Monday 29 October 2012

Team Sky spins Yates departure

In addition to the dignified and honest confession of Bobby Julich over the last few days, we have also had the news of the departures of Steven de Jongh and Sean Yates from the Sky Procycling management and training staff. While de Jongh's was a straightforward, low key confession to previous doping while a rider, the official statement regarding Yates left us with more questions than answers.

In response to press stories in the Daily Telegraph and elsewhere that a similar confession had been made, Team Sky issued the statement: "Sean has been interviewed and there were no admissions or disclosures that would have required him to leave the team". This is an interesting statement because it does not say that Yates claimed to have no past involvement in doping, but merely that he did not state that he did.

My take on this, is that Sean has decided to leave the team rather than make a confession since he was not willing to do so. There seems no doubt that Yates has health issues - a heart problem due to his many years of hard work in the peloton (a not-uncommon affliction in this sport), and my guess is that he prefers to avoid the massive media scrum that would surround him, particularly since he spent his last few years in the Peloton with Lance, and due to USADA's release of a photo of Yates with the now infamous 'Motoman'.

The health issues are a convenient excuse, but also a good reason to avoid the stress that would undoubtedly follow a confession which included Armstrong. The question of course, is whether or not the media will accept this rather feeble cover story and leave Yates in peace, or whether more digging will follow.

Meanwhile, Jorg Jacksche has expressed doubt that the current revelations will solve cycling's problems:

“This isn’t a solution. It’s like trimming the weeds but leaving the roots untouched. If you individualise one problem and just point the finger at Lance that won't solve the issue. Lance Armstrong isn’t the problem of cycling. The problem is the system that allowed for a Lance Armstrong and that’s a huge difference.”

Tuesday 23 October 2012

On another Planet....

The fallout from the UCI's announcement on Monday 22nd October at a widely reported and televised press conference continues unabated as stories, opinions and statements from within and outside the world of cycling continue to appear in the news.

As predicted, the UCI decided to make a concerted effort to tie the entirety of Cycling's Worst Era around Lance Armstrong's neck and throw him to the sharks without so much as a pepper spray ("There's no place for Lance Armstrong in Cycling"). UCI President Pat McQuaid's cliché ridden rhetoric of denial and excuses was as predictable as it was unacceptable.

McQuaid not too successfully tried to avoid the obvious question of why the UCI would take a donation of over $100,000 from a rider whose blood samples had recently showed suspicious signs of EPO use according to the Director of the lab in question. The Irishman seemed unrepentant about the UCI's failings, not to mention disinterested in suggestions that it might be a positive move to negate the conflict of interest the UCI has of being the body which both police's and promotes the sport, by separating those two factors.

McQuaid also criticised journalist Paul Kimmage and whistleblowers Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis, claiming they were "cashing in" by writing books on the subject while labelling the latter pair as "scumbags". Clearly, the UCI's culpability in this whole sordid affair is not to be acknowledged, and McQuaid is unwilling to recognise that only by writing Rough Ride did Kimmage actually get the truth out. No signs of "Sorry Paul, you were right all along" from the President of World Cyclings Governing Body.

Probably the worst offenders of this inability to see how vastly at odds their stance is with public opinion and facts, are the two latest idiots to add their ill-thought penn'orth to the mix, Samuel Sanchez and Miguel Indurain. We have to wonder what planet these two are living on when they are still offering support for Armstrong, claiming that "he hasn't tested positive" and there "isn't any direct evidence". Are professional cyclists really that ignorant of the rules in addition to the facts of this particular case?

To my mind, the psychology is clear here. The only reason that Big Mig and Sammy haven't condemned Armstrong for his undeniable guilt in running "the most sophisticated doping program in sporting history", is because they're guilty of doping too. Miguel Indurain won his Tour titles at the beginning of the EPO era when Lance was just starting as a professional and Sanchez rode against Armstrong before he retired in 2005. Perhaps Sanchez is still doping, but in any case, both have made their guilt clear to anyone who doesn't wilfully avoid reading between the lines.

An excellent blog by Scottish climbing legend Robert Millar sums up the last 48 hours admirably, complete with a tacit admittance to his own use of amphetamines and Cortisone (toys by comparison to Lance's arsenal of drugs and methods).

Here's a quote:

"Want to know who was juiced? That's easy – just ask to see their blood levels . Before EPO, the haematocrit norm would have been around 40-42%, gradually reducing as a grand tour went on. Then suddenly everyone's jumped to 50% or more and stayed there for weeks at a time. There hadn't been a step forward in human evolution, the only thing that had changed was the arrival of what Laurent Fignon called the new Super (French for high octane fuel) and those willing to supply and administer it."

Sunday 21 October 2012

What will the UCI decide?

Tomorrow, the UCI will announce its decision on whether to ratify, or appeal USADA's sanction of Lance Armstrong. In the case of the latter option being chosen, this would involve an appeal to the CAS and a long, drawn out process during which all sorts of embarrassing details might emerge.

It occurs to me that USADA may have some more evidence up its sleeve, particularly concerning the allegations of corruption and collusion with Armstrong by senior UCI members including Hein Verbruggen, the then President of the organisation.

