result in his imprisonment or “loss of liberty” since it will be heard before an Administrative Court; because it is not a judicial court like a state or federal court, Lance will not have the Constitutional protections he was provided during his criminal case. It focuses specifically on the rules and procedures for those who fall under them –American athletes – and has nothing to do with federal laws, because it is not officially a government agency no matter how much people want to argue it is because of partial funding through a federal grant.

Lance’s USADA case has nothing to do with the criminal charges he was being investigated for by the Grand Jury, and therefore in no way can it be argued it would fall under Constitutional violation.  Legally, it is important to recognize that even if federal authorities decided to reopen his federal criminal investigation he would still not be able to argue a “double jeopardy” violation, as it only “attaches” once a trial begins. Anyone, including Lance, who attempts to make this anti-doping case a matter of Constitutional issues has a gross misunderstanding of how the 5^th Amendment works in this case.

The differences between the criminal case and current USADA case involving Lance Armstrong for anti-doping violations are apparent and clear.  These are the reason why his case is exactly where it needs to be in order to prove what many people want to know – was Lance Armstrong a drugs cheat as an athlete? A federal criminal conviction still would not have proven he was a doper.  It would have proven he broke federal criminal law with respect to fraud and racketeering, but never that he specifically doped, which is what the anti-doping case will specifically focus on and possibly prove.

In my opinion, the most important part of the USADA case against Lance is information about his blood passport values. There is a precedent for their introduction and use at the CAS if this case is to eventually be heard there, as we have seen with the Franco Pellizotti case.  A piece of evidence like the biological passport would never be brought into a criminal trial had Armstrong been indicted, but again, that goes to show the important difference between the federal government’s and the USADA’s cases, and highlights why the Lance Armstrong anti-doping case is exactly where it belongs.

While the battle lines have essentially been drawn by those for or against Lance, there are still many who really don’t know whether he cheated or not because it has never truly been investigated or adjudicated.

Hopefully, that is what this case will determine.

As I discussed with @festinagirl and @velocast yesterday on the Velocast podcast (you can listen here), there is more to this story than just Lance. Even though Lance wishes this to be all about him, as @festinagirl so eloquently said yesterday, this is more about Lance the team owner and his part in an organised doping conspiracy.

However, if you think this is solely the domain of U.S. Postal cycling team, or Johan Bruyneel’s alleged involvement along with the other four conspirators, you are sorely naïve. This Lance business will expose just how sophisticated doping protocols have become since 1992, and how they continue to be sophisticated to this day. The worst part in all of this is the reaction by many of those who are supposed to be protecting the integrity of the sport overall.

The Belgian Federation? The UCI? USA Cycling?

The Belgian cycling federation has chosen to remain tight-lipped, waiting to see which way the wind blows. The fact that USA Cycling released the list of athletes who specifically removed themselves from Olympic team consideration does demonstrate the pull Armstrong still has in the organisation.  How about the UCI? How can the governing body of the sport, which patted itself on the back merely days before about the success of the biological passport, come out with a cryptic and tight-lipped press release on the Armstrong business?

Panic.

The trouble is all these organisations have fallen prey to the seduction of becoming marketing and PR organisations to promote the sport, instead of staying true to their real function of providing administration and support for those who wish to pursue cycling in a competitive manner. When you have a Federation or a governing body trying to run races themselves or grow the sport themselves, it puts them in the dangerous predicament of being a “fox in charge of the hen-house.” If you happen to have the wrong people at the top level making the decisions, the aims of the organisation can be perverted for less magnanimous ideals.

The superstar and the boss, Lance Armstrong and Hein Verbruggen, former president of the UCI (Photo © Mike Gladu courtesy Cyclingnews)

Is it a coincidence Hein Verbruggen’s rise to the top level in the sport coincided with an era rife with doping challenges?

Many people who are new to the sport of cycling comment on how incestuous the sport really is. Non-profit governing bodies creating private for-profit entities to grow the sport, something that used to be called “misappropriation of funds” in criminal court circles, have been blissfully ignored by the Swiss Parliament, or the criminal investigation units of a particular nation. Journalists participate in blatant public relations campaigns through the guise of their employers, or are blatantly paid by cycling related entities as independent contractors to provide sales or marketing or PR opportunities. These same journalists are expected to remain neutral or report on the negative aspects of the sport. We see the fruits of this now.

Cycling lacks a clear chain of command, and a clear channel of communication. Pat McQuaid speaks directly to athletes. Members of labs have met directly with team managers. Team owners meet directly with race organisers. The governing body decides to wear a race organiser hat. Journalist work directly for members of the pro peloton.  The tough part is that we also rely on all of these individuals to hold themselves accountable and resist the temptation to pervert their position for profit.

This brings us back to Armstrong.

The Armstrong case demonstrates to us just how deep the involvment from all parties truly is. The UCI was involved directly with Lance, which is why they are so tight-lipped at the moment. They have no idea who the witnesses are, or how they could implicate the UCI in the investigation. The same could be said for USA Cycling in many respects. Even the ASO may not be above reproach in this situation. This is a prime example of why the lack of rules, the lack of leadership, and the lack of direction from those who are “in charge” of the sport can become exploited by someone who can potentially increase their respective revenue streams.

It’s hard to hold them all accountable for their actions, as the relationships are murky at best. The trouble with murky lines of communication and responsibility is that it allows for those with less than honourable intentions to operate. Hence why doping doctors are still in the sport. Hence why dodgy team managers are still involved in the sport. Hence why athlete managers or “coaches” are allowed to be part of star riders’ entourages. Hence why federation and governing body directors and managers are involved directly in cycling for-profit ventures.

Cycling needs an entire clean-up from top to bottom. Cycling needs a UCI president who says enough is enough, and passes legislation to create clear channels of communication between the governing body, federations, team owners, teams, riders, manufacturers, media, and the fans. Setting the table properly removes the spectre of potentially dubious activity, and could create the transparency we all crave.

AIGCP should be negotiating contract terms with a riders’ union. This should be approved and ratified by the UCI. It shouldn’t be up to the UCI to mandate from the top down; the UCI should merely be the balance to check the relationship. The UCI should ensure teams are treated fairly by race organisers, and that race organisers follow proper protocol, not necessarily dictate who appears where. The UCI should be helping national federations grow their cycling programmes by providing expertise in conjunction with for-profit race organisers, not organising races themselves.

