News that the athlete bio-passport isn’t foolproof has been doing the rounds after France Télévision’s Stade 2 show took some athletes, “microdosed” them with EPO and their values didn’t ring alarm bells on the AMPU bio passport system.
News? Actually no it’s been set out in academia since 2011 and in the same year Italian pro Leonardo Bertagnolli was telling the police just the same. Still since the report has got some traction so here’s a quick look at the issues.
Astana kept their World Tour licence after the UCI’s Licence Commission gave them the green light to ride on. The who, what and why remain a mystery for now as we wait the promised publication of the reasoned decision.
Before that happens there are wider issues of communication and perception. Few understand how a team gets a World Tour Licence, the ISSUL audit seems to have been misunderstood by many and it created a scenario where the vacuum of knowledge was filled by speculation and innuendo.
Update: Astana do ride on and the UCI will continue to monitor the team for the rest of the year. The reasoned decision of Licence Commission will be published in due course says the UCI.
The Astana team meets the UCI’s Licence Commission again today for a second hearing following the UCI’s very public call to remove strip the team’s World Tour licence. La Gazzetta Dello Sport says no decision is imminent either.
A second round suggests this is not a slam dunk case. If it was then a review of the files and an obligatory hearing would have been enough to remove the team from the sport. What happens next has been a regular question by email in recent weeks but the rules aren’t clear and the outcome is more uncertain. Here’s a look at the case and some potential outcomes…
In this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others
That’s a line from Voltaire’s Candide. After the battle of Minorca between France and Britain in 1756, Voltaire describes the British practice of shooting naval officers if they fail, not so much to punish them for mistakes but to send a signal to the others not to let down His Majesty. “Pour encourager les autres”.
What’s this got to do with bike racing? Well the incident in last Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix where some ignored closed barriers at a level crossing requires exemplary action from the UCI. In the interests of safety the UCI has to view video and photographic evidence and disqualify those who ignored the closed barriers.
A short piece to mark a change in the sport. The UCI are clamping down on mechanics leaning out of car windows to service riders in a races. It’s been such a famous image from many races and now it’s going away for good. It’ll have tactical consequences too.
The UCI’s Cycling Independent Reform Commission (“CIRC”) has published its report. It’s not a gripping read, this is a report on the corporate policy of institution a decade ago. But buried in the 228 pages are revelations, there is strong criticism of those running the UCI in the past and it puts the spotlight back on contemporary doping practices.
To reduce it to one sentence the report says the UCI was lax for many years but believes doping continues today, albeit on a reduced scale and the UCI needs to implement anti-doping and governance reforms. Let’s take a closer look.
This time last year the UCI had brought in new rule requiring riders to stick to the road. This time last year the peloton ignored it. The result is that the UCI changed the rule and riders can use paths as long as it’s safe to do so.
Also Ian Stannard appears 10 times harder than the rest in the image above. But he ended up on the cobbles by accident, briefly missing a move adopted by everyone else.
Coffee, croissant, L’Equipe. It’s such a pleasant routine during the cycling season but if Alexandr Vinokourov emerges from his Monaco apartment this morning in search of the newspapers he’s in for a scolding surprise. L’Equipe reports that the UCI has asked its Licence Commission to withdraw the Astana team’s licence and the UCI has confirmed this with a press release.
It’s a giant move, to ban any team is serious but to exclude the reigning Tour de France champion and a team that is a flag carrier for a large country is a bombshell.
All roads lead to Belgium. No other country embraces cycling in the same way, the fervour is extensive and comprehensive. There are billboard ads in the streets and at bus stops to promote races – including that one for the E3. The local press are full of reports for this weekend’s double of the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and last night’s TV had reports on the route recon by teams. Gossip magazines put cyclists on the front page. There was even a live stream for the great Claude Criquelion’s funeral yesterday. The pedal revolution is televised.
The Mouvement Pour Un Cyclisme Crédible or MPCC is sometimes the butt of jokes but what if we celebrated its achievements and laughed at those who try to mock the sport?
This group of teams has grown and led the way on anti-doping policies, often seeing the UCI copy the rules later on and taking a stance to safeguard rider health too.