UCI

Contador’s CAS chronology

Spanish bull

“One can only regret the time lag between the sports and media, and that of justice”

Those are the words of Tour de France organiser Christian Prudhomme, discussing the almost never-ending series of delays and postponments to the saga that is Alberto Contador’s positive test for Clenbuterol. Reading the Velonation article, Prudhomme says he “won’t block Contador” but he is frustrated with the delays and rightly so given the uncertainties, question marks and apparent inability of the sport to sort out this matter.

In the piece, I saw a timeline of events mentioned. I think it might be worth going in to greater detail here, to explore why this is taking so long, and to revisit the basic rules in the light of these delays, in case we forget what it’s all about.

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UCI to ban doped directors?

McQuaid Valverde
Prizes, yes. Management role, maybe not

I was alerted by a reader this morning to the BBC’s two-part look at doping in cycling. The second part features a brief interview with UCI President Pat McQuaid where he mentions the prospect of banning riders involved in doping scandals from working in the sport. Here’s a snapshot:

“I’m not happy there are team managers who have been doping as athletes themselves… …Any cyclist who is involved in a doping infraction in their career cannot come back into management of a team in the future”

This is an idea that McQuaid will present to colleagues at the next Management Committee meeting in June, the UCI’s high-level decision making forum. It would mark a big change. But would it work?

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A helping hand?

Romandie help

Mark Cavendish won in the Giro today but the post-race TV debate on the RAI coverage saw even Eddy Merckx get sucked into a debate over riders getting help to finish a climb. The TV show is called the Processo alla Tappa which translates several ways, including the “trial of the stage”.

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L’Equipe publishes UCI “suspicion index”

Equipe suspicion index

That’s the list from this morning’s L’Equipe. It shows an internal UCI ranking of riders according to levels of “suspicion” relating to strange values gathered under the bio passport scheme. The higher the score, the greater the suspicion. The list was formulated by the UCI on the eve of the 2010 Tour de France.

Handle with care
Suspicion’s a particularly nasty sentiment. Finger pointing, accusations, denunciations, whispers and more are all ugly because often they’re quite wrong. So take the list above with more than a pinch of salt. There’s no direct link with doping, this is just an internal score used by the UCI to help testing. But both the list and the leak raise serious questions.

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Needles banned

Cycling syringe
Banned

The UCI can move swiftly. Yesterday it was announced that any form of injection is now effectively banned and punishable. Up to know, infusions, from pouches with a drip for example, were banned but there was nothing to stop the use of injections, where obviously several injections can amount to the same volume as a drip.

Several teams put the idea to the UCI, it was reviewed and within two months the ban has appeared. Who says teams and the UCI can’t co-operate?

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Street sprints

There’s a new racing concept coming to the sport: the elimination sprint. It sees two riders go head to head over a 1,000 metre course, usually the final kilometre of a well known race.

Quebec sprint
Rémi Pelletier-Roy, Stéphane Cossette and Dominique Rollin in the 2010 Quebec sprint

Tested last year alongside the Grand Prix de Quebec, it will be back again used in the sister World Tour race in Montreal that’s also run by race organiser and local mini media magnate Serge Arsenault. But there are plans to take it to many more races.

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Pineau attacks the UCI’s point system

It’s the UCI’s points system that’s ruining everything. Teams think about finishing sixth or ninth instead of playing to win but maybe finishing tenth. They say the race radios are killing off panache, but the points system does just that. You play it defensive. Those are the words of Quick Step’s Frenchman Jérôme Pineau in … Read more

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