More importantly, they should be supporting each nation’s anti-doping programmes in spite of what may possibly be an embarrassing public relations event for the sport.  The statements from those at the top of all influential organisations should be different. Based on the reaction from both USA Cycling and the UCI to the impending Armstrong situation, is it any wonder folks feel less than comfortable in coming clean on what truly happens behind closed doors in our sport, and feel the need to talk to “semi-anonymous trolls,” “nom de plume idiots” and Twitter personalities to clear their conscience rather than speak directly with those involved in overseeing the sport?

No wonder at all.

“I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed people.
And for those for whom I was a hero, I’m sorry.
They’ll have to find new heroes now.”
~ Bjarne Riis, May 2007

What had really happened to Miguel Induráin in the 1996 Tour de France? All sorts of things, few of which will ever be told. But one important thing that is known is the change in personnel in his Banesto squad. The team’s doctor, Sabino Padilla, walked out at the end of 1995. Early in his career Induráin had worked with the Italian doctors Francesco Conconi and Luigi Cecchini. And it was to Italy that José Miguel Echávarri, Induráin’s directeur sportif, turned after Padilla left. Surprisingly, Echávarri was perfectly open about this:

I am seeking collaboration with [Ilario] Casoni, [Nicola] Alfieri and [Marcello] Lodi [three of Conconi’s protégés at the University of Ferrara] at least for a team get together which will be held in Palma di Majorca in February [1996]. There will hopefully be some tests in Milan followed by a week at Pamplona. At the present time the Italians lead the world in sports medicine and training techniques.

A void has been left by Sabino Padilla, the medic who has left Banesto after so many years to take a position with the football club Atletico Bilbao. Sabino, who was Induráin’s personal trainer, left without even mapping out the [1996] season. So we have to find a new medic, either in Spain or in Italy, but probably from the University of Ferrara. As of now Casoni, Alfieri and Lodi are being considered as our consultants.”

Most all of the big name riders of the time had specialists like Sabino Padilla available to them. ONCE’s Laurent Jalabert and Alex Zülle used the in-house services of Nicolas Terrados and also had the Spanish gynaecologist Eufemiano Fuentes on speed-dial. Fuentes had once been ONCE’s in-house specialist, having earned his sporting spurs blood-boosting Spanish athletes to glory at the Los Angeles Olympics, where the Americans and the Italians were also among the nations tainting their gold medals with blood. After the LA Games, Fuentes had played a role in Pedro Delgado’s victory at the 1985 Vuelta a España, as a staff member on the Spaniard’s Orbea outfit. Fuentes was also a member of Delgado’s entourage during the 1987 Tour de France that the Spaniard lost to Stephen Roche. He missed out on Delgado’s 1988 Tour victory, having switched to Manolo Sáiz’s ONCE squad. After a couple of seasons in-house with ONCE, Fuentes moved on to Amaya and then Kelme, where he finally came unstuck after Jesús Manzano’s revelations in September 2003 which eventually led to Operación Puerto.

Mapei’s Toni Rominger was a client of Michele Ferrari’s, as were his teammate Abraham Olano, his Gewiss rival Evgeni Berzin, and Saeco’s Mario Cipollini. Ferrari had learned his trade alongside Aldo Sassi when they were part of Francesco Conconi’s team that blood-boosted Francesco Moser to the Hour record twice in the space of five days in 1984. In 1994 Ferrari had compared EPO to orange juice following the one-two-three at the Flèche Wallonne achieved by Gewiss riders Moreno Argentin, Giorgio Furlan, and Evgeni Berzin. That podium lockout alone merited raised eyebrows but it had come on the back of a season which had already seen Gewiss riders winning Tirreno-Adriatico, Milan-Sanremo, and the Critérium International. Even though Aldo Sassi banned his Mapei riders from working with Ferrari in 1996 the Italian doctor continued to work with Rominger, having helped him set two new Hour records over a fifteen day period in 1994 (and, in the process, taking the record from Induráin – one of the few times Rominger actually managed to beat his Spanish rival).

The Festina boys, Richard Virenque and company, they had the in-house services of Willy Voet, an old school soigneur who changed with changing times. During his career Voet had worked with riders like Joaquim Agosthino, Hennie Kuiper, and Sean Kelly before helping Festina become one of the power-houses of 1990’s cycling. Voet finally came unstuck at a Franco-Belgian border crossing just days before the 1998 Tour de France rolled off from Dublin. The drugs found in his possession led to him becoming the scapegoat for all the excesses of Gen-EPO.

And Riis? He – and his Telekom team-mate, Ullrich – used the services of Luigi Cecchini, whose orbit Riis had come into after he joined Ariosta in 1992, where Cecchini worked alongside Michele Ferrari. After Ariosta folded at the end of 1993 Moreno Argentin had enticed Riis to join Gewiss, where Ferrari was installed as the in-house specialist until his injudicious comments about orange juice saw him (officially, anyway) become persona non grata. Riis, having had to choose between Ferrari and Cecchini at Ariosta, retained the services of Cecchini throughout the rest of his career. As well as working with Riis in 1996, Cecchini was also working with Pascal Richard (Switzerland/MG), Rolf Sørensen (Denmark/Rabobank), and Max Sciandri (UK/Motorola) – who pulled off a gold, silver and bronze triple in the road race at the Atlanta Olympics.

The Telekom team also had access to the facilities of the Department of Sports Medicine at the Freiburg University Hospital. Dr Andreas Schmid was their on-call specialist from their days as the Stuttgart squad (1989/90) until his suspension in May 2007. From 1995 onwards the team also had access to Dr Lothar Heinrich. In 1996 Schmid and Heinrich were also working for the German cycling federation, Schmid a member of their medical commission and both doctors responsible for German riders at the Worlds and the Olympics.

In 1992 Schmid had begun working with the Jef D’hont. Since the mid-seventies D’hont – like Voet, an old school soigneur – had been administering cyclists with his own home-brewed ‘special potion.’ But D’hont’s homebrew was became ever less effective as EPO took hold of the peloton. As early as the 1992 Tour de France the Telekoms realised they were getting nowhere without the use of EPO, which was being heavily used by Italian and Spanish teams in particular. Initially, individual riders sourced EPO themselves and their use of the drug was supervised by Schmid. Later in 1993 Schmid was able to source EPO for the team, with D’hont responsible for passing it on to the riders.

Once the use of EPO commenced, Schmid and Heinrich assumed a greater role within the team and, from the 1995 season onward – when Telekom’s systematic usage of doping products commenced – identified which riders were to peak for which races. In addition to EPO the Freiburg doctors were also administering glucocorticoids, growth hormone, and testosterone. Despite their improved doping regime the Telekom team was still not producing the wins and had to negotiate hard in order to secure a place in the 1995 Tour, eventually padding out the squad with a number of riders from the Italian ZG team. Drugs alone, it seemed, weren’t the answer.

