Stage 17: It Doesn't Feel Right
In 1998, the peloton staged a protest over blood doping. They were protesting the gross violation of riders’ rights by French authorities. By 2007, they staged a protest against the dopers, or more accurately, themselves. Nine years later, the peloton has capitulated. No one gives a damn about their rights in the pursuit of blood purity.
I feel like I’m the only who is alarmed by Rasmussen getting booted from the Tour despite not flunking a drug test nor breaking any UCI rules. The Tour says they didn’t pressure Rabobank, but considering the theme of the last week has been the “joyless Tour” for the team, this is either naivety or a blatant lie by Tour officials. Given our past experience, I’d go with the second option. Rasmussen is getting punished based on nothing more than accusation and innuendo. I found the quotes to be rather disturbing, yet revealing:
"We would have made the Rabobank team face up to their responsibilities."
"My immediate reaction is, why didn't they do this at the end of June, when they had the same information. The team decided to pull him out - that's their prerogative. I can only applaud that. It's a zero-tolerance policy and it's a lesson for the future." – UCI chief Pat McQuaid
"Michael Rasmussen should not have started the Tour. Why? In a period of crisis, a champion has to be an example. In addition, his attitude, which we only know now, makes us believe that we should have refused his participation." -- Patrice Clerc, Tour official.
"We cannot say that Rasmussen cheated, but his flippancy and his lies on his whereabouts had become unbearable." -- Tour director Christian Prudhomme
Let’s break that down. The UCI chief pretty explicitly states there was pressure on Rabobank. And based on the same information, it was okay for him to start the Tour, but not finish.
The Tour officials are worse. They are suspending Rasmussen for flippancy? He shouldn’t have started the Tour because he doesn’t set a good enough of an example? Are you kidding me? They have no solid evidence against Rasmussen, but let’s just ruin his career anyway. They may be right, they may be wrong. But who cares about the rider’s rights?
Let’s be clear: Rasmussen broke no rules. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. And he’s getting booted from the Tour, having his name drug through the mud, and all in the name of cleaning up the sport. A pox on the Tour and the UCI. This isn’t about doping, this about bullying riders so they know their place.
The “cleanest” teams are the French teams, and even they had a rider booted. Moreni has at least admitted to wrongdoing. But it makes me fairly convinced a lot of this motivation is not to clean up the sport, which they are slowly destroying through their strong-arm tactics, but is partly motivated by the French’s desire to erase the memory of their losses over the past two decades. Oh, the only reason the French weren’t winning was because everyone else was cheating. We were robbed of our glory, and if we can only expunge the record of the last 20 years, we will be dominant again.
Look, there’s more evidence against Barry Bonds than there is against Michael Rasmussen. This is like the Giants kicking Bonds off the team. While I do think Bonds probably used steroids, I’m also a pretty big fan of due process. The riders get absolutely none. They are bullied and owed, and then ultimately ruined by the UCI which leads the persecution.
Let’s be clear, cycling’s doping problem is no worse than any other sport’s. Operation Peurto implicated over a hundred athletes, but only the cyclists got named. Only the cyclists had their careers ruined. This march to clean up cycling and save it from dopers has convinced me that there is nothing an athlete can ever do to clear his or her name from a doping allegation. Rasmussen’s case, an accusation is enough. Cycling has the perception as a dirty sport because it’s the only sport getting tough on the athletes. Has it cleaned up the sport? No. It’s just lead to an era of accusation and extreme collateral damage. What did Kloden do to deserve his Tour getting ruined? Or every rider on Cofidis?
I don’t have the answer to the doping problem in sports, but the cycling’s current answer to it is obviously wrong. Rasmussen didn’t ruin the Tour, the anti-doping zealots did.
Oh yeah, Bettini won an exciting stage today. Screw you, UCI.
I feel like I’m the only who is alarmed by Rasmussen getting booted from the Tour despite not flunking a drug test nor breaking any UCI rules. The Tour says they didn’t pressure Rabobank, but considering the theme of the last week has been the “joyless Tour” for the team, this is either naivety or a blatant lie by Tour officials. Given our past experience, I’d go with the second option. Rasmussen is getting punished based on nothing more than accusation and innuendo. I found the quotes to be rather disturbing, yet revealing:
"We would have made the Rabobank team face up to their responsibilities."