Recent press stories have reported allegations that Verbruggen took a bribe from Nike, to cover up a positive test by Lance in the early part of his Tour de france reign. If this is true, the bank records will tell the story, providing an authority with jurisdiction and the power to subpoena decides to act.

My guess is that because of these factors, and the continuing bad press that an appeal would entail, the UCI will wrap the whole thing around Armstrong's neck tomorrow, hanging him out to dry and hoping the whole thing then just goes away.

But of course it won't...

Thursday 18 October 2012

Reinforcing the Omertá

It is clear to me that Sky's promise to fire anyone who has a doping past is pretty stupid. What's the incentive to come clean? I posted as much on their Twitter page. No-one is going to convince me that Sean Yates never doped and never saw anything at Motorola/Discovery etc. Especially not Sean Yates. But why the hell would he confess now?

The worst offender though is Omega Pharma Quickstep who are insulting my intelligence if they want me to believe they have sacked Levi Leipheimer for stuff that happened years ago rather than because they wanted to save money with which to pay Cavendish's salary. What's the betting if Cav was staying with Sky that Levi would still have his job? Did they sack Tom Boonen for recreational Cocaine abuse? I don't think so....

There have been a fair few confessions in the cycling press in recent days, but I'm more interested in the non-confessions. For instance, while I've always felt their attitude showed that Jens Voigt and Stuart O'Grady were pretty opposed to doping, I'm not convinced with their claims that they never even dabbled - particulary since we've heard all those claims before from You-Know-Who. Here's hoping Jensie and Stuey aren't holding anything back, as they're a couple of my favourites.

In addition, it's high time we saw some confessions from Team Managers and other non-riding staff such as doctors and soigneurs. Riis has rather forced himself into a corner because he didn't confess to his post-career incitement to dope in his press conference in 2007, but only to his personal competitive career misdemeanours. He's now backed into Omertá again. Don't expect that little story to go away Bjarne...

Garmin have the most sensible and workable example of how to deal with the problem: offer what is essentially a refuge home for talented riders trying to escape from doping culture and Omertá to come and give them a clean slate, whether they be former associates of Lance Armstrong (Y-K-W) or more recent offenders like Thomas Dekker. Vaughters vision for a sport with an environment where doping is not part of the equation is based on his own experience as one of Ferrari's and Bruyneel's experimental lab rats.

Finally, I find it pretty ironic that Team Sky are engaged in this 'Zero Tolerance', unforgiving 'battle' against corruption and drug abuse in cycling, considering where the money comes from. Who is more crooked and dishonest than the Murdoch family?


Saturday 6 October 2012

Letter to ProCycling Magazine - 05/10/2012

Dear Procycling

Curious to read the letters page in this month's Procycling and see how many people are either a) polarised in their opinions, and/or b) missing the point. The defenders of the faith trot out all the usual clichés about 'Witch Hunts' and 'Inspiration' and 'Fighting against Cancer', blah blah. My perception is that Armstrong doesn't care much about other people's cancer. What he does care about is his personal wealth and image for which his Foundations are a vehicle. Livestrong.com is a profit making organisation, not a charity and Lance is as cynical as they come. Other's seem to agree with Lance that we should just forget about the whole thing and that it's 'Bad for Cycling'. Armstrong said recently in an interview that he thinks everyone should just 'move on'. I'll be sure to remember that if I ever find myself in court: "I think everyone should just move on, your Honour".

But to my mind, the issue was never about retrospectively stripping Armstrong of his Tour victories. Nor do I think there is any point in doing so, although USADA are simply following the existing rules. No, this is about Planet Armstrong's PR machine still trying to tell us that 2+2=5. It's also about the issue of secrets and lies and how they fester and poison the future as well as the past. Our sport is like a dysfunctional family in which all kinds of unspoken abuse has occurred. Until we completely lay bare the past of not only Armstrong, but the system that created and protected him, we cannot possibly hope to 'move on'. Armstrong should confess and apologise, not only to the fans but to riders like Bassons who he bullied out of the Peloton. The UCI should confess too and Verbruggen and McQuaid and others who presided over this sordid period should leave the sport in the hands of a new generation.

Perhaps then, we can have some closure.

Friday 24 August 2012

Armstrong Dead-Bats the USADA

The news came through today that Lance Armstrong would not pursue arbitration of the USADA case against him, claiming that "Enough was enough" on the matter, while still declaring his innocence.

This didn't really surprise me, since it would appear to be the only way that Lance can prevent all the sordid details coming out in leaks to the press during a hearing. Instead, the likely legal process now, will be deflected away from the actual evidence of Armstrong's doping and that of his associates, towards a dispute between the UCI and anti-doping bodies WADA and USADA, likely to take place at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, over whether or not he is stripped of his Tour titles.

Armstrong apologists will use this turn of events to declare an end should be made to the 'Witch Hunt' Lance claims he is the victim of, while his detractors will see it as a tacit admission of guilt by a man who dare not allow testimony to be properly aired. In any case, it is a clever tactic by the 7 times Tour de France (former?) winner to keep uncertainty alive, whereas many of his peers, such as Bjarne Riis, Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton made belated, full confessions of the reality of the sport they lived in.

