DEA goes on a Rant

In a recent msnbc.com article by Michael Venture he said that the Tour should close up shop and put the jersey in the closet until it is a clean sport, making reference to our USA stick and ball sports as being minor in their infractions. Which may appear to be true, simply due to how poor the testing is in the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB- put them up against the WADA code and then let’s sit back and watch.

I’m not trying to make the case that cycling is clean, it has an issue and needs to clean itself up and fast. Riders that are doping should be tossed completely. Before I was feeling like two years and two years off a Pro Tour team (four total) was an awfully long time- maybe it isn’t- assuming the tests are truly bullet proof.

But to say cycling is in a tougher moral spot then Football, which is trying to figure out how to incorporate ankle bracelets into the uniform code, Baseball which has a drug issue that is obvious based solely on the growth of players had sizes, Hockey which has to find ways to keep the ice from staining red after vicious fights that have nothing to do with hockey, and Basketball that has a bit of a betting problem. What’s my point? Athletes and the organizations have become big business and have long left the job of role model to other segments of the population (like maybe parents?). Funny how ahead of the curve Charles Barkley was when he famously said “I’m not a role model”

Any time sport or anything becomes business and there are big dollars on the line then cheating is going to take place. This is where sponsorships have hurt the world of sports, the teams need to pull in the sponsors for the cash so they have to win- doing your “best” just doesn’t cut it anymore. I have no idea what the answer is and I can’t imagine being faced with actually figuring out the “right way” to approach the issue at hand.

In a very sad way I liked the sport more when the cheating via doping was hidden and was just innuendo instead of knowing for sure. Call it naïve but then it was more just about the racing, now I spend more time wondering how long until the days winner gets tossed.

I wish there was a rider, currently doping- that would come out and say- yes I’m still doping and this is why. I want to know how many are getting away with it. The issue I have is doping used to be this cloud off in the distance, but the rationalization was that “everyone was doping so it’s fair”- but now some are caught and we don’t know if some are just better at beating the system while others aren’t. It makes my brain hurt. Or have we really turned a corner and the ones that are getting caught are the only ones left doping? That would be a nice thought- time will tell. I wish in the T-Mobile case that it had been their internal controls that had caught their rider and that they had tossed him. When one of those teams (CSC, T-Mobile, Sliptream) catches one of their own before the UCI/WADA catches the rider then I think we’ll be heading in the right direction and people will realize it isn’t just lip service.

I just don’t know, I need to go out for a ride.


DEA