* * * * *

Echávarri’s openness on the subject of doctors and the importance of Sabino Padilla in the Banesto set-up seems surprising today, and even in 1996 it was somewhat unusual. In the early 1990’s journalists like David Walsh and Paul Kimmage had spoken positively of the new role being played in cycling by men like ONCE’s Nicolas Terrados (profiled in Walsh’s Inside The Tour de France), and expressed the hope that their arrival would see the end of cycling’s reliance on doping. But even though the UCI’s big boss, Hein Verbruggen, had leapt to Ferrari’s defence in 1994, slamming the media for miss-quoting the Italian, the outcry over Ferrari’s comments – which had been reported accurately – saw a veil fall over the role he and men like him were playing in the sport.

EPO, even before Ferrari’s 1994 comments, was no secret; people had been writing about it – and the unusually high number of cyclists dying in their sleep – since the early nineties. The IOC were funding research into a test for the drug (and actually supplying EPO for research purposes), a test which was being developed by Francesco Conconi at the University of Ferrara. As one year passed into the next and no EPO test appeared (despite repeated promises that he was on the verge of a breakthrough) Conconi wrote to Hein Verbruggen suggesting the implementation of a haematocrit test, with his proposed limit being 54%. That happened in June of 1996, a month before Riis galloped up the Hautacam on his Pinarello. Verbruggen, though, was opposed in principle to blood testing. It was – and continues to be – considerably more expensive than urine tests. And, in 1996, the UCI had other ideas on where money needed to be spent in cycling: they were dreaming of new headquarters in Aigle.

A month before Conconi wrote to Verbruggen, Italy’s Nucleo Antisofisticazione e Sanità (NAS), the branch of the Carabinieri dealing with health and hygiene matters, had planned on paying a visit to the Giro d’Italia, having become aware of unusually high sales of EPO in Tuscany in the weeks leading up to the race. The 1996 corsa rosa started in Greece – it was the centenary of the modern Olympics – with a prologue in Athens followed by two stages before the race returned to Italy. The plan was for everyone on the Giro to return to Italy by ferry, across the Aegean, landing at the port of Brindisi. NAS decided that this was where they would hit the race and search everyone. When checking the exact details, NAS enquired of CONI when the ferries were due to arrive in Brindisi. Somehow NAS’s plans leaked.

Everyone on the Giro was aware of the welcoming committee awaiting them in Brindisi, especially after La Gazzetta dello Sport (part of the RCS Group which organises the Giro and the race’s newspaper of record) published details of the proposed raid. For some unknown reason twelve unmarked team vehicles decided to return to Italy overland via Montenegro, Albania, and Croatia and then all the way down the Italian boot to Brindisi. They could have saved the petrol money – because of the leak the NAS officers decided to watch the Giro on telly instead and cancelled their raid.

Unknown at that time was that CONI were part of the problem when they should have been the solution to cleaning up Italian sport. Since February 1994 they had been sitting on a report by Sandro Donati, a survey into drug use in the Italian peloton. Donati’s report was based on interviews with a small number of riders, doctors and team bosses and in it the Italian didn’t mince his words:

The abuse has spiralled out of control. In some of the races, they are now climbing hills at speeds they used to reach on the flat! And why? Because the majority are pumped to the gills with shit like EPO, HGH and testosterone. For the good of sport, it is imperative we act immediately to stamp this out.”

For the good of sport, maybe, but not for the glory of Italians at the Olympics. CONI, conflicted by their dual role of bringing home the bangles and baubles every four years and stopping athletes from cheating, figured that the glory was more important than the catching of cheats. And so Donati’s report lay buried until French and Italian journalists forced CONI to acknowledge its existence toward the end of the 1997 season.

But there was more to just sitting on damaging reports going on in CONI. Months after the 1996 Giro ended, Ivano Fannini, direttore sportivo at the Vatican’s cycling team, Amore e Vita, claimed that an important CONI official had decamped to Greece shortly after the NAS phone call and personally informed a number of teams of the reception committee awaiting them in Brindisi. Like a lot of Fannini’s claims down the years, this has never been proven.

* * * * *

Since the days of Fausto Coppi – and probably even before then – Italians had led the charge to turn cycling into a scientific sport. Coppi always gets the credit for dragging cycling out of the stone age and into the modern era. In the years after his reign it was to Italian teams that the best European pros tended to gravitate. Italian industrialists who’d grown up listening to the exploits of Coppi and Gino Bartali on the radio were splashing their money about in the sport of their youth and those industrialists expected value for money. Italian teams became the best prepared in the peloton.

Preparation doesn’t always mean doping. The simple fact is that the Italians took the sport more seriously than others. They trained properly. They targeted races and trained to peak for those targets. They used doctors who understood human physiology and didn’t rely on old wives’ tales passed from one generation of soigneurs to the next. Many of the doctors who worked with Italian teams would claim to have operated to high ethical standards. But the problem there is that one doctor’s version of high ethical standards varies from another’s. Left to individuals to decide, the limits of what is ethically acceptable will always be tested. And Italian doctors became world leaders when it came to testing the limits of what was ethically acceptable. So preparation often does mean doping.

By the time the nineties came around the Italians were rocking the sport of cycling. Go back to all those stats that bogged you down at the start of this series. The strength of the Italian peloton at the time is shown in the number of Italians who turned up at the 1996 Tour: sixty-two of their riders were in ‘s-Hertogenbosch for the race’s start, more than the combined number of French and Spanish riders. Go back and take a longer look at the results of the major races. In 1996 alone the only major races not won by Italian riders or Italian teams were the Flèche Wallonne (Motorola’s Lance Armstrong), the time trial at the Worlds (ONCE’s Alex Zülle), Paris-Nice (ONCE’s Laurent Jalabert), the GP du Midi Libre (Jalabert), the Dauphiné Libéré (Induráin), the Tour (Riis), and the Vuelta (Zülle). Armstrong was already working with Ferrari, Riis was with Cecchini, and Induráin was using the University of Ferrara. Meaning that only ONCE stopped Italians making it a clean sweep of the year. The Spanish may have been slow out of the blocks when it came to cycling but they were catching up fast. And they were playing by Italian rules.

