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?