World Turns Attention to Doping

by Chris Fontecchio on Nov 15, 2007 3:14 PM EST in News

VN has planted editor Charles Pelkey at the Third World Conference on Doping, a name that doesn't inspire as much confidence as they presumably intended. [Suggestion for next time: World Doping Conference v4.0.]

Anyway, the conference is taking at least one major step forward in the international effort to eradicate sports doping: accepting the resignation of WADA chief Dick Pound. Pound has been called just about every name in the book, on this and other websites, having inspired true resentment with his bombastic ways. Frankly, the agency could use someone a little more like a prosecutor than a political hack at its head. But the succession is off to a rocky start: presumed electee Jean Francois Lamour backed out of Saturday's election after ridiculous infighting, leaving New South Wales ex-premier John Fahey as the only candidate. I don't know him from Adam but he sounds like a politician. Problem not solved. CN notes have some more details on Fahey.

Scary postscript: Pound is angling himself for a position on the Court for Arbitration in Sport, where he would be - get this - a neutral decisionmaker. We can laugh, because it's not our livelihood at stake...

The conference's other piece of major business will be a reworking of the doping code, though Pelkey offers no details. Stay tuned on that one. There will also be plenty of scandal talk, but it's not clear if there's anything the conference will actually do about scandals. Again, stay tuned.

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Qualified dissent

from the hating on Dick Pound.

Sure, when all of this started, he sounded like an idiot, and there is the unfortunate matter of his name, but given how events have turned out (even conceding that LNDD in Chatenay-Malabry seems to be run by legions of Homer Simpson worshipping lab-techs), Pound is spot-on with quotations like this from the VN article quoted above:

"You have to draw attention to the issue," Pound told VeloNews. "Of course there are those small number of cases in which someone takes a supplement through error, but the vast majority of these cases are planned, deliberate attempts to cheat: well-organized, well-financed and have only one objective; that is, to say `I don't give a shit what the rules are, I am going to do what I want.'"

And, in related news . . . did anyone catch Valverde's announcement that he plans on targeting the Tour and Vuelta in '08? Prediction dept: the only way that will happen is if there are video-game versions he can play from his living room.

by R Mc on Nov 15, 2007 5:46 PM EST reply actions

Valv.piti-ful

In other news:

http://www.topix.net/cycling/2007/11/lance-armstrongs-daughter-schools-ashley-olsen

by Chris Fontecchio on Nov 15, 2007 7:37 PM EST up reply actions

This may be a dumb question

But what exactly is a show-and-tell?

And in other news the BBC are saying that Jokewitz got a year's ban, backdated to last July. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/cycling/7076902.stm and a 40,000 euro fine.

by Monty. on Nov 16, 2007 12:44 PM EST up reply actions

...and on the home front

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/sports/baseball/15cnd-bonds.html?ref=baseball

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt

by ELVISGOAT on Nov 15, 2007 7:32 PM EST reply actions

yeah, yeah

by Chris Fontecchio on Nov 15, 2007 7:35 PM EST up reply actions

first they nail Bonds

now can they brink in Big Tex?

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt

by ELVISGOAT on Nov 15, 2007 7:38 PM EST up reply actions

No way

The Teflon Maillot Jaune? never.

by Chris Fontecchio on Nov 15, 2007 7:40 PM EST up reply actions

it's odd

I always pulled for LA even though I was sure he was on something. I just loved watching him put the hurt on folks, that and JB's tactics. Bonds, I never liked him.

Now that the deed is done, the records of Aaron and Big Mig broken, I think I'd rather see LA get his comeuppance than Bonds.

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt

by ELVISGOAT on Nov 15, 2007 7:54 PM EST up reply actions

I think he is

can you imagine spending more than 5 minutes with an Olsen twin?

by R Mc on Nov 15, 2007 8:19 PM EST up reply actions

you think

the Uniballer could last that long with them?

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt

by ELVISGOAT on Nov 15, 2007 8:33 PM EST up reply actions

as soon as I typed that

I imagined them starting some completely unexpected conversation about the surprising benefits of investing in obscure incremental hedge funds or some such.

by R Mc on Nov 15, 2007 9:27 PM EST up reply actions

Please, Lance

ignore this thread...

by Chris Fontecchio on Nov 16, 2007 11:46 AM EST up reply actions

Screw Doping!