* * * * *

Other important issues were also at play in the lead up to the 1996 Tour. As if having the judicial authorities taking an interest in the use of EPO in the pro peloton wasn’t bad enough, Conconi had a rival in the search for an EPO test. In February 1996, Professor Guy Brisson, Director of the Montreal anti-doping laboratory, floated the idea of an EPO test to the UCI. Brisson proposed to the UCI that he should carry out research on the pro peloton during the Tour de Romandie in May. Key to Brisson’s research was proving that blood tests could easily be carried out on the peloton before competition. The UCI eventually gave Brisson the green light, but only if he worked with the Institut Universitaire de Medicine Légale, often erroneously referred to as the UCI’s Lausanne laboratory. But while the IUML was independent of the UCI, the doctors working there had a very close working relationship with the cycling authorities.

Unfortunately for Brisson the riders at the Tour de Romandie were unhappy with the idea of anyone looking at their blood and refused to cooperate with his tests. In the end it was agreed that samples would be collected purely for research purposes, and that anonymity would be guaranteed. Brisson was then able to carry out his research during the Tour de Suisse in June, where he proved that blood testing was feasible. And that the riders tested were showing surprisingly elevated haematocrit levels.

The UCI claimed that Brisson’s research came to naught, that it was ineffective at indentifying the use of EPO, which was good news for those worried by what the Canadian’s research might reveal. But, when the proverbial brown stuff hit the revolving air-conditioning unit during the Festina affaire, Brisson presented an alternative viewpoint: the longitudinal analysis he was working on was more than effective at identifying cheats. The UCI, fearing the fallout from riders with deep pockets who could drag them through the courts and bankrupt them, hadn’t wanted to know.

The attitude of the cycling authorities at the time is probably best exemplified by the fates of different riders who popped positives in the run up to the Tour. Consider these cases: MG’s Fabio Fontanelli, positive for testosterone at the Amstel Gold Race; Agrigel’s Jacky Durand and Thierry Laurent, positive for nandrolone at the Quatre Jours de Dunkerque and, in Durand’s case, the Côte Picardie; GAN’s Philippe Gaumont and Laurent Desbiens, positive for nandrolone at the Dunkerque and Picardie races as well as the Tour de l’Oise (and, in Desbiens’ case, the Vendée International Classic). Fontanelli’s positive didn’t become public until August. Durand and Laurent completed the Tour even after French media got wind of their positives before the Tour commenced. Roger Legeay, on the other hand, didn’t just drop Gaumont and Desbiens – he made sure the French media knew they had been dropped, and why. The cycling authorities had simply adopted the practice of not releasing any details of positives. No news is, after all, good news. And the 1996 Tour was full of good news for the cycling authorities: not a single rider returned a positive.

* * * * *

Having confessed in 2007 to using EPO and other drugs during his cycling career, it’s no secret anymore that Riis was charged up on the blood booster during the 1996 Tour de France, as were many of his rivals. How high Riis was charged up when he galloped up the Hautacam on his pretty little Pinarello is where, after the Festina affaire broke and Willy Voet spat in the soup, Riis got one of his nicknames: Mr 60%. In Breaking the Chain (Yellow Jersey Press), Voet had this to say of the 1996 Tour:

Remember Bjarne Riis’s stunning win on the Hautacam climb in the 1996 Tour de France. The Dane, who was to win the race, literally played with his rivals before obliterating them. And the haematocrit levels of his rivals, certainly at Festina, had been blithely boosted to about 54%. His exploit was as perturbing for those in the know as it was spectacular to the uninitiated.”

According to Jef D’hont – whom Riis refused to work with – the Dane was dosing up on 4,000-unit double-doses of EPO every other day during the 1996 Tour, pushing his haematocrit level to at least 60%, sometimes 64%. Such levels were contrary to the rules employed by Schmid and Lothar for the use of EPO within the Telekom squad, wherein they favoured a limit around 53%.

Others were similarly blithely boosting their haematocrit levels to the mid fifties. In one of their investigations into doping, reporters at L’Équipe managed to get hold of Evgeni Berzin’s blood values during the 1995 season. In January the Gewiss star had shown a haematocrit level of 41.7%. By July it had risen to 56.3%. In Gen-EPO the fastest and the fittest were more and more often those willing to push their haematocrit limits highest.

How many of Riis’s rivals on the Hautacam were doped is open to dispute. Go back to the table of the top twenty finishers in the ’96 Tour and consider what happened to them in the years after 1996. All three riders on the podium – Riis, Ullrich and Virenque – have confessed, to varying degrees, that they doped. Go through the rest of the list and the riders who haven’t since confessed or been caught all carry question marks against their names by virtue of the teams they rode for. And this is where the true crimes of Gen-EPO really become clear.

You would dearly love, for instance, to believe that Peter Luttenberger’s ride throughout that Tour – throughout the 1996 season – was talent shining through. But the twenty-three-year-old climber was on the Carrera squad that was home to the young Marco Pantani. And when the NAS raided the University of Ferrara in 1998, the files they seized showed that the EPO the IOC had bought for Professor Conconi’s research purposes was actually being administered to the Carrera team, among others. Luttenberger’s name doesn’t appear in the Ferrara files. But the damage is done to him nonetheless. The Austrian domestique rode for a dirty team in a dirty peloton and, rightly or wrongly, the mud sticks to him because of that.

When the 1996 season ended Luttenberger was surplus to requirements as the Carrera team rebuilt themselves as Mercatone Uno and around the new Italian climbing sensation Marco Pantani. The Austrian moved to Rabobank where, at the 1997 Tour, he again finished second in the best young rider category, once again to Ullrich. After two years with the Dutch squad Luttenberger moved to ONCE for two seasons, then Tacconi Sport for two seasons, before finally finding some form of stability: Bjarne Riis’s nascent CSC squad signed him. The Austrian, who was more than three minutes slower than Riis climbing the Hautacam that day in 1996, spent the last four years of his career with the Dane’s squad. Unlike Riis, Luttenberger never got the chance to be more than a domestique. Only a few paupers get to become princes. Though Luttenberger did get to end his career wearing the Austrian national champion’s jersey for the time trial. Maybe he did it all clean. Maybe he didn’t. Were he to tell you it was the former, would you believe him?

How could you? When asked if they had done it clean, men like Riis, Ullrich, Virenque and so many others lied in order to protect their own reputations. Through months and years of investigations and allegations they lied. These men didn’t just steal victory and glory through their doping, they robbed the reputations of others with their denials. Through their lies they rendered meaningless the claims of the few clean riders that their modest achievements were down to natural talent alone. Since their belated confessions, Riis and a few others may have been able to recast themselves as saviours of cycling. But until they find a way to restore the reputations of the few clean riders in Gen-EPO’s peloton they should not be allowed to consider themselves redeemed. They should not be allowed consider themselves to be heroes.

