WADA, the IOC, and Cycling
Aug 11, 2008 · 09:34 AM · permalink
I want to believe that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is fighting to make all sports better and clean, but every quote from some figure of WADA makes me crazy. Cyclingnews reports that John Fahey, the successor to infamous WADA chief and current IOC official Dick Pound, states that WADA may recommend that the International Olympic Committee remove weightlifting and cycling from the Olympics because of their history of rampant doping.
Yeah riiiight. Because those two sports are dirty compared to….I don’t know, track and field? I mean, there’s been no history of doping in track and field. And if there has been, it certainly hasn’t led to Olympic medals being reassigned or world records being invalidated.
(I was going to add a couple links here to relevant articles, but there were too many to choose. Go ahead and google “Olympic doping sprinter”)
How can anyone believe that WADA is not staffed entirely by power-tripping prima donnas? They wouldn’t dare threaten that track and field should be removed. Why? Money. Because there’s a lot of money in track and field for both the IOC and the athletes. Which is partially why there’s so much doping in track and field. But I don’t see that as a reason why cycling should be WADA’s bitch.
Cycling and sports in general need rules that can protect the health of athletes and promote fair competition, and there needs to be an organization that can impartially ensure that those rules are being followed. I’m just not sure WADA is that organization.
I’m going to get s%^*t on for this, but here it is: why does anyone care about dirt in professional sports? It’s impossible enough of it is clean for any of it to be innocent. Take the ‘Tour’, though I doubt most sports are better: they are all genetically gifted human specimens, scientifically trained, so there’s little more any of them can do to significantly improve. What are you going to do next…? If any number start doping, could you really win a string of stages, much less tour after tour, without doping?
If you say yes, do you also believe in ‘Intelligent Design’, or other things which require faith over intelligence?
I get tired of reading about doping in cycling when, as you say, they forget about track, etc.
But, what I’d like to see is if someone is caught and it’s clear … they are done. Banned for life. No two years, nothing. We’ve hit the point where it’s enough. And if the bans aren’t serious, why bother.
So, make it serious. And maybe there will be pressure from other pro’s to the new and old guard, especially if sponsorship goes away, that doping = loss of income.
Yeah … I guy can dream …
Sad state to think that every time someone sets a record there is the * which is “hmm … did they dope?”
It’s a good question, though: What makes a sport “pure”? Is it pure to take a little girl in kindergarten and train her to be a gymnast? Any worse to sleep at “altitude” while training at sea-level? Any worse to eat well and get lots of rest?
Either way, organizations like WADA can’t say one thing out of the right side of their mouths and something completely different out of the other. Track and Field is certainly as rife with dopers as any sport where the stakes are high.
and that is just creepy, the gymnasts. Trautwig kept trying to bring up the Chinese athlete’s age, but his co-commentators would have none of it. See this NYT article for more on the secrets of that sport behind these “pretty, tough girls” with broken bodies.
To heck with the Olympics, for road cycling, at least.
An Olympic gold medal is given out once every four years. In other words, there have been fewer awarded than Maillot Jaunes worn in Paris, Cobblestone trophies, or rainbow jerseys. This is only the fourth or fifth Olympics where professional cyclists could compete. It was something you did once, maybe twice in your career, before you wet on to being a professional.
In other words, Olympic gold is special, right?
However, Velonews ran a poll earlier this year, and Olympic gold was behind all three (in that order, in fact). Cycling is one of those sports, unlike track and field or gymnastics, where the Olympics is not that important to the real fans of the sport.
So, if WADA wants to kick out cycling because of the “doping problem,” fine. They can then focus on track and field, swimming, and other sports. Perhaps the Olympics will get pared down to two sports when all is said and done. It could be over in an afternoon.
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