"My immediate reaction is, why didn't they do this at the end of June, when they had the same information. The team decided to pull him out - that's their prerogative. I can only applaud that. It's a zero-tolerance policy and it's a lesson for the future." – UCI chief Pat McQuaid
"Michael Rasmussen should not have started the Tour. Why? In a period of crisis, a champion has to be an example. In addition, his attitude, which we only know now, makes us believe that we should have refused his participation." -- Patrice Clerc, Tour official.
"We cannot say that Rasmussen cheated, but his flippancy and his lies on his whereabouts had become unbearable." -- Tour director Christian Prudhomme
Let’s break that down. The UCI chief pretty explicitly states there was pressure on Rabobank. And based on the same information, it was okay for him to start the Tour, but not finish.
The Tour officials are worse. They are suspending Rasmussen for flippancy? He shouldn’t have started the Tour because he doesn’t set a good enough of an example? Are you kidding me? They have no solid evidence against Rasmussen, but let’s just ruin his career anyway. They may be right, they may be wrong. But who cares about the rider’s rights?
Let’s be clear: Rasmussen broke no rules. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. And he’s getting booted from the Tour, having his name drug through the mud, and all in the name of cleaning up the sport. A pox on the Tour and the UCI. This isn’t about doping, this about bullying riders so they know their place.
The “cleanest” teams are the French teams, and even they had a rider booted. Moreni has at least admitted to wrongdoing. But it makes me fairly convinced a lot of this motivation is not to clean up the sport, which they are slowly destroying through their strong-arm tactics, but is partly motivated by the French’s desire to erase the memory of their losses over the past two decades. Oh, the only reason the French weren’t winning was because everyone else was cheating. We were robbed of our glory, and if we can only expunge the record of the last 20 years, we will be dominant again.
Look, there’s more evidence against Barry Bonds than there is against Michael Rasmussen. This is like the Giants kicking Bonds off the team. While I do think Bonds probably used steroids, I’m also a pretty big fan of due process. The riders get absolutely none. They are bullied and owed, and then ultimately ruined by the UCI which leads the persecution.
Let’s be clear, cycling’s doping problem is no worse than any other sport’s. Operation Peurto implicated over a hundred athletes, but only the cyclists got named. Only the cyclists had their careers ruined. This march to clean up cycling and save it from dopers has convinced me that there is nothing an athlete can ever do to clear his or her name from a doping allegation. Rasmussen’s case, an accusation is enough. Cycling has the perception as a dirty sport because it’s the only sport getting tough on the athletes. Has it cleaned up the sport? No. It’s just lead to an era of accusation and extreme collateral damage. What did Kloden do to deserve his Tour getting ruined? Or every rider on Cofidis?
I don’t have the answer to the doping problem in sports, but the cycling’s current answer to it is obviously wrong. Rasmussen didn’t ruin the Tour, the anti-doping zealots did.
Oh yeah, Bettini won an exciting stage today. Screw you, UCI.
posted by Poseur at 11:17 AM
1 Comments:
This is why I think Rabobank is holding on to a lot more info than they have made public. An Italian journalist says he saw Rasmussen training in Italy in June, when he told his team he was in Mexico.
That's it!
What if I said I saw Tom Boonen in Iceland last April, would he be given the boot too?
Rabobank can pull their athlete if they want to...they pay him, so he works at their whim. If their decision is totally based upon pressure from the UCI and the Tour race officials, and the word of an Italian journalist, then they deserve to suffer the deformity of having their nose cut off to spite their face.
We've said it before, but an accusation should not lead to punishment. Cycling has blown that concept away. The doping police are on steroids, metaphorically speaking.
Even in the case of Vinokourov, I have criticism for the way the doping police handled it. The B sample exists for the protection of the athlete so that he can defend himself. He was punished before the B sample was tested, so what's the point?
The fairness of the cycling judicial system is on par with any thugish totalitarian government.
If the cyclists want to have a more clever protest, they should say that Chris Prudhomme, Pat McQuaid, and Dick Pound all take bribes from the labs that do testing so that the labs can get lots of business. Shouldn't they resign in light of these accusations?
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