Epilogue

Tuesday, July 16, 1996. The sixteenth stage of the Tour de France. The salle de presse. The massed ranks of cycling’s media watch the scene unfolding before their eyes on the Hautacam. And they laugh. What they are seeing, they know, is impossible. What they are seeing, they know, is not right. What they are seeing, they know, is the result of that decade’s not-so-secret super weapon, EPO. These men know what has been going on in cycling over the last few years. They know about men like Ferrari and Cecchini. They know what had happened at the Tour de Romandie and the Tour de Suisse. They know what had nearly happened at the Giro d’Italia. Watching a donkey like Riis gallop up the Hautacam on his Pinarello, well who wouldn’t laugh knowing what the massed ranks of cycling’s media know?

Then the media stop laughing and get back to duty, forgetting all that they know and hiding from their audience their own beliefs. This isn’t a day to spit in the soup they all drink from. This is a day to celebrate the rise of Riis, a new géant de la route, and the fall of Induráin, the deposed King. Yes, some of them will try to tell the truth, will drench their reports in euphemisms which the alert fan might notice and be able to interpret correctly. And a few of them will heed the wake-up calls and start piecing together stories which will appear over the winter and force the UCI’s hand on the issue of testing rider’s haematocrit levels, a Pyrrhic victory for the men of the press. But for most of them this is just another day in the office, and so they serve up more tales of heroism and athleticism.

The journalists themselves are, of course, only following orders. They all have editors and those editors are only too happy to tell the approved story. The story the teams and riders want them to tell, the story the race organisers and cycling authorities want to be told, the story the fans want to hear. The tale of a new era (Ullrich), a new champion (Riis), a page turned in the history of cycle sport (Induráin). The tale of an epic duel. The tale of one of the greatest Tours ever.

If only it had been true.

Virenque, Riis and Ullrich celebrate their achievements at the end of the 1996 Tour

Coda

Fifth man home that day on the Hautacam in 1996 – fifty-six seconds down on Riis – was a man who would win there a dozen years later. Leonardo Piepoli, then with the Refin squad of the Tashkent Terror, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov.

In the 2008 Tour Piepoli and his Saunier Duval teammate José Cobo went off the front of the race on the climb of Hautacam, with Bjarne Riis’s Saxo Bank star Fränk Schleck tagging along for the ride. Piepoli crossed the line ahead of Cobo, with Schleck a couple of dozen seconds down the road. Piepoli savoured the taste of victory on this miraculous mountain.

Leonardo Piepoli and José Cobo celebrate another stunning stage win for the Saunier Duval team at the 2008 Tour

Then, two days later, the news came through: Piepoli’s teammate Riccardo Riccò was positive for CERA, the new flavour of EPO all the cool kids bought. With the UCI and ASO at war over the Pro Tour, responsibility for dope testing at the 2008 race had been handed over to the AFLD and they proved to be more than capable of doing something the UCI seemed singularly unwilling to do: bust the cheats, no matter how big or small they were.

Riccò’s directeur sportif, Mauro Gianetti, immediately pulled the whole of the Saunier Duval team from the Tour. Christian Prudhomme, the Tour’s chief architect, made it clear that – as far as ASO were concerned – Riccò’s positive was not a case of one bad apple spoiling the lot. The tree it came from was rotten to the roots:

I was pretty disturbed when I saw the superiority of two riders from the same team on the stage to Hautacam, as the rest of you were, I’m sure. I have my opinion on the manager – a person who does not have good virtue – and that opinion will not change in two months, five months, six months, two years, three years … for the sponsor this is terrible news.”

Before the summer was out Saunier Duval pulled their sponsorship. Through the summer, as CONI investigated the Riccò case, Piepoli proclaimed his purity: what he did on the Hautacam he did clean. Then, as the leaves fell from the trees and the cycling year wound down, the results of re-tests of samples from the Tour came through: Piepoli was a double positive, from both the pre-Tour test and a test conducted on the rest day after his win on the Hautacam. Three months later Piepoli received a late Christmas present from CONI: a two-year ban.

One day the Tour will return to that hill above the Roman Catholic shrine in Lourdes, where miracles happen. That hill where Miguel Induráin had effortlessly chased down Marco Pantani in 1994, where Riis reigned supreme in 1996, where Lance Armstrong closed on Javier Otxoa in 2000 and where Piepoli had run rampant in 2008. One day, riders in the Tour de France will once again race up the Hautacam. When they do, let’s hope there are no more miracles on the Hautacam. Let’s hope for a hero fans can believe in.

Next: Riis – Stages of Light and Dark (Vision Sports Publishing) reviewed.

Vinokourov models the new St. Vino Cycling Jersey (photo courtesy cyclingtips.com)

“It is my attention to declaration that I wish to be told I am a Catholic saint. My inactions should grant me sainthood status considering persecutions towards me by yellow journalists of a yellow coloration,” wrote a stoic Vinokourov on the social media site.

Vinokourov’s publicist, Dr. Aidar Makhmetov, took time away from his position as commercial director for the Astana team to make the case for Vinokourov’s petition for sainthood.

“I have examined the historical documents related to church activities. I believe I have made a case that draws a parallel between St. Thomas Aquinas and Alexandre Vinokourov. Both faced persecution in their time. Both were condemned by their contemporaries. I feel that the actions against Aquinas in 1277 mirror the persecution that Vinokourov is now unjustly facing,” illustrated an animated Makhmetov.

Vinkourov is also planning to develop his own version of the four laws of Thomas Aquinas.

“I will make them very pious and important and ethical. This will also be the stone that corners my campaign for the Kazakh parliament,” stated Vinokourov.

When asked his opinion on the Aquinas philosophy of “just price,” which states that a market price or a regulated price should be sufficient to cover seller costs of production, and  immoral for sellers to raise their prices simply because buyers were in pressing need for a product, Vinkourov chose to defer any answers to other more ultimate authorities.

“Ask [UCI president] Pat McQuaid about that. He knows more about artificial inflation of values of things. I’m a simple saint to serves the people of my countries of Kazakhstan in nature,” concluded Vinokourov.

This latest episode by Vinokourov continued a pattern of obscure and strange behavior, which has left many experts scratching their heads. Carlton Reid, part-time psychologist and purveyor of bicycling expertise on the pages of BikeBiz.com, was baffled by the latest announcement by “Team Vino.”

“This delusional behaviour is a cry for help from a youngish sporting icon who really isn’t sure where life is taking him next. Based on my expertise, it is of no surprise to see an out-of-control narcissist progress from athlete, to manager, to politician, to delusions of sainthood. It’s a good thing he wasn’t part of Saxo Bank and their Jerusalem pilgrimage. There’s no doubt in my mind he would have made the next progression to a Christ-like status,” observed Reid.

