Boonen tested positive for cocaine during his recuperation time between Paris-Roubaix (which he won) and the next goal of his season, which is to win the Green jersey at the Tour.   Tom says he doesn’t remember taking the drug, but acknowledges that he suffered a blackout from drinking too much the night before the test and, given the apparent availability of cocaine in nightclubs in Belgium, does not rule out that he may have taken some.  However, it has since been revealed that his “positive” test was for a concentration of 0.09 ng/mg, which falls well below the threshold for a positive control and should therefor actually be considered a negative test.

This has not stopped the most autocratic organization in cycling – the ASO (who organizes the Tour de France and is thus the most powerful organization in cycling) – to declare that Boonen is “unwelcome” at the Tour due to his positive test.  Meanwhile an independent panel has asserted that in order for the concentration to be so low, Boonen must of had only indirect contact with the drug and in any case does not use regularly.  Basically, he didn’t inhale.

It is absolutely necessary to have out-of-competition drug tests.  The most effective drugs in cycling like, for example, EPO, have lasting effects for up to 30 days and can only be detected for a small number of days after taking the substance.  Obvsiuosly, any rider with even half a brain will not take the drug immediatly before or during a competition while the substance can be detected but will instead take it some time ahead of the race.  Therefor, the UCI has to be allowed to test for the drug arbitrarily during the season.  Cyclists are required to account for their whereabouts for each and every day during the year and guarantee their availability for a drug test for a 4-hour window each day.

Obviously, this is a huge sacrifice of personal freedom and many consider it an invasion of privacy.  The argument that it is required in order to gaurentee fairness in the sport and an invasion of privacy both have merrit, but I strongly believe that out-of-competition tests should test – or at the very least report – only drugs that are on the out-of-competition prohibited substance list.  The fact that Boonen had cocaine in his system is irrelevant to the sporting world and a private issue between him and legal authorities in Belgium.  I find the fact that it was made public disgusting.  If I take a drug and test positive during an interview process, I expect that to be a matter between me, my prospective employer, and any authorities they would be obligated to report the test results to.  It should be no different for a professional cyclist, especailly given that they may be tested any day of the year.

ASO, please reconsider and let Boonen race.

While Evans has had a spectacular season by placing second in the Tour de France and just off the podium in the Tour of Spain, but to win the ProTour this way has got to be almost as meaningful as Oscar Pereiro’s 2006 Tour de France win, which was awarded to him after American Floyd Landis lost his crown last week.

I’m all for fighting doping in cycling, but the various cycling governing bodies appear to be more interested in appearing tough on drugs than actually being tough on drugs, as is evidenced by the fact that the UCI failed to conduct any doping controls at last week’s Paris-Tours ProTour event.

Danilo Di Luca, who won this year’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Giro d’Italia, and is the current UCI ProTour leader, has been suspended for three months for alleged involvement in a doping case which dates back to 2003, dubbed Oil For Drugs.

Di Luca has not been suspended for failing a drug test or for possessing drugs, or for being involved in a drug investigation. No, he has been suspended because he used to work with a doctor who now is under suspicion of supplying doping products to cyclists. Di Luca worked with this doctor several years ago when the doctor was a member of the Italian Cycling Federation as a sports doctor.

His lawyer…clarified that the suspension was not for anti-doping offenses, but for collusion with [Dr.] Santuccione, and also pointed out that during the period in question, Santuccione had been re-admitted into the ranks of the Italian federation as a sports doctor.

What makes the Di Luca case odd is that he’s not being suspended for any wrongdoing. His suspension is for working with a doctor who was then working for the Italian Cycling Federation but has since come under suspicion for being at the center of a doping ring. Even though Di Luca has since cut off ties with this doctor, he has been suspended for having worked with him in the past.

Compare this to the case where Lance Armstrong was working with Dr. Michele Ferrari who was facing similar accusations. At the time, Armstrong claimed that Ferrari had never suggested anything illegal to him, and continued to work with him until the doctor was convicted of sporting fraud. At that point, Armstrong finally stopped working with him and there were never any consequences for Armstrong.

As much as I believe Armstrong used doping products during his career, that is the proper way to handle a case like that: governing bodies can’t go around suspending riders without evidence. If doping is causing damage to cycling’s reputation, what does suspending cycling’s top stars for no reason do to it’s image? As Cartman says, “I used hangover brown on this wall.”

(Interesting side note: Dr. Ferrari has since become active as a sports doctor in cycling again. Alexandre Vinokourov was a client of his and famously returned a positive dope test for homologous blood doping during this year’s Tour de France.)

I have mixed feelings about this case: I was never a fan of Floyd’s, but Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour (where he later returned a positive dope test) was one of the most exciting I’ve ever seen, and I instantly became a fan of his.