In a couple of weeks, Hamilton's likely to be controversial new book, will be released, reportedly laying bare the doping practices and Omérta in the Peloton. It's clear Armstrong knows his decision will not lay the matter to rest and that former teammate Tyler's book will throw even more fuel on the fire, but to the Armstrong camp, denial and keeping uncertainty alive are the central tactics of the Public Relations policy in recent years as his business circle has become more and more defensive in the light of mounting testimony.

An example of this, was Tailwind Sports and Armstrong's claim that a decision by a court to find in his favour against a sports insurance company SCA Promotions was based on the evidence rather than the simple facts that the UCI still recognised his victories and that a doping clause had not been written into the contracts. This served to sway the opinions of many who didn't take the trouble to look into the actual details of the case - a cacophony of threats, intimidation, attempts at bribery and legal manoeuvres to prevent the truth coming out, with damning testimony from multiple witnesses who had all at one time, been part of Lance's 'inner circle'.

Over the next few days we will see the usual calls to let sleeping dogs lie, together with those of the opposite view. My own view probably lies somewhere in the middle; I don't believe Armstrong should be stripped of his titles, since there is no-one credible to award them to. But to those who understand human physiology and know that it is impossible to output 520 Watts for 30 minutes up a steep mountain pass without blood manipulation, it will doubtless be frustrating that such simple facts are not it seems, going to be aired in a legal procedure against the American in order to force him to end his insult of our intelligence.

Like I said previously, I believe Armstrong is more likely to disown his mother than confess so his refusal to take on Travis Tygart in a fair hearing should come as no surprise if it is understood by the observer that Lance is well aware that the evidence against him is overwhelming.

Friday 10 August 2012

The double standards of the UCI

It's curious this week to see the UCI make an inexplicable objection to the USADA investigation of Lance Armstrong. Inexplicable that is, until we remember that some of the allegations contained in the evidence that has been reported widely around the web were statements from former teammates Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton who both testified that the UCI helped cover up a positive test for EPO Armstrong submitted at the 2001 Tour du Suisse.

This obvious conflict of interest was not mentioned in Pat McQuaid's bizarre statements to the Cycling Press, nor it seems in the legal claims made by the UCI. The alleged dope test in question, was conducted during the tenure of McQuaid's predecessor, Hein Verbruggen, but it's no secret that the two remain good friends, nor that the latter had a close relationship with Armstrong. The USADA replied with this and a few other conflicts of interest in the matter. Travis Tygart shows no intention of being dissuaded from doing his job, but it's interesting to note how Armstrong's influence, direct or tacit, is already putting pressure on the agency to cease and desist.

2012 Tour de France stage winner David Millar, himself a confessed former doper and now a member of WADA's athlete's committee tweeted his displeasure at the UCI's ambivalence on this matter, which must have reminded him of the Federation's duplicity in the environment he competed in during his pre-ban career. In an interview after his ban, Millar once explained how Verbruggen had smiled and shook his hand at cycling events, despite being fully aware that Millar's blood values were heading unnaturally toward's the UCI's own 50% limit.

Even to the casual observer, it is obvious that McQuaid is making a fool of himself, not to mention making the suspicion that the UCI have got something to hide rather difficult to deny, but then McQuaid's stance on the subject of doping has not been entirely consistent during his career, as former pro and journalist Paul Kimmage has pointed out more than once.

Fortunately, it would appear that WADA are backing the USADA in this instance, but it is a constant reminder of how money and politics sometimes make a mockery of fairness and rules in the sport. We only have to think back to the intervention in the Contador case by the President of Spain, or the acceptance of a backdated certificate for saddle sore cream presented by Armstrong's team for explanation of his positive test for a steroid at the 1999 Tour de France.

So just when we thought the UCI had got to the stage where it would leave no stone unturned and consider nothing and nobody sacred and untouchable in the fight to change the sport, it would seem that the sports governing body is trying to conceal the skeletons it has in its own closet. Watch this space.


Saturday 28 July 2012

Olympic Road Race Result

The Olympic Road Race has just ended, regrettably as far as I am concerned with a winner who would be difficult to surpass for the prize of most undeserving. That individual is unapologetic blood doping cheat, Alexander Vinoukorov who easily won a two up sprint from Rigoberto Uran after they broke away in the last 5 kilometres. When I had expected a strong classics man to take the gold from a group of contemporaries, he wasn't the winner I had hoped for, if a Cavendish victory was no longer on the cards.

Unsurprisingly, almost no-one helped the British Team control the race in the finale, with only a few half-hearted attempts, too little and too late it would appear, from the German squad, who have only got themselves to blame for Andre Greipel missing out entirely on a medal opportunity. There was no noticeable effort from anyone else at the head of the peloton to aid the tiring British Team, perhaps because most nations had some interest in the large group ahead that had gained around a minutes advantage which they sustained to the final kilometres, but also because there seemed to be a rather negative tactic to let the 4 British riders do all the work.

