Doping : Sean Kenny talks to the International Cycling Unionpresident, Pat McQuaid, who knows, after all the doping revelations,this year's Tour de France is of vital importance to the sport'simage.
There is a kind of poignancy to the moment. You have been askingPat McQuaid about doping in cycling for perhaps half an hour when hebreaks off the subject. The TV is on in McQuaid's office as hespeaks, showing the Dauphine Libere, a major pre-Tour de Francerace.
'In the last 10 minutes I've seen Valverde, a pre-race favourite,go out the back. They're on the final climb up the Mont Ventoux atthe moment and only a couple of minutes ago Vinokourov went out theback.
'He's the race leader; he won the stage yesterday and now he'sdropped to the back, because he's human. They have good days and baddays.'
The irony is doping seeks to smooth out such vicissitudes ofhuman endurance. Blood-boosting EPO transfusions are meant to makeevery day a good day for the bent cyclist. Cycling has never hadsuch consistently bad press as it has in the months leading up totoday's Tour de France, with the possible exception of the Festinaaffair of 1998. Ivan Basso's admission in early May that he wasinvolved in the Operation Puerto blood doping scandal has earned hima two-year ban.
On May 18th, the Floyd Landis farrago took on the lurid tones ofsoap opera. The doping tribunal investigating Landis heard that GregLeMond, a witness, had been intimidated by Landis's (now former)manager Will Geoghegan in an attempt to prevent him testifying.LeMond was sexually abused as a child; Geoghegan knew this andthreatened to make it public knowledge, contrary to the former'swishes.
Then on May 25th, Bjarne Riis, winner of Le Tour in 1996,admitted to having used illegal, performance-enhancing substancesduring that race and at other times during his career. Another day,another doping story.
The revelations came like bullets, further wounding the sport'salready moribund credibility. Dubliner McQuaid, president of theInternational Cycling Union (UCI), has felt the sting more thanmost.
'Everybody - at the top end of the sport in particular -realises, after Operation Puerto and Floyd Landis, that we can'thave any more of these scandals. Otherwise the sport won't survive.Everybody realises we have to work everyone towards a clean sport.'
There are glass-half-full and glass-half-empty scenarios. McQuaidhas taken an optimistic line in his public pronouncements. Theargument goes that cheats are being exposed and that the process,though painful, will go towards healing the deep wounds doping hasinflicted on the sport.
Another altogether darker view, expressed by many analysts of thesport, is that Basso, Landis and Riis are the visible tip of amountain of corruption, otherwise wreathed in a fog of secrecy. Thedeafening silence of the peloton is a well-documented phenomenon.Can McQuaid affect change to such a deep-rooted culture?
'I think there's a stronger culture of anti-doping now andthere's a greater likelihood riders will talk, and they are (ridershave given evidence, having been issued with subpoenas, in theOperation Puerto case). You can only change a culture of silencewhen everybody is convinced we can't have any doping in the peloton.Day by day and bit by bit, that's the point we're approaching.'
Doping circumscribed last year's Tour like police tape. Thesuspension of four top riders before the race was followed byLandis, its winner, testing positive for excessive levels oftestosterone. The media trained its unrelenting glare on the sport.Cycling was news. Bad news.
'The Landis story was very, very damaging. That being on thefront page of newspapers has a huge effect on the development of thesport because federations depend on governments, sports councils andOlympic committees for funding. It affects credibility and thataffects the thinking of people who are making decisions aboutfunding.'
McQuaid knows this year's Tour is consequently of vitalimportance to the sport's image. 'We need a clean Tour; the sportdeserves a period of time now to try to regain its credibilitywithout having any more scandals hit. They do take time to get overand they do damage the sport. I sincerely hope it's going to be agood Tour de France and we don't have any doping scandals.'
Hope or expectation? 'I think it will be clean because I knowwhat's going on in the professional peloton at the moment. I knowall the work the teams are doing (to counter doping).'
Whilst self-regulation by teams is something of an oxymoron, theUCI itself has instituted rigorous new anti-doping procedures. The'100 per cent against doping' programme includes random blood andurine testing without warning during training and rest periods, aswell as tests prior to the major tours. The establishment of bloodand DNA profiles of all riders on the pro tour is another element ofthe new regime. So far, 585 of the 600 pro tour riders have giventheir written consent to be DNA tested. Ominously, lawyersrepresenting the other 15 have become involved.
'From the blood test results, we target certain riders. The oneswho are the favourites coming up to the big tours, they would betargeted for increased out-of-competition controls leading up to thetours, because that's where they say any doping that's going on isdone.'
An anti-doping charter launched by McQuaid on June 19th aims tosecure all pro tour riders' signatures by today, the day the Tour deFrance commences. The document seeks pledges that cyclists willprovide DNA samples to the Spanish authorities investigatingOperation Puerto and will pay a fine of one year's salary if caughtdoping in the future. Compliance is not legally enforceable,although McQuaid says a full list of those who have signed will bepublished on the UCI website.
He knows the Operation Puerto case looms darkly over cycling'sfuture. 'It (exposing the scandal) was a success for cycling butit's done a huge amount of damage because there's a lot ofspeculation as to who's in it and who isn't. There are lots ofothers apart from Basso who are being speculated on. It's hangingover the sport like the sword of Damocles until we finally getthrough the judicial process.'
Alongside the mountain stages and the sprint finishes, there isthe parallel race between those who enable doping and those whoattempt to counter it. The sport's future may depend less on theraces played out on the hot gritty roads and more on those silentlycontested in cool, pristine laboratories. The authorities, ofcourse, are playing catch-up.
Previous tensions between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) andthe UCI have eased somewhat under McQuaid's watch, although with arhetorical flourish, he describes WADA chairman Dick Pound as 'a guywho speaks before his brain engages'.
'We have an excellent relationship with WADA on a working level.There's no other sport that does as much as we do with regard toanti-doping. Even athletics, for instance; they won't do blood testson the day of competition. They have to be done on the day beforeand they even tell the athletes they're coming. We do surprise bloodtests on the morning of competition.'
Cycling's image problem persists despite these efforts and yetthe sport retains huge popularity, particularly in France and Italy.McQuaid wants coverage of this year's Tour to remain confined to thesports pages. 'My best-case scenario would be good racing every day,that riders could be one day going well, the next day blow up . . .That people watching will think they're watching a proper, cleansporting event. We want it to be about excitement, drama and sport.'
Sport. That is what it is supposed to be about. Meanwhile, theLandis doping tribunal in California will deliver its judgment sometime soon. If Landis wins, the UCI will appeal to the Court ofArbitration for Sport.
Back on the road, all eyes are on this year's Tour de France.