Makhmetov will be making a holy journey to the Vatican to lobby on behalf of the “Team Vino for Sainthood” campaign. There are also plans for a travel mug, t-shirts, and bottled “Vino Holy Water” to raise funds for several non-profit entities established by Vinokourov earlier this year.

WorldTour race organisers must contribute an amount equal to 15% of minimum prize money to the CADF as their contribution toward the cost of cycling’s anti-doping efforts. Every euro contributed by the race organisers towards the cost of anti-doping is a euro for which others sharing the cost of anti-doping don’t have to pick up the tab. Which leaves them free to spend that euro as they please. Every euro that the race organisers spend on anti-doping is also a euro which they cannot pay out to the teams. The race organisers’ CADF contributions should therefore be seen as an indirect form of revenue sharing.

With that thought in mind, let’s consider how much of the cost of anti-doping the race organisers currently share. As we saw last time out, minimum prize money for WorldTour events varies. For the five monuments – Milano-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix, the Ronde van Vlaanderen, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Giro di Lombardia – it’s €50,000 per race.

The other one-day races on the WorldTour calendar – Gent-Wevelgem, the Amstel Gold Race, the Flèche Wallonne, the Clásica San Sebastian, Vattenfall Cyclassics, GP Ouest France-Plouay, GP UCI  Cyclist Québec, and the GP UCI Cycliste Montreal – have minimum prize money of €40,000 each.

For the shorter stage races making up the WorldTour calendar – the Tour Down Under, Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, the Tour de Romandie, the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, the Critérium du Dauphiné, the Tour de Suisse, the Tour de Pologne, the Eneco Tour, and the Tour of Beijing – minimum prize money is set at €10,000 per stage plus half that again for GC, or €15,000 per racing day (e.g., a six-day WorldTour stage race has minimum prize money of €90,000).

For the Grand Tours, the minimum prize money is €850,000 each for the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España, and for the Tour de France it’s €1,000,000.

To turn those numbers into the organisers’ contribution to the CADF, multiply them by 15%. Doing that, we learn that the organisers of the Monuments each pay €7,500 to the CADF, the organisers of the other WorldTour one-day races €6,000 per race, and the organisers of WorldTour stage races pay €2,250 per racing day (e.g., €13,500 for a six-day stage race). The Giro and the Vuelta toss €127,500 each to into the pot, the Tour €150,000.

To complicate the matter somewhat, from last year, the GT organisers must also cover the cost of pre-race out-of-competition tests. The UCI’s 2010 accounts give a figure of 709,830 Swiss francs for that. Call that €190,000 per GT, bringing the Tour’s total CADF contribution up to €340,000

The sum of €340,000 from the Tour de France, it doesn’t look too bad, does it? Try this number then: €120,000. That’s the amount every ProTeam is required to contribute to the CADF. The Tour de France sits at the centre of the cycling world. For too many people, it is cycling. Yet the Tour de France coughs up less than the combined contribution of three ProTour teams to cover the cost of solving cycling’s doping problem? Think about that – Garmin-Cervélo, HTC-Highroad and BMC between them contribute more toward the cost of anti-doping than the Tour de France does.

ASO’s total CADF contribution

That, of course, is an unfair comparison. The teams are competing all year around and the Tour lasts just three weeks. Why then don’t we look at ASO’s total contribution to the CADF?

If we’re going to consider ASO’s total contribution to the cost of anti-doping, don’t you think it would be fair to consider the total contribution to the cost of anti-doping borne by teams? Consider Garmin-Cervélo. On top of the €120,000 levied upon them by the UCI, they fund their own independent anti-doping programme. The best estimate for the cost of that is about €375,000. Which brings their total anti-doping spend to just shy of half a million euros.

Thor Hushovd enters anti-doping control at the 2011 Tour de France (AFP PHOTO / PASCAL PAVANI )

Yup, that’s right folks: in total, ASO spend less on anti-doping than Garmin-Cervélo do. At some of their races, ASO are not even chipping in enough to pay for a single dope test. Seriously. The average cost of an anti-doping test is about €300. That’s not a very scientific figure, not all tests are the same and so not all tests cost the same but, as a simple average, it’ll do for our purposes here. €300. For just one test. Compare that with the €100 contributed toward to cost of anti-doping by the Critérium International. Or the €30 at the Ladies Tour of Qatar. Beyond the WorldTour races organised by ASO, the Amaurys really are getting a bargain when it comes to policing doping.

The World Tour’s CADF contribution

How does the half million or so euros spent by Garmin-Cervélo on anti-doping compare with the contribution of all the WorldTour races to cycling’s anti-doping costs?

Hands up, please, those impressed with those figures?

The big picture

Let’s move this up to the big picture. In 2010, the CADF raised 7.9 million Swiss francs from the teams, riders, organisers and the UCI. This compared with 8.2 million the year before. Let’s look at who contributed what:

The teams in total bear 59% of the cost of anti-doping, compared with the 21% borne by the race organisers. That seems unfair, but look at what the position was in 2009: the teams were shouldering 66% of the burden and the race organisers just 13%. Look closely at those figures though: the contribution made by the ProTour teams has actually risen, from 37% to 40%. The saving produced by making the Grand Tour organisers cover the cost of pre-race doping controls have been passed not to the ProTeams, who make up the majority of the Grand Tour peloton, but to the ProConti teams.

The shift in the burden of anti-doping costs between 2009 and 2010 might leave you thinking that we’ve reached a fair balance in the way the burden is borne, at least between the teams and the organisers in general (sharing the burden between the individual teams is a different debate). The race organisers have shouldered more of the burden, the teams have been freed of some of the burden. The teams are still required to spend nearly €3 for every €1 spent by the race organisers but compared with the €5 they had to spend in 2009, that’s an improvement. But are the race organisers now really bearing their fair share?

Go back to the table of ASO races. The Tour of Oman chips in just €210 toward anti-doping. The Critérium International just €100. Paris-Tours just €100. Once you step out of the twenty-seven WorldTour events, race organisers are contributing next to nothing to solving cycling’s doping problem. Think about this: twenty-seven races pick up the tab for more than 90% of the race organisers’ contribution to anti-doping. Three races – the Grand Tours – contribute more than two-thirds of the race organisers’ total share of anti-doping costs. ASO alone contribute nearly one third of the total contribution made by all race organisers.