We were in France during the 2006 Tour, and were at the roadside of the stage to Pla-de-Beret where Landis first took the Yellow Jersey. We then spent the next few days following the Tour on-and-off, catching the news in the French daily paper, L’Equipe, or watching some of the day-long television coverage. (By the way, one of the great things about being in France during the Tour is listening to the commentators go nuts whenever a Frenchman appears on the TV; some random French domestique will get in a breakaway and they immediately start jabbering about the rider’s chances of winning the Tour. Their optimism is kind of sweet, really. )

Then we headed into the Alps for a few days and missed one day of coverage. That happened to be the stage to La Toussuire where Landis cracked and fell more than eight minutes behind. We turned the television on the next day and were completely confused by what we were seeing: the stage had just hit the first mountain, and Floyd’s team was on the front racing as though they were 10k from the finish. Suddenly Landis – who we were surprised to see was no longer in yellow – rode away from the race. We feverishly tried to figure out what was happening, and why Landis didn’t appear to be in contention anymore. (Another odd thing about being in France during the Tour is that unless you’re up to speed on all the French slang around cycling, it’s a big struggle to truly understand what’s going on from the papers.)

We finally figured out that Landis had cracked and lost heaps of time; what we were seeing was a super-hero mission to gain back as much of time as possible. He managed to pull it off, and eventually won the Tour. It was epic. It was inspirational, and we immediately became fans. One of the first things we did when we set up our workshop in our basement when we moved to Seattle was pin up L’Equipe’s issue from the following day showing Landis cruising to a beautiful stage win.

I don’t know if Floyd doped, and doping in cycling continues to be a topic that I’m incredibly conflicted about. Does it matter whether he doped? Was the inspiration I felt that day as well as the excitement over the next few days false because he doped? Not necessarily. That experience belongs to me; just because his performance may have been “enhanced” doesn’t invalidate what I took away from it. I spend my life building software and none of that is real, either – you can’t touch it or prove it exists, but you can still experience it and take something from it.

At the same time, if he doped – and especially if he was doing so while everyone else was clean – then he should be punished. If Oscar Pereiro was clean and got second, then he deserves to be named the winner.

The problem of doping in cycling is both a cultural and scientific one. Doping in cycling – and, in fact, sport in general – is deeply rooted into the culture surrounding the sport. Young riders are told by older riders and team management that they need to dope in order to succeed. The young riders become the older riders, the older riders retire and become team directors and managers, and the circle continues.

Techniques to pass and avoid doping controls are shared among teams and riders, and the various agencies and labs conducting the doping controls are allegedly bought off by teams to suppress results. That doesn’t even touch on the fact that a huge number of items on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s prohibited substances list – something like 80% – can’t be tested for. Of those that do have tests, many depend on allowable thresholds – including the test for testosterone which Landis failed. In those cases, there is no flashing red light that indicates a positive test; the lab technicians use their judgment and experience to decide if a sample is positive for doping. Although the lab scientists are highly trained and disciplined, the fact that one could claim that the findings are subjective opens the door to questioning the credibility of the results.

The culture, the possibility (or even likelihood) of riders doping without being caught, and the credibility of the tests conspire to turn the fight against doping into a big hairy mess. You have people speaking out against doping and claiming the sport is cleaning up while rumors persist that doping is rampant. And, those riders who do fail dope controls swear they are clean and are wrongfully accused.

I hate the idea of riders being singled out if everyone else is also doping. I hate the idea of riders being wrongfully accused. I hate the idea of riders doping. I hate the idea that there doesn’t seem to be a good way to deal with the problem. But I love cycling, and with or without doping, it’s still the most difficult and beautiful sport.

It seems to have become a bit more severe this week, with a German doctor claiming to be in possession of documents that clearly indicate Contador is involved, and that his win is “the greatest swindle in sporting history”. (The doctor, Dr. Franke, is the same doctor who repeatedly claimed Jan Ullrich was also involved, which ultimately proved to be true.)

On Saturday, the World Anti Doping Agency requested the documents from Franke and the agency has since opened an investigation into Contador’s involvement.

Today, Contador and his team, Team Discovery Channel, have announced a press announcement to be made on Friday. VeloNews reported:

Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has scheduled a press event this Friday in Spain, but says he will decline to answer reporters’ questions after he reads a prepared statement.

It is impossible to guess what will be said at the conference, but it certainly sounds ominous. I figure a 50-50 chance as to whether Contador will sternly refute the claims or will admit his involvement. If I were to judge based on what has been revealed in press conferences so far this season, I would say the safe money is on an admission, but we’ll have to see.

Read more on Doping in Cycling.

Vino was one of the last riders who were at the top of the sport during the Armstrong era who had managed to avoid doping suspision. Armstrong never failed a drug test but spent his entire career fighting doping allegations. Tyler Hamilton has the dubious honor of being the first rider to test positive for homologous blood transfusions. Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, and Joseba Beloki all seem to have been clients in the blood doping ring of Eufemiano Fuentes. Finally, Floyd Landis is fighting test results that indicated he doped to win the 2006 Tour de France.