Self blame is also true of Cancellara, whose attention was far too much on what was going on over his shoulder, rather than on the sharp corner he was about to negotiate. This beginners error, uncharacteristic of the Swiss star, put him into the barriers and out of contention with the addition of an injury to his shoulder, the nature of which is not known as I'm writing but which also seems likely to end his chances in the Time Trial following in a few days.

There was no sign of Peter Sagan in the race, who perhaps considering his youth is still feeling the effects of his efforts at the Tour de France, and like most of the other sprinters, he was part of an unenthusiastic gallop for 27th place, which was taken by Greipel. I had expected Sagan to join the attack, but perhaps he was unable to, or perhaps he had simply made a gamble to be on Cavendish's wheel in a bunch finish.

Uran, the Silver medallist made firstly the mistake of taking the lead out position in the final kilometre to his far more experienced and crafty opponent, then stunningly, swinging left while looking over his shoulder at the chasers for far too long, at which point Vino immediately jumped, while it took a long moment before Uran realised and attempted to respond. His directeur must have been cringing. It likely wouldn't have made any difference though, as his companion had at least ten metres at the line.

Alexander Kristoff of Norway, took the Bronze from the pursuing breakaway group.

Friday 27 July 2012

Night before....

Night before the 2012 Olympic Road Race and Cav tweets "I am nervous". This is usually a good sign with Cavendish and he certainly has the best backing he could hope for in the 5 man team, radio free, 250km event. Stannard, Wiggins, Froome and Captain, Millar will be hard pushed to control the race though, and will be deprived of their usual communication to keep tabs on what is going on in the race, so it will be up to Millar to keep a close eye on events and make quick decisions during the race.

If a break gets away in the last 100km with some classics strong men, it will be hard to pull back, but the British team may be gambling that 50km from the top of the last climb is enough distance to chase down the break and get Cav to the finish in contention. Everyone else of course, will be conspiring to ensure this doesn't happen, but not likely in concert with each other, unlike the British team who will be absolutely unified in their objective as they were last year at the World Championships.

So here's my qualified (hedged) prediction, which is that the various teams with strong classics contenders will do their best to make the racing hard and wear down the British team. They will want to get rid of the weaker riders who don't race in the World Tour peloton fairly early in order to reduce the chances of crashes or being caught in the wrong side of a split. I expect a proper attack to come on the penultimate time up Box Hill, followed by the top riders such as Gilbert, Boonen (if he is over his injury enough), Cancellara, Nibali and Peter Sagan among others.

It will then be a case of whether Cavendish gets over the multiple climbs close enough to the head of the race so that the British team, or whoever is left from their earlier efforts, can chase down the break just in time to bring it all back together for a sprint finish. The riders make the race, and because of the aforementioned factors, this could prove to be one of the most unpredictable single day races for years.

If the British team pull this off, despite their race plan being perhaps the worst kept secret in modern cycling history, they will all deserve a gold medal apiece.

Monday 23 July 2012

Tour Shorts and the Olympics

As I write this, Bradley Wiggins is - barring accident - about to become the first British rider ever to win the Tour de France. For many, this is proof that cycling has changed fundamentally at the Elite level, but for others, skepticism remains - notably from sports journalist and former pro cyclist, Paul Kimmage. The insinuations from the 'Twitterati' over the last couple of weeks, initially provoked a terse response from Wiggins, who considering his career-risking outspoken comments against doping over the last few years, was probably finding it somewhat ironic that he was now facing the kind of accusations previously reserved for Lance Armstrong.

It would seem most had forgotten his press conference of July 2007 when his then squad, Cofidis, voluntarily left the race after a positive test from erstwhile teammate, Cristian Moreni. Wiggins crime it would appear, was failing to spare time in his racing and training schedule to constantly reassure journalists that his stance had not changed and perhaps to remind them of his past statements. It didn't seem to have occurred to them that even those outspoken on the subject, might get a little tired of the constant media focus on it and want to get back to the business of racing and justifying their salaries. Nevertheless, Wiggins reiterated his stance once more in the Guardian.

David Millar on the other hand, is willing to deal with the issue on a daily basis precisely because he is a reformed doper, and feels it is his duty to do so, as his interview following his classy stage win at the Tour this year confirmed. Shame that more riders with a chequered past are not so willing to follow his example ("I'm David Millar and I'm a former doper"). Instead we have Alejandro Valverde and others, still insisting they 'did nothing wrong', let back in the sport as though bags of their blood weren't found in the possession of notorious blood doping doctors.

Meanwhile, an investigation into Team Astana's French climber, Remy Di'Grigorio and a positive test for a diuretic by Radioshack-Nissan-Trek star, Frank Schleck, while thankfully failing to overshadow the racing as doping scandals normally do, are still causes for concern in that they present evidence that some guys in the peloton are still willing to risk their own and everyone else's livelihoods with such idiotic behaviour. We'll see how those stories develop no doubt.