Solve the manner in which cycling’s anti-doping costs are shared – between the teams and the organisers, among the teams themselves and also among the race organisers – and you will have gone some of the way toward solving the problem of revenue sharing.

Next: Sharing the revenue with the UCI.

Previous: Sharing the wealth at the WorldTour.

]]> http://www.cyclismas.com/biscuits/cycling-tweeters-index-of-suspicion-beijing-edition-october-4th-2011/feed/ 0 http://www.cyclismas.com/biscuits/the-overlords-dispatches-from-the-throne-volume-28/ http://www.cyclismas.com/biscuits/the-overlords-dispatches-from-the-throne-volume-28/#comments Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:12:05 +0000 http://cyclismas.com/?p=2555 We are winning the war. The war against dopers. This victory has been a monumental achievement in my reign as the supreme Overlord of all that is cycling.

This is my throne. This is my Sport. Live from Copenhagen.

The victory against this war has been clouded this week by the fact that my brother “helped” Richmond with their winning bid for the 2015 World Championships after the attrition of Quebec City last year. Ignore the fact that Muscat dropped at the eleventh hour during an in-person meeting where we offered the moon in order to secure the winning Richmond bid. That means nothing. It’s only insolent bloggers who are over-hyping the fact that Darach played a very insignificant, and therefore, minor role in securing the bid. There was a host of individuals who were intimately involved in making Richmond happen. In fact, I might be persuaded to consider that Darach was a freeloader. Well, he’s been a freeloader since birth, but that’s for another conversation at another time. I love the little fooker.

Happy Richmonders

Ignore that insignificant tripe. It’s unimportant. Winning the war against doping is all that matters, for at least the next 7 days or so, or until I change my mind. Yet again.

Our efforts have made the dopers run scared. We’ve broken the ringleaders of the effort to corrupt our sport. We have rid them from the ranks of the professional peloton, we have rid them from levels of team management, we have extracted them from the support folks that act as drug mules, and we have caused the arrest of the ring of doctors who supply these parasites with their products.

Yes, it is all the work of Alexander Kolobnev.

You see, Kolobnev is the only positive test this year in the professional peloton. With well over 500 target tests that were done this year, only one rider was found to have broken the rules. Therefore, based on our logic here in Aigle, he is the ringleader of doping efforts for the entire professional peloton for 2011. We are almost certain that he acted alone. Furthermore, the fact that two former riders were found with doping paraphenelia prior to the Tour is of no consequence to cycling. There was zero proof that those products were destined for use by any cyclists of any kind. This has been borne out by the fact that everyone has dropped their inquiries into the status of the “arrests” of both “drug mules.”

With that said, our rationale of the situation calls for only one conclusion. It has to revolve around the one dirty scoundrel that we outed this year. Never mind the fact that the test was one that the AFLD completed for the Tour, and that Kolobnev hadn’t had a Passport Programme test done in the 11 months prior. He’s the one bad apple in the pie that we forked out prior to him tainting the remainder of the pie. I love apple pie. It’s rather tasty. Especially after one wicked hangover.

Our biological passport programme has rendered the numerous individuals involved in the variety of doping rings that have been operating since the late ’80s to reconsider and recant their decades of profits and tainted performances. That single decision by us in Aigle is strategically the most brilliant tool ever created by any sporting organization.  What other rational explanation can be offered up as the poster child for success? This has to be a glowing example that we are bit-by-bit winning the war against doping in cycling.

As Francesca Rossi was allowed to point out at the World Championships on Saturday during her brief appearance in public, we are doing what we now refer to as “Intelligent Testing” in conjunction with our biological passport programme. What does IT stand for? Well I think that the concept is certainly above analysis by the simple folks involved in our sport, so instead, I believe I will just state, in point form, what Intelligent Testing (or IT for short) is NOT, as implied by all the useless bloggers and conspiracy oriented media types:

• IT is NOT a campaign to help the WorldTour teams understand where their riders should be in order to partake in threshold maintenance for systematic doping protocols.
•  IT is NOT a tool to arbitrarily punish those riders who may question our authority, or fall outside our wishes.
• IT is NOT a tool that allows us to extract cooperation of those that can help further our clandestine UCI objective
• IT is NOT a tool that prevents Team Managers from speaking out against what they call ludicrous decisions, like our Tour of Beijing (sorry, Danielson is positive *wink, wink. nudge, nudge*)
• IT is NOT a tool to help us promote certain riders to become our global spokespeople after a miraculous string of wins after years of almost brilliance.

Those are just a few of the many things that this programme is not.

Many high-profile “Oliver Stone” types (yes you, Gerard Vroomen), have cited the fact that we have dropped the amount of BPP (Biological Passport Programme for you dimwits) tests and have questioned why we have done this. You see, with our Index of Suspicion, one of the tools in the Intelligent Testing Umbrella Programme, we have been able to perform more target testing for those that we feel are the more dodgy part of the peloton, which in turn reduces our costs and increases our profit margin. The spectre of being tested has proven to be more than enough of a deterrent to those shifty-eyed dogs of the professional peloton to reconsider their pattern of behaviour.

Welcome aboard, my new friend. Officially.

This leaves us with more money to develop programmes like the certified clothing programme that we are developing after the rousing success of our bicycle certification programme, which will have a new name shortly – “Frame Safe by the UCI.” However, I’m digressing. Let’s just finish this doping success – er anti-doping success –  by saying that we’re winning. Winning. Winning. Winning.

My week in Copenhagen was one of pure joy. It was about igniting a formerly stale cycling nation into an army of Cav Clones, jumping on their bicycles with their aero helmets and one piece skinsuits to decimate the field of a road race with a team time trial. Bradley Wiggins did a better version of Fabian Cancellara. Speaking of Cancellara, how do you like being on a Bruyneel team now, eh? Be prepared for a year of heartache, Fabian, you’ll be the loser in many more photo finishes. *chuckle*

We also were able to begin our work on the athletes commission, which is an exciting proposition, creating a new format to keep the professional peloton in check while giving them the idea that they are “involved.” I was able to express my feelings on the fact that women’s cycling isn’t developed enough at all, and don’t look at me as being the reason for it as I’m just the president of the governing body that may or may not take care of that. You see, we have many other initiatives on the go, and really, women just aren’t a priority right now. However, I did thoroughly enjoy the armada of podium gals in bright red and blonde tones. It was pure joy.

Bruyneel affects the result of Fabianese. *chuckle*

Lastly, Copenhagen saw me begin a new spirit of cooperation with the latest and greatest member of the UCI management committee, Igor Makarov. I welcome him with open arms, and a Teflon vest underneath my shirt from Harrods. Thankfully our detente has led to Tchmil publicly saying, as he did to Alberto Celani last week, that he’s NOT running for the UCI presidency, and that he’s Katusha president. Let’s just say that those profits from the reduction in BPP testing are also being reallocated to another programme related to G6 safety. Just in case.

