This is my second trip around this block. It is obvious that cycling
will now have a long road back. Yet the same is true for all sports.
Right now we are still trying to cleanse the sports we have and at
the same time the concussion crisis is building up and must be
resolved. There is a lot of repair work to be done.
We also need to think through steroids in general and learn how to
manage the problem. As I posted before, steroids work in exactly one
way that I am aware of. They accelerate muscle recovery. If it can
be done safely, this may well be a good thing. Muscle sprains hurt
and are debilitating and interrupt training.
Thus it is pretty clear that a top athlete has every incentive to
work with them. The problem is things like a rare cancer such as
Armstrong encountered. I do not think it is possible to stop their
use for young aspiring athletes. I am not sure we should.
For example, it is clear to me that it would be highly advantageous
if all children entering puberty were put on a progressive physical
training program with a high food intake in order to optimize muscle
development. Doing this at that particular time generates a stable
muscle system that is easily maintained for a lifetime. I know this
because my own legs were beefed up then and I have retained them
since. Few such children would then be recognized as potential
athlete as that requires skill development and heavy additional
training.
Doing this type of preparation would ease late development naturally
and perhaps obviate the need for steroid support.
Life after Lance
Armstrong: Can cycling forge a drug-free future?
Julien Pretot,
Reuters | Oct 22, 2012 4:35 PM ET
GENEVA — Lance
Armstrong was ditched from the Tour de France record books on Monday
but the question of whether cycling should forget his tarnished
legacy or use it as a force for change must be urgently addressed.
The International
Cycling Union (UCI) has ratified the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s
decision to strip Armstrong of his seven titles, leaving a crater in
the Tour annals from 1999-2005.
“He deserves to be
forgotten,” UCI president Pat McQuaid told a news conference in
front of more than a 100 journalists.
But can the retired
American and his legacy really be forgotten for the sport to move on
and try to forge a doping-free future?
As McQuaid said
himself, his tenure as UCI president from 2005 has been riddled with
doping scandals from the Floyd Landis affair in 2006 when the
American was stripped of the Tour title through Alberto Contador’s
troubles where the Spaniard too lost his 2010 crown.
The cheats all
followed in Armstrong’s footsteps whether they knew the whole truth
about the American or not and riders who worked with the 41-year-old
are still in the peloton.
Many American riders
who testified against him and themselves to USADA received reduced
bans and they will be back to race having vowed never to dope again.
The USADA report also
showed other riders than Armstrong who wired large sums of money to
sports doctor Michele Ferrari, who was banned for life for
masterminding the former rider’s doping programme.
“We haven’t got to
this stage of looking for other stuff that’s in that report,”
said McQuaid.
“We are also
awaiting news from Padua in Italy [(another investigation into an
alleged doping ring] which might implicate some riders.”
For cycling to truly
move on it has to use the Armstrong affair to further promote change
rather than banish it as uncomfortable evidence of a bygone age when
cheats ruled the roost.
“There must be more
action to combat the system that took over the sport,” Travis
Tygart, the head of USADA, said in a statement.
“It is important to
remember that while today is a historic day for clean sport, it does
not mean clean sport is guaranteed for tomorrow.
”Only an independent
Truth and Reconciliation Commission can fully start cycling on the
path toward true reform and provide hope for a complete break from
the past.“
UCI lawyer Philippe
Verbiest suggested that such a commission would be good ”for all
sports“.
Cycling has indeed
made great strides in combating doping in recent years but has
received bad press because it is catching cheats, albeit sometimes
slowly, while other sports struggle to match cycling’s complex
anti-drug procedures.
Irishman McQuaid, who
confessed he never turned professional as a young rider in the 1970s
because he feared he would have to dope, nevertheless sees a positive
future for his beleaguered sport.
“As J.F. Kennedy
said, quoting a Chinese saying: ‘When written in Chinese, the word
crisis consists in two characters: one represents danger, one
represents opportunity’,” he remarked.
”The fight against
doping advances and the tools available to international federations
in the fight against doping advance, and the tools available to us in
the UCI now are much more advanced than in the early 2000s.“
A culture shift has
happened too, he believes, something born out by the strong
anti-doping stances of many teams and the passionate verbal blasts
handed out by 2012 Tour champion Bradley Wiggins to anyone who
questioned his good faith.
It is important to
remember that while today is a historic day for clean sport, it does
not mean clean sport is guaranteed for tomorrow
”Many riders are
saying they don’t want to be involved in the culture of doping,
even ones who were witnesses in this affair admitted they did not
want to be involved. The riders today have a different attitude,“
McQuaid added.
”We have to have
faith in the riders today, the sponsors are heavily involved in the
sport …We lost a very important sponsor, Rabobank, last week,
that’s true, but I’m quite confident that this sponsor will be
replaced and the sponsors we have understand what is going on.“
However, cycling has
been at a crossroads before and not acted sufficiently to spare it
from ridicule.
In 1998, the sport was
plunged into a major crisis with the Festina doping affair and it
failed to prevent Armstrong from then implementing what was regarded
by USADA as the most sophisticated doping program ever seen.
The culture has also
not changed completely. Some riders still regard Armstrong as a true
champion.
”It was difficult
for the UCI to have another response,“ France coach and former tour
of Spain winner Laurent Jalabert told French radio station RTL.
”Anyway, he was a
great champion. Whatever he could have taken, there were not that
many riders at the same level. He had a huge talent. He may have made
a mistake, he got caught, he has been punished for it.
“He is not the first
but, whatever, he had outstanding skills.”
Cycling has much more
work to do.
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