What is just bugging the hell outta me is trying to buy a Slipstream Chipotle cycling cap and then finding out they want 18 Euros for it plus 5 Euros shipping and then by PayPal!!!

What is Vaughters wanting the fans to pay for their doping regimen???? I mean, ANTI-doping regimen?

Excuse the Freudian slip!

And don't even get me started on Lance StrongArm. Which I call hin because he threw his lawyers with cease and desist letter to LiveWrong and SkidStrong, which were special production trackbikes by Cycles Gansaari, a portion of the sales went to Bicycle Messenger Emergency Fund.

I would recommend he watch The Edukators!!!

Racing for Victory and Free Beer!

by DemonCats on Nov 15, 2007 9:23 PM EST reply actions

Doping American Style

The BALCO stuff is from 2002! Bonds is just getting nabbed. The Albany doping ring story is just getting started, and certainly that is just the tip of a larger iceberg.

Doping is at least as common in big-name American sports like baseball and football as it was/is in cycling; it seems to pervade all levels, from high school through the pros.

My guess is that the difference between sucessful NFL franchises and ailing franchises is a successful "strength training" program, hint-hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. What we cycling fans know as "systematic doping".

As cycling fans, we've had the advanced course in doping. My PEDar was blaring during the world series.

My concern, though, is the dumb-ass American public (a recent poll in Ohio shows that 47% of the public thinks it was a good idea to invade Iraq!) is about to be treated to a PR onslaught about the benefits of HGH, testosterone, etc... on behalf of folks like Bonds.

I think, unfortunately, the PR men will win. Prepare to help your buddies see through the smoke-screen that will be blowing across the country for the next few years.

-K-

by KevinK on Nov 16, 2007 9:36 AM EST reply actions

Bingo

The plague of stupidity is not confined to either politics or sports. It's a "head in the sand" approach by most Americans. We're in deep and want to keep on pretending that we're legit when the evidence just don't support it.

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt

by ELVISGOAT on Nov 16, 2007 10:25 AM EST up reply actions

My main worry

is that the PR attack that we're about to see on behalf of Bonds & company will undermine the gains that cycling has made over the past couple of years.

-K-

by KevinK on Nov 16, 2007 10:38 AM EST up reply actions

It's not just you americans

The vast majority of swedish people still believe that 100+ kg hockeyplayers (= national heroes)play 100 game seasons of a physically brutal sport, earning million dollar salaries, without using PEDs. Don't even try to strike up a conversation about the joke that is the NHL's antidoping-program, no one is interested in bringing down national icons.

by Jens on Nov 16, 2007 1:13 PM EST up reply actions

INteresting take

on the intersection of Bonds and Bush.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-sp.maese16nov16,0,4024334.column?track=rss

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt

by ELVISGOAT on Nov 16, 2007 2:16 PM EST up reply actions

American FB use is really old news

I remember Tony Mandarich - greatest thing since sliced bread at MSU, then when the Packers drafted him and the NFL finally had some steroid testing... oops lost 40 pounds, hair and a lot of strength. This was late 80's early 90's. NFL players have been using things as long as anybody. Speed in the 50's and 60's, anabolic steroids til the 90's, now more targeted things. It isn't a secret. They do just enough testing to make it palatable. I really think that is the sport where cycling style testing and disqualification just based on not healthy readings (as opposed to presence of drugs) would work well and save some lives. You would see many lineman back to the old 250-280 lb range instead of 320.

by Markk on Nov 16, 2007 2:17 PM EST up reply actions

American Public Just Doesn't Get It

The big news to come out of the Bonds indictment is that HE TESTED POSITIVE yet was still allowed to break the most hallowed (perhaps now "hollowed") record in American sports.

David

by David on Nov 16, 2007 9:49 AM EST reply actions

Bond's Positive

Was an internal BALCO test. They were guinea pigging the users to see which drugs would trigger positives and which ones wouldn't. It is still crap that he was allowed to continue to play and trounce the HR record though.

by australopithecine on Nov 16, 2007 11:08 AM EST up reply actions