Much column space was filled over the last couple of weeks with speculation over the supposed internecine battle over the leadership of Team Sky. Commentators focusing on Chris Froome's ostensible superiority in the mountains, but while they tended to ignore the bad moments Froome himself had, when his leader took over the chase on the front, they also forgot the most significant factor, which is that having the legs to theoretically win the Tour, is very different from handling the pressure of the Maillot Jaune for two weeks as Wiggins did. For a relatively young, shy and inexperienced rider like Froome, the pressure may have been enough for him to crumble. Perhaps we will see how he stands up to a taste of that pressure at the Vuelta later this year.

Thoughts are already turning to the Olympic Road Race and Box Hill. It's a difficult race to predict a winner, since each team will only have 5 riders and therefore will not be able to control the race. Trade team loyalties are likely to enter the mix, coming into conflict with national team orders. The peloton will climb Box Hill nine times, with the last summit being 50 kilometres from the finish. Will attacks blast the race apart and push Cavendish out of contention, without enough support to chase down a break? It's highly likely, although Cavendish has clearly been training with this particular obstacle in mind. One scenario is that a strong group of classics specialists such as Cancellara, Sagan, Boonen and Gilbert among others could force a split - perhaps on the penultimate time up the hill and stay away to the finish. My pick for the Gold is Peter Sagan, but if Cav was indeed to stay in the mix and win the sprint, it would put the cherry on a perfect year for British Cycling.

Once he has done his best to aid Mark Cavendish's bid for Gold, Bradley Wiggins will attempt to make it two in the time trial. With Cancellara present, the job may not be as easy, but as we saw at the Tour de France, Wiggins may have caught up with his top rivals in this discipline or even surpassed them. Even without the gold medal, it seems sure that Wiggins will become the sports personality of the year.

Saturday 21 July 2012

Armstrong - Legacy or Liability?

June 15th 2012

As I read through the quotes and predictable responses from Lance Armstrong concerning reports of the decision by USADA in the cycling online press on Wednesday 14th June, it brought two particular things to my mind. The first was that I had been procrastinating about writing a letter to Procycling to comment on the article by Jan Van Gestel in the June 2012 issue, "Enforcing the Rules" which had read as pure - if inadvertent - "LiveStrong" PR to me. The second was that every article and report for about the past decade or so on the subject, was invariably rubber stamped with the disclaimer, "Armstrong, who has never tested positive…".

When Lance made an unexpected return to the Peloton in 2009, it was interesting to watch him suffer like an amateur, barely able to follow a wheel properly, in the Tour of California. His colleagues likely observed Armstrong's humbling purgatory with wry amusement, although I surmise round about none of them were brave enough to invoke the legendary wrath of the former Tour de France 'Patron' by making this known. Mortal, Lance Armstrong might have become, but I'm willing to bet that most of the Peloton were still S*** scared of him. Still, by the time the Giro came around, I was starting to be impressed. Not by his performances, which were modest by his standards and most of his peers, but by the fact that he was there at all after such a long break from the sport, almost 4 years older and weaker. He appeared to be suffering himself into contention for the Tour with that same obsessive determination that had aided 7 straight victories.

It therefore comes as a disappointment (if not a surprise) that some of his blood samples from "Comeback 2.0" were "fully consistent with blood manipulation including EPO use and/or blood transfusions" according to a report by the Washington Post detailing a letter apparently sent to Armstrong by USADA. Like many others, I'd been prepared to "move on" as far as Armstrong was concerned, and accept his brief return to the sport at face value in terms of his insistences that he was clean, even if I didn't believe the suffix that he had “never doped”. Surely I thought, he wouldn't be stubbornly dumb enough to dope the second (third?) time around, especially since his departure from the Tour in 2005 looked more like a getaway than a retirement, as his past appeared to be rapidly catching up with him, courtesy of "L'Equipe", Pierre Ballester and David Walsh among others. Planet Armstrong it seemed, couldn't get out of France fast enough.

There were early signs that this benefit of the doubt for the 'new' and 'transparent' Armstrong was wishful thinking though, not the least being the brevity of his relationship with a prominent anti-doping expert. Possibly Armstrong had found himself to be far weaker than he himself had expected for his second sojourn into the Grand Boucle, or perhaps he had simply been doping, lying and cheating himself and everyone else for so long that he no longer knew how to ride confidently and competitively without it? We may never know, and Lance is perhaps more likely to disown his mother before confessing. Still, if you read between the lines of his tedious, scripted, responses that we've all heard a thousand times before, you can feel a faint hint of death-bed type repentance, straining to break free. But only just. Maybe seething inside is that Jack Nicholson moment from "A Few Good Men" when he rages at an astonished Cruise "You're goddamn right I did!" Perhaps Armstrong is even more sick of sticking to his mantra than we are.

Nevertheless, sticking to it he is. Never mind the fact that for the majority of his tenure, the drug of choice, EPO was first undetectable, then barely detectable, by which time Armstrong and his Entourage had, by numerous accounts, moved onto even more undetectable blood doping techniques, then around the time tests or at least preventative measures were appearing against these methods, Lance was shuffling off into retirement 1.0. Since we would be hard pressed to find a protagonist for the "Mellow Johnny" (Maillot Jaune) from the period of Armstrong's dominating run who wasn't implicated in a doping scandal, if not actually sanctioned for an offence, and considering the very real evidence of how great an effect blood manipulation has on performance, Armstrong's insistence that he was clean while running rings round all these top athletes who were doped - as one US lawyer put it - "doesn't even pass the straight face test".