Somewhere along the way, some of the comments began to strike a chord with many behind the Swiss curtain that is professional cycling. Many of those who are professional riders, support staff, team owners, team managers, journalists, pundits, and avid fans began sending me important information about corruption at the UCI level, the federation level, and the team level to truly show what those in this sport are up against when all they want to do is ride their bike fast and have a good support group help them accomplish their goals.

My real life job affords me travel around various parts of the world, and sometimes allows me to interact with individuals within the sport, meeting face-to-face to truly understand what they are up against in order to get those bicycles on the road. I’ve had numerous phone calls, skype chats, facebook chats, DMs, with those who are considered to be influential in the sport. I am not paid to do this, and in spite of some organizations asking me to be paid to do this “commentary” I’ve resisted and will continue to resist as I feel it’s important to maintain editorial neutrality when discussing what is occurring.

Some people over the past year have attempted to take pot shots as they feel that I have some sort of agenda that hasn’t been revealed. Of course, many have discovered it is tough to take pot shots at someone who is after transparency in the sport from the governance level to the rider level. My “agenda” is one of inclusion for all in the conversation of cycling, rather than exclusion of some to the benefit of the very few. This agenda includes traditional journalists whom I have given information so they may fill in the gaps to many of their stories, as well as to bloggers, the twitterati, and hopefully to the general cycling community.

Many people have sent me emails or messages saying how the jokes or scenarios that I write about are very close to the reality in the sport, or somehow manage to end up being the truth that is uncovered weeks or months after the Dispatch has been written. That’s because mostly everything that is written is based upon true events, relayed to me by insiders in the sport who wish to remain anonymous. I do have to change the circumstance in many cases to protect those who have provided the “leak.” In some cases, the Dispatch contains the entire truth that is to be revealed at a later date publicly by those directly involved.

Our sport is a symptom of the greater malaise in our society. Our society is an overall reflection of those who disseminate their attitudes from the top that are filtered down through the layers of every corporation, sporting governance body, cycling team, or even the local retail store with which you do business.  When you have someone at the top of these organizations – be it the IOC, FIFA, UCI, SportAccord or the like –  who uses their influence for greater personal gain, or takes advantage of or perverts the rules, charters, or mission to benefit those of their choosing (or bend to their whims), it creates an empty feeling in our stomach, reminding us that we are insignificant and cannot make an impact.

There are reasons why the general population looks with satisfaction at companies that take care of their employees: those that are never in the news for massive layoffs during economic tough times; the ones that never look to “merge” to save their own skin while laying off “superfluous” support staff due to the contraction; the ones who do not give up on sponsor searches just because they want one golden sponsor instead of working harder to gain four or five that could do the same job; the ones who ask their staff what improvements can be made on behalf of their “customer” rather than care about the shareholder return only.

We see these examples in cycling – there are teams that we “cheer” for because you see the positive atmosphere from the top down. We see the athletes who show real enthusiasm when they win. These athletes make the effort to congratulate everyone who helped in the win. This same feeling goes to supporting those companies that provide the products for the sport that speak from a genuine enthusiasm as well, from folks like Campagnolo who still have their production in Italy, to Rapha, a firm affectionately parodied for their slick marketing efforts – but with beautiful and functional products from the heart, or to bicycle manufacturers like Look who refuse to succumb to mass-produced Asian carbon frames for the cycling masses.

We see this at the races this year, where folks like Brad Wiggins go out of their way to congratulate gents like a beaming Cobo who slogged out a Sky two-punch for a Grand Tour win. We poke fun at the camaraderie that is Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador who duke it out on the bikes, and yet joke with each other like brothers off. We see it when an entire cycling community rallies around the tragic deaths that have occurred this year, or when one of our own (whom many of us have even never met) is diagnosed with cancer and we rally to give him support.

John Galloway, who is known as @sofaboy on twitter, is the reason why I’m here and doing what I’m doing. He’s the one who inspired me to take the challenge beyond the twitter drivel and try to make a difference in 1000 words or fewer; this quickly ballooned to 1200 words, and then sometimes up to 1400 words. Thank Christ for editors like @cycletard who help me try to tame the madness. Galloway is also the reason why this Dispatch is a departure from the usual mucky muck to something a little more direct and stripped down.  He made some very interesting comments in his blog yesterday, that triggered this Dispatch.

You see, John’s right. There has been a shift in cycling in spite of those attempting to control it from above. The sport is cleaner. The performances are more believable. This is not due to some edict from the UCI, but a shift in attitudes by those coming up in the ranks of the sport who watched their heroes die from doping complications, or deal with the emotional skeletons associated with doping.  Unless you are a total sociopath (naming zero names), there is a guilt trigger that kicks in once you begin “breaking the rules” that manifests itself either in behaviour, or addictions, or other coping mechanisms. No matter how much those in power wish to root out this response from the athlete, it’s impossible, unless you turn them into – as Neil Browne joked last week – Zombies.

However, this movement towards a cleaner sport is in spite of the attempts by the UCI to wrest total control away from the various stakeholders throughout the world of cycling. This isn’t some insiduous “Galactic Empire” plan by Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid with designs on a “Death Star” to destroy all that oppose them. After all, in some bizarre fashion they truly do believe they are doing what is best for the sport – consolidation and control. Unfortunately, they have this attitude of “what’s in it for me,” which is the reason why we have some of these strange happenings that counter the aim, rules, and directives of the governing body. Read my past Dispatches here on Cyclismas for more specifics on that.

Consolidation and control means that they who make the rules feel that they are superior to those who are subjected to the rules. Therefore, less transparency means more control, fewer questions, and a “superior” sporting experience. It’s this sort of attitude that has killed many teams in the sport, and many manufacturers in the sport, and many races. When you focus on the end result rather than the process that achieves the end result, you end up with the wrong end result.

It is time to focus the attention away from the athletes, and stop wondering if they’re clean or dirty. Give them support instead scepticism. Instead, focus your questions on the governing body that seems to be at the centre of almost every controversy, not because they are the governing body, but because their fingerprints are all over whatever carcass happens to be offered up to the mainstream media.

The more we shine the light where it belongs, the more comfortable those who have suffered in silence will feel able to come forward and tell their stories. Lord knows they need to keep coming in an avalanche.

Question authority. It may be uncomfortable at first, but you’ll be rewarded with the results.