Cycling has been suffering blow after blow as it tries to clean up its image and fight doping. With that fight, all the big stars seem to be falling one by one, and the fans are left without their heros to cheer for. But if the sport cleans up, then maybe it’s worth it. One thing is certain, the riders are victims of pressure from their teams and sponsors. In many cases the teams appear to not only turn a blind eye to doping within their ranks, but organize it. Some teams appear to even have made arrangements with the labs (bottom) that conduct the tests to help avoid or suppress negative test results. As long as this kind of thing is going on, it will be impossible to clean up the sport. And how long can we continue to blame and punish the riders for their teams’ actions?

Updated: The Astana cycling team announced Wednesday, August 8, that Vinokourov’s teammate, Andrey Kashechkin, tested positive for homologous blood doping following an out-of-competition test in Belek, Turkey on August 1. Read more.

Read more on Doping in Cycling.

The fight against doping in cycling has recently seemed to be a little more level-headed, but at the same time, it continues to be very odd who is and who is not considered to be implicated in the case. It will be very interesting to see what comes out of the meeting and which names are released.

My big question is whether Valverde or Vino will be on the list. They strike me as obvious candidates, but they have so far been almost entirely ignored. We’ll see.

Correction: It appears the UCI is not meeting with the Pro Tour Teams until Tuesday, June 19; the June 13th meeting seems to have been between the teams themselves. They decided that any team not upholding the Pro Tour Ethics Code (i.e. suspend and not associated with any rider involved in a doping investigation, in particular Operation Puerto) will be excluded from the Pro Tour Team’s Association. This could spell trouble for Caisse d’Epargne, Saunier Duval and Discovery Channel.

Second Correction: It appears the UCI did not provide any information regarding Puerto and no new riders will be implicated. In fact, they say they only received 1,000 of the 6,000 pages from Spain and they did not contain any new information. However, Discovery Chanel did resign from the Pro Tour Team’s Association. Apparently, Johan Bruyneel did storm out of the meeting in a style modeled after the Bush Administration. Nice to see the influence that working for an American company is having on Bruyneel.

More of an Overcast-with-Chances-of-Rain-Wednesday than a Black Wednesday, then.

So far, the admissions have culminated with Riis admitting that he used EPO during the 1996 Tour de France – which he won. (Riis was rumored to be nicknamed “Mr. Sixty” due to his high hematocrit count, which becomes dangerous when above 50.) We will have to wait and see if this ends up with anyone losing their titles: Riis could lose his yellow jersey (overall winner), and Zabel his green jersey (points winner).

Interestingly, if you look at the results of the ’96 Tour, more than half the riders in the top 10 have admitted to drug use or have been very closely tied to it:

1. Bjarne Riis – admitted drug usage during the ’96 Tour
2. Jan Ullrich – no admitted drug use, but his DNA matched blood found in Operation Puerto
3. Richard Virenque – admitted drug use after the ’98 Festina Affair
4. Laurent Dufaux – admitted drug use after the ’98 Festina Affair
6. Luc Leblanc – admitted drug use after the ’98 Festina Affair
8. Fernando Escartin – admitted drug use

Perhaps most surprising about the admissions is that many of the riders were not star riders looking for the extra edge to win; they were riders of the domestique category: a caliber of riders who’s role it is not to win races, but to serve the team in other ways, such as setting tempo at the front of the peleton, chasing down breakaways, or to protect their team leader during a race. Rolf Aldag, who was an excellent domestique, said that during the ’95 season, was was in awe as he would routinely get dropped by the peleton during races. He simply couldn’t keep up with the pace – let alone serve his duty as domestique. He turned to drug use in order to be able to continue in his profession. It seems the speed of the races increased so dramatically during the 90′s that just to keep up, riders had to dope. Drug use was wide-spread and riders were not simply doping to win, but to handle the speeds.

As all these confessions come out, I am strangely optimistic. I hope we have rounded a corner. I’ve found in the last few months that I’m relieved when checking cyclingnews.com that there isn’t a Cycling News Flash in the Latest Updates section – usually indicating another doping development. At the same time, as I’m following the Giro d’Italia, I’m happy to see there is no dominating team and the peleton has its off days where it lets a breakaway get away with huge time gains because the riders need a rest. In the days of Armstrong the pace was high every single day and only on rare occasion did a break get big time gains. The peleton never took a rest – it seemed like the Energizer Bunny.

