All This Doping Talk is Getting Me Down

By Jessica | Permalink | No Comments | June 26th, 2007 | Trackback

As we all know, cycling is almost synonymous with doping these days, and at this point we are still waiting for someone to tell us who those “Men in Black” are. Either someone hasn’t looked at a calendar lately, or they just feel like being royal pains in the ass about this. Okay, yes - doping is bad, we need to get rid of doping. But does all this shit have to come out in the week before the Tour de France? I mean, we’ve got a big race coming up here, people, in case you weren’t paying attention, and as I write this we’re not sure who the hell is going to be allowed to ride in it. Is that screwed up to anyone else besides me?

I’m still not sure how I feel about the UCI’s anti-doping pledge, but more riders are signing it every day. And really, even if the pledge sucks, what choice do they have? If they don’t sign it, they don’t get to ride the Tour de France, their sport’s biggest event, and they also risk looking like they’re admitting they’re guilty. But does signing it mean for sure that you’re not guilty? I don’t think so. It just means you’re agreeing to penalties in advance if you’re ever caught. If you manage to steer clear of the doping police (like some riders clearly have), you could sign the pledge and still get away with it.

Incidentally, I’m not the only one who’s not so sure about the pledge - the “Italian professional cyclists association has advised its riders” not to sign it, and the CPA (sort of the cyclists’ union) is annoyed about how the UCI chose to go about announcing it in the first place, without talking to the CPA first. If anything meaningful is going to be done to combat doping in cycling, it must be done with the cooperation of and input from the riders, so springing something like this on the riders’ union without even consulting them seems backwards. It implies that the riders are guilty until proven innocent, a theme which has been recurring in just about every doping investigation in the last few years, and a concept which needs to go away.

Oh, and now we have word that there are a few irregular test results out of the Giro d’Italia, including Giro winner Danilo Di Luca, 3rd place finisher Eddy Mazzoleni (who is already under investigation on another matter), Gilberto Simoni and his young teammate Riccardo Ricco (the latter two have already signed the UCI’s pledge). They reportedly had abnormally low hormone levels. Now, if that kind of thing is supposedly an aid to an endurance athlete, then I can’t see how the opposite (high hormone levels) could also help. I’m no dummy, but that’s just plain confusing.

Damn. I’m still a Pollyanna, really - I still want to believe these guys - but it’s getting tough for me to be anything but cynical. And that really bites. Let’s hope the Tour can lift my spirits, if there’s anyone left to ride it.

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