Compliments and accusations

Sporza called Chris Horner an oldster grabbing power, while Cipollini said Cavendish didn't care about the sport and was fat. The sprinters left the Giro yesterday leaving the race to climbers like Contador, who may well win only to see his victory taken away by TAS in June.

The silliness of the whole doping hoopla becomes more apparent when you hear what Ventoso had to say about Mark Cavendish. The Spaniard accused Cavendish of hanging on the team car to get over the hills, thereby beating the time-cutoff for a hilly stage so he could win the next one. If true it would be a most clear example of cheating and one that had a direct and tangible benefit. So is Cavendish going to be investigated and if found guilty suspended for two years? Don't hold your breath!

The truth is that riders hang off team cars all the time. They have all sorts of tricks up their sleeves and cheating is an integral part of the sport. I am not condoning it or saying that it is OK, but face it, the whole doping is cheating argument holds little water. If you think it is cheating then treat it like cheating.

The reality is that outright cheating is barely looked at, let alone punished so why be so punitive about doping? Clearly something else is going on here.

But the doping game is far from ending. Not only will TAS most likely clear the way for the soon-to-be-oldest winner of the Tour, but former Armstrong team-mate Tyler Hamilton is going on Sixty Minutes this weekend saying he saw Lance inject EPO.

Hamilton

And that brings up another point of how silly this whole matter has become.

St.Lance battling the dope monster

It is now clear that every Armstrong team-mate and competitor was using what everyone considers effective doping. Entire teams were doping, including all of Lance's team. Most have admitted as much in public. Most were suspended or had their careers destroyed because of it. Yet we are to believe that Lance is somehow innocent? Statistically speaking that seems extremely unlikely. Either the stuff does not work, so why bother, or Lance is an alien and a saint too?

Now you may say that there are lies, damn lies and statistics and maybe there is some truth to that. And you could say that Lance was never found positive so you cannot accuse him. But statistics has become acceptable to prove doping. The biological passport is nothing more than statistics and it has indeed been used to suspend and punish riders. So yes, it is acceptable to use statistics, at least to WADA and UCI. We are getting awfully close to 1984 here. Maybe someone should put an end to all this?

Cheating?

A few years ago there was a big uproar because studies had found that users of crack-cocaine faced much stiffer penalties than users of powder cocaine. The discrepancy was large and difficult to explain. It made little sense that one form of the drug resulted in life sentences, while another form most often led to probation or suspended sentencing. It made little sense until you looked at who used what. Then the reasons became very obvious indeed.

We should always wonder when large discrepancies exist that appear to make little or no sense. This is a sure indicator of ulterior motives. Motives that some would rather not reveal.

Take the following example. Drafting when riding a bike can conserve up to 25% of the energy that is normally required to propel a bicycle. The faster you ride the more you save. If you draft in an event where drafting is not allowed you are cheating in a serious way. You are gaining an unfair advantage that is real and immediate. There is no doubt about this whatsoever. You are cheating, big time!!

It is possible that you may gain some undefined advantage from taking a certain chemical. Much depends on the timing, the dose, what you ate with it, your metabolism and a host of other factors. For most chemicals the benefit is unproven and it is hard to estimate how much of an advantage, if any, you gain from taking a particular drug.

It is assumed that you could gain an advantage from certain types of drugs like beta2 adrenergics, and it may even seem logical that you would do so based on what is known about the mechanism of action of the drug. However, as any chemist or drug developer knows, lots of compounds look like they should provide a benefit under certain conditions based on their mechanism of action or what we know about the compound, but the overwhelming majority don't. Despite all the hoopla about toxicity, most compounds fail for lack of efficacy. And these are all compounds that should work based on numerous assays, animal studies, known mechanism of action, etc. etc.

Now ask yourself what is the penalty for cheating under these circumstances?

When you draft in an ironman triathlon, even in a key race such as the Hawaii or Clearwater world championships, you get a 2 minute penalty in that race. That is if you get caught.  Then you have to sit for 2 minutes in a tent and then you can continue. Many athletes have received this punishment and gone on to win the race. Many have been filmed drafting as the above clip explains with no punishment whatsoever.

Not only is the punishment aspect of a 2 minute stop dubious -some benefitted from taking a break-there are no repercussions beyond that. Neither do we have any if it was shown later on that you cheated! Nobody will come back three years later and strip you of your title.

Nobody will label you a cheater or thinks worse of you because of it.

But if you were to race the same race, and have a few picograms of clenbuterol in your blood, what would your punishment be? Never mind that a few picograms could not possibly do anything either beneficial or not. Yet we all know the outcome. We all know what awaits Alberto Contador.

You will be labeled a doper, you will be ostracized by the community, you will be suspended for two years depriving you of income, you will be harassed, and you will lose the support of your team. You may even face criminal penalties.

Does that seem appropriate to you? Do you smell something fishy?