Cycling gets a bad wrap for doping but it’s also one of the only sports actively fighting to clean itself up. Major League Baseball’s attempt at controlling doping is pathetic with its one random drug control annually and f they are caught, players are suspended for 10 days. Compare that to cycling with it’s thousands of tests annually – many random as well as in and out of competition – and if they’re caught, riders are suspended for two years. I’m proud to be part of a sport that is trying to open its eyes to its problems, rather than continuing to turn a blind eye. But if cycling is going to clean up, it’s going to need everyone’s help: the teams, the sponsors, cycling’s governing body, the race organizers and the fans.

I believe pro cycling is as it stands not a sport you can be competitive in without doping. The sponsors demand results and television exposure. The team management is usually made up of ex-pros who understand the demands on the riders and are part of the sport’s doping history. The UCI is fighting a political war to appease the World Anti-Doping Agency and to appear to fight doping without taking any realistic measures to be effective. The race organizers want historic races and to cover more ground in order to increase sponsorship revenue and collect fees from participating cities to host the race (sometimes even resorting to double-stages). The fans want epic day-long breakaways and nail-biting finales.

If cycling is going to change, it will have to change from all angles. We need realistic sponsors who are in it for the long-run and are willing to stand by the sport through the rough times and who understand that their riders can’t be winning constantly. The team management needs to be sanctioned along with the riders and can no longer act like they have no responsibility or control over what their riders do. The UCI needs to fight doping the way police fight crime: they need to have riders embedded in the peleton who can help uncover doping circles and they need to plea-bargain reduced sentences in exchange for information. The race organizers need to understand that the riders can’t ride 250km every day for 21 days over mountains and through all kinds of weather. And we, the fans, need to understand that if doping is no longer part of the sport, the speeds will fall, the races will shorten, and our favorite riders will sometimes falter and become human again. The riders cannot solely bear the burden to clean up the sport in an environment that is set up to virtually require doping.

I hope things start clearing up, and I hope these things start coming out during the off-season when nothing interesting is going on as these stories have a knack for breaking during the exciting parts of the season.

I’d like to get back to watching Di Luca ride towards winning the Giro.

Cycling is arguably the most difficult sport in the world; a three week Grand Tour is no small thing; four to eight hours in the saddle day-in, day-out, and over some of the biggest mountains you can find. But it’s not just the three Grand Tours that are hard; Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders combine 240+ km races with some of the roughest cobblestones you can find and, in the case of Flanders, some of the steepest hills you can imagine.

Our frustration with doping in cycling is not so much because of the doping itself, but the way it’s being handled and treated by the press, the various cycling and doping governing bodies, and the teams themselves. Ideally, cycling should be a clean sport – I don’t think anyone is arguing about that. But we should also be realistic and recognize that doping has been a major part of the sport since the beginning. Especially in Europe, cyclists are brought up on a doping regimen from the amateur ranks all the way up through the pro ranks. And, upon retirement, many pros become Director Sportifs. It is no small wonder then, that there is organized, systematic doping throughout most of the pro teams.

Strikingly, cycling is the most intensely drug tested sport in the world. This season alone, more than 1000 anti-doping controls have been already conducted this year – all of them negative. Part of the problem here is that many of the items on the World Anti-Doping Organization’s prohibited substances list can’t be tested for, and for those that have tests, teams and riders have clever (if not always appealing) means of getting around them. In fact, the teams and riders are so good at getting around the controls that one begins to seriously wonder what, when a doping test does come back positive, went wrong. Was the sample tampered with or did the rider make a foolish mistake? But, in all cases, when a test comes back positive, everyone is shocked. The teams, the riders, everyone puts on a big show. The teams – who no doubt organized the doping regimen in the first place – act as though they’ve been deeply betrayed by the rider, sack him immediately, talk about what a shock it is, that they never saw any suspicious behavior from the rider, and that they will investigate their team to make sure everyone else is clean. The cyclist is not only being singled out for doing something everyone else is also doing, but is a victim of a vicious double standard imposed by the team: you have to dope to succeed, but if you’re caught you’ll be fired.

This isn’t to say the rider isn’t doing something wrong: everyone has a choice in the matter, and doping is cheating. But these riders are brought up in this environment, and when everyone else is doing it, it is very easy to justify the act to yourself. It seems an impossible choice for the cyclist, and the cyclist bears a disproportionate burden: they’re putting their health at risk by taking the drugs, and they’ll be vilified by their teams should they be caught.

As far as the fans go, I’m not sure sure that the sport is falsified by drugs. After all, as fans, we’re not out there racing with the pros; we’re merely watching the riders compete against one another. If they’re all doing drugs, we’re still watching a level playing field and we’re still watching the strongest, smartest, hardest-working athletes win.

But it does seem drugs have gotten much more powerful in the last 20 years. For example, the stage of the Tour de France to Luz Ardiden generally follows the same pattern: 60-80km of relatively flat roads to the base of the Col d’Aspin. From there they ride over the Aspin, Tourmalet, and finally up Luz Ardiden. The first