“Guilt by Association” and Other Doping News

By Jessica | Permalink | No Comments | October 24th, 2007 | Trackback

Okay, here are the two things that are bothering me today. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn that they both involve doping in cycling.

1. Danilo di Luca is denied a ProTour win because he’s associated too closely with a doctor who has been accused of giving performance-enhancing drugs to athletes.
I’m all for suspensions and fines if cyclists are found with doping products, or give non-negative samples, or admit to doping. But this is going too far. There are too many uncertainties here, it seems to me, to issue suspensions or pull someone out of the ProTour. Di Luca’s been chummy with a doctor who’s been accused - not convicted, not proven, but accused - of being a dope supplier. That, in my everso humble opinion, is not proof enough of anything more than perhaps bad judgment. Suspending di Luca is an over-reaction and unfair. If there’s more information behind the decision than just an association with a suspect, authorities should let that be known. But given the “evidence” they’re citing now, this is a crap call.

2. The Paris lab at the center of pretty much every doping controversy in the sport may have made yet another blunder.
Iban Mayo’s career was as good as over when it was announced he’d tested positive for EPO during this year’s Tour de France. Since that first test, the B sample came back negative after being tested by a different lab. And even though now the UCI is saying that the B sample isn’t finished being analyzed and the case is still open, the fact that there’s any question at all surrounding the first test done by the Châtenay-Malabry lab in Paris says to me that this is one lab that should lose its fricking license to do business. When it’s the same lab that comes up over and over again in these scandals, when it’s the lab that’s the common denominator, it stands to reason that even if everything were on the up-and-up you’d change labs now and then to eliminate even the vaguest appearance of impropriety, doesn’t it? Why do they insist on returning again and again to the Châtenay-Malabry lab when cases have been mishandled and/or leaked? And on another note, they’ve had Mayo’s B sample since August, and they’re still analyzing it? WTF?

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