Still, it's not all about Armstrong is it? As the aforementioned observation affirms we're left with the conundrum that will undoubtedly be faced by USADA and the UCI if matters progress to the point of stripping Armstrong of his 7 Tour victories (not to mention his 3rd place in 2009 and his wins in races like Bradley Wiggins current title, Criterium du Dauphine), which is: who on earth do they award the titles to? Perhaps they would simply have to label them "Result Void". Lance may well be counting on the whole thing "going away" as abruptly and unexpectedly (to some - not to me) as the original Federal investigation into the practices of Armstrong, Bruyneel and their associates. Armstrong has friends in high places - the kind that can make such charges disappear - to the obvious consternation and outrage of those investigators and law enforcement officials who had diligently done their jobs and unearthed many a sordid secret from the nineties/noughties peloton. But perhaps Lance didn't need to call in a favour from one of his connections and here perhaps, and in my view, we come to the crux.

Armstrong's story of a poor, fatherless Texas boy made good, his determination to succeed and most importantly, his triumphant return from cancer to win the Tour seven straight times, sticking it to those "Old Europe" dinosaurs at the same time is the epitome of the myth that Americans propagate and perpetuate about themselves. It is the myth of the "American Dream" wrapped up in "American Exceptionalism" which the United States uses as a licence to enforce its will on the rest of the world. The late American Comedian and Satirist, George Carlin said "They call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it". If the Armstrong story is proved to be a fake, if Lance is forced to make a tearful confession, or perhaps even worse retreat into silence and seclusion in the face of overwhelming evidence against him, it will be shattering for many who cling onto that dream, and perhaps even damaging to the US psyche as a whole.

In essence, the true meaning of the toppling of Lance Armstrong from sporting's Pedestal, (and I'm restraining my temptation to be political here) is that it will epitomise the corruption at the heart of the United States, which like all Empires in terminal, economic and moral decline, becomes more rotten at the core as it descends. Those who aren't comfortable with accepting this rationale should for an example, take a long hard look at the amorality in the US Finance industry in recent years, with not one single conviction in a court of law that I'm aware of. (I could comment about Drone strikes and Rendition, but this is a cycling article so I won't). It therefore becomes institutionally and instinctively prudent, for decision makers in the bureaucracy, to sweep things under the carpet. That's already been done once and it might well be done again. The USADA is likely to come under intense pressure from the same quarters of influence that buried the Federal Investigation in the first place, with or without a private phone word from Lance's retinue.

Armstrong's persistent declaration that 2+2=5, despite continually mounting evidence to the contrary, is one of the main aspects of the Texan that his French critics dislike about him and the very 'American' culture he characterizes. The doping they could perhaps forgive, his attitude however, was more problematic. Jeremy Whittle, in his seminal book "Bad Blood" in which he revealed his own deteriorating relationship with Armstrong in the face of the latter's tendency to blacklist those who raised the doping issue in the sport, concluded that blaming young riders for surrendering to doping practices in such a culture, was akin to blaming factory chickens for getting fat. However, for over a decade, Armstrong has been the primary promoting face of the Peloton and therefore his behaviour and attitude to Cycling's problems, not to mention his bullying of riders like Christophe Bassons and Fillipo Simeoni, would translate as the image of the sport to the watching world.

And it wasn't a pretty picture.

Is there a place for ethics in sports - Part Two

(Originally written in 2007)

Note: this article was originally written and intended for online publication prior to the news of Vinokourov's positive doping test. I've decided against adding any more to the article as I think it is more interesting to see how it now stands in light of Tuesdays events.

With a little luck and timing, you should be reading this as we reach the 2nd rest day of the the Tour De France. By now we should all have a better idea of who the winner, or at least the 3 podium places will be, and although the Tour may not yet be won, for some it will certainly already be lost, with the heartbreak of those whose tour dreams were shattered by a crash or a bad day creating much of this years drama. For those of us watching though, will there be doubts about the veracity of the stage winners and GC contenders? Will their performances be believable examples of athletic performance and strength of character, or will we be eyeing these riders with suspicion in the wake of the 'epic' stage 17 of last years Tour?

In part one I wrote about my own feelings of ambiguity regarding drug taking, the double standards and hypocrisy in the sport and questioned the agendas of all concerned, even those who are whistleblowing on the cheating, ostensibly in the name of an ethical and clean sport. This time I want to widen the lens a little, and examine the commercial pressures on today's sportsmen and women.

It's no secret that sport is big money both in terms of what it generates for those who are directly involved, and for those whose business is to sell it. Top sports stars are as glamourous as movie and pop stars with not only their professional salary, but also product endorsements and even their wedding photos adding to earning potential. Sport is big money for big business too. From Managers and Agents to Corporate sponsors, the urge to tap into the enormous river of money flowing from the pockets of an eager public is too tempting to resist. Most sports rely on major corporate sponsorship to maintain them at a high level. Without this sponsorship and the cycle of TV coverage and advertising, any sport would soon shrink to a fraction of its popularity.

The recent scandals surrounding former members of the Deutsche Telekom Team have made daily headlines in the German press. The show of ethical stance by the current incarnation T-Mobile, while laudable, is perhaps a little ironic in light of recent scandals regarding corruption in Germanys Corporate Sector and the complicity of the teams management during the period in question. Any sponsors considering choosing a sport with a cleaner reputation (on the surface at least) must be wondering in the back of their minds who the owners of the remaining 142 bags of blood found in Spains Operation Puerto belong to, and whether it will come back to haunt them. Drug scandals in Baseball and American Football in the USA, not to mention the bans on athletes such as Tim Montgomery, have revealed that drug abuse and cheating is rife in other sports too. It is however conspicuous that the European press, while very active on doping in cycling, have been so silent regarding the other sports listed by the notorious Doctor Fuentes.

One of my arguments in the first article was that the organiser of the Tour de France at the time of the Festina affair, Jean Marie Leblanc, could not possibly have failed to realise what was happening in the peloton and equally, I find it impossible to believe that Corporate sponsors have no idea about whether their athletes may be doping. Back in 1999, François Migraine the CEO of Cofidis Insurance, backer of the French Cycling team of the same name commissioned a study of drug taking among his own riders. Although the results were disturbing and alarming - a culture of both performance enhancing and recreational drug use was discovered in the team - at the time nothing was done. Why did Migraine turn a blind eye? Was he thinking about his profits and share values? Or perhaps the resulting fewer victories and reduced publicity if he were to quietly clean the team up? A study made in Italy by anti-doping proponent Sandro Donati concerning EPO and other drug abuse in the Peloton (at least 80% of riders were estimated to be doping with EPO) was also shelved by the Authorities at the time who considered it too provocative. These are the same Authorities now sanctioning the likes of Basso, Mazzoleni, Scarponi et al.

Pressure on athletes to perform filters down from Corporate sponsors to Team managers and Coaches, concerned about future financial stability and continuation of sponsorship. During his period of sanction, former Cofidis rider David Millar talked of having to fake illness in order to abandon races simply so he could get some rest. Prior to his failed attempt to win the Tour de France prologue for a second year (2001), Millar called his sister (who was also his agent) to confess he was utterly exhausted and low on form. In desperation, Millar took two many risks in the Prologue and crashed badly, subsequently abandoning the Tour. It was at this point he reports that he was first lured by the habitual dopers within his team.

What are athletes to do when faced with corporate pressure to win at all costs? When their own single mindedness and ambition, (a requirement of any top athlete), comes into conflict with the rules of their chosen sport? When everyone else around us is breaking the speed limit do we obey it or do we do what everyone else is doing? Former Tour podium rider Alex Zülle certainly saw it that way. So did disgraced Canadian Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson. It was either that or throw over a decade of commitment away and return home to nothing, these athletes felt. Some of course decide that the time has come to retire: 'when I saw guys with fat arses flying up the mountains I realised it was time to quit' said Luis Herrera of Columbia. Americans Andy Hamptsten and Greg Lemond are also reputed to have left the sport earlier than planned due to finding that they could no longer compete with riders using EPO.

However the reaction to riders now confessing to being involved in this almost ubiquitous state of affairs has been disingenuous. the likes of Bjarne Riis and Erik Zabel have been unofficially at least, stripped of their respective Yellow and Green jerseys from 1996. By scapegoating 1 or 2 riders who have had the courage to break the sports Omerta - the law of silence - while disregarding the fact that their colleagues were also doping (some proven in court), seems like a cynical exercise of Public Relations damage control rather than an ethical stance. It also has the likely effect of dissuading other riders from coming forward and surely negates attempts to reconcile the sports protaganists with the necessary cultural change required for it to survive.

We are often reminded of the 'Olympic Spirit', but I sometimes wonder if it ever existed. One wonders if somewhere down the line, a decision will be made that the tide of doping in professional sports can no longer be resisted, and that athletes will simply be permitted to take whatever they wish. There are some who are already speaking in favour of such a stance. Perhaps it all depends on whether we wish sport to be inspiring or merely a spectacle à la Reality TV. With Genetic Malipulation methods of performance enhancement probably just around the corner, how long can WADA and other anti-doping authorities guarantee any level of effectiveness in dope controls? Time will tell if ethics and fairness win out over the tide of commercial pragmatism, but knowing a little of human nature and history, I can't say that I'm particularly optimistic. As I write this, a scandal is building around the Tour leader Michael Rasmussen concerning missed doping controls and a rumour of his connection with a story concerning shoeboxes and Bovine Hemaglobin. Watch this space.

Is there a place for ethics in sports - Part One


(Originally written and posted in 2007)

Like many cycling fans I have been disheartened by the constant cloud of doping hanging over our sport and the implications of such problems for its future. As time has gone on though, I've begun to wonder whether it's all so black and white, and have begun to question much of the accepted reasoning on the subject, due to it's inconsistency and lack of logic.

Recently I wrote a letter to a cycling magazine on the subject of Ivan Basso and his ‘attempted doping claim’. Like many others I dare say, I was irritated to say the least by the way his so called confession insulted my intelligence as a fan. The letter was good enough to win the star prize that month (an as yet unreceived pair of Rudys), however on reading my published letter, something began to bother me.

Re-reading my original letter and comparing it with the published version, I found it to be, not only heavily edited, but subtly changed in meaning. Naturally my approval for these editorial changes had not been sought for such a minor thing as a readers letters page - Publications probably universally reserve the right to do so - but this slight distortion of my personal thoughts got me thinking about how journalistic licence can affect the nature of a story by deviating from fact and truth for commercial or perhaps other more insidious reasons, and how that conflicts with the duty of journalsim - to inform the public.

Just this week I've finished reading a new book ‘In Search of Robert Millar’ and was intrigued by some of Millars opinions. in an email to the books author Richard Moore, Millar articulated that sport mirrors real life and "Being an athlete doesn't turn you into some kind of morally superior being - it's all a reflection of the society we live in". Millar was pointing out that cheating and dishonesty occurs in all walks of life and the fact that we expect a high level of integrity from our athletic heroes is something of a paradox.

One of my heroes of cycling besides Millar, when I first took an interest in the sport was Sean Kelly. I still consider him to be a great champion, but guess what, he tested positive during his career and this coupled with the likelihood that he was the ‘strong man of the classics’ referred to in Willy Voets ‘Breaking the Chain’, causes me to wonder about my comparative judgement on todays stars and their misdemeanors - are they after all, not simply reacting to the environment they are in?

Consider David Walsh’s sustained campaign against Lance Armstrong. It bothered me how he singled out one rider (albeit the most famous one in the world at the time), especially in the light of recent events surrounding his closest rivals for Tour de France victory - is that fair or ethical? Consider also the reaction of Christian Prudhomme, the Director of the Tour, to Bjarne Riis’s recent confession. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Prudhomme that the next 3 riders on General Classification in ‘96 (Ullrich, Virenque, Dufaux) have all been subsequently implicated in doping scandals. Probably we would have to award the Yellow Jersey to the Lanterne Rouge that year to find a worthy champion (and even then I wouldn’t be sure). Are we going to strip Virenque of his Polka Dots too?

I don't know about you, but I would not believe for one minute that Prudhomme's mentor, and Director of the Tour at the time, Jean Marie Leblanc had no knowledge of the rampant EPO abuse in the peloton - no he simply turned a blind eye and ironically, rather like the riders, only took action when his back was to the wall. In the same way that the guilty athlete only feels sorry because he (or she) has been caught, Leblanc only chose to become righteous when other parties uncovered the dark underbelly of cycling that he and so many others had been trying to hide for years.

Paul Kimmage, the well known sportswriter and infamous whistle-blowing former pro found UCI Chief Pat McQuaid’s recent change of attitude astounding considering McQuaid had labeled Kimmage ‘Bad for Cycling’ and attempted to deny the existence of systematic doping within the sport. Of course I have a bit of a problem with Kimmage too these days. The reason for this is that I find his cynicism a little too embittered. I wonder at his motives - does he actually want cycling to clean up its act and survive? Personally I wonder if deep down he may get some form of satisfaction if this sport he once loved which discarded him so brutally, finally self destructs.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the death of Tom Simpson. There is little need for me to go into detail regarding the circumstances surrounding this tragic event, but suffice it to say that I’m sure cycling magazines will be happy to print a memorial article over several pages praising him as a hero of British Cycling, yet these would be the same publications which are coming down so hard on todays stars when they are caught or confess.

Which brings me back to Ivan Basso and my own discomfiture on the subject. What may raise a few eyebrows is the fact that I was more bothered by this particularly likeable riders insult to my intelligence (I only attempted to dope - my Giro win was clean - honest guv) than with his likely having doped. Maybe I'm like Jean Marie Leblanc or Pat McQuaid in that I'm only concerned about doping because its embarrassing my beloved sport. Am I a hypocrite too? I have to ask myself the question that had I been a talented rider who had given his youth in the pursuit of his dream and been confronted with the reality of being unable to keep up with the rest of the peloton, would I have doped too? My answer is that I think I almost certainly would.

That's not to say I'm not anti doping because indeed I am. It's just that I'm prepared to admit that it may not be totally for the ethical reasons that others claim to champion. We all have an agenda. Prudhomme and Leblanc's is to protect the reputation of Le Tour. A magazine editors agenda is to sell more copies of his publication. Perhaps Walsh and Kimmages agenda is to help keep themselves in a job, writing books and articles about doping scandals. What's mine? Perhaps it's so that my sport will survive and not degenerate into a farcical and parochial affair that I will be too embarrassed to be associated with.

In part two I will consider how we define sport in todays society, whether ethics have any place in a commercial world, and what are the nature of the pressures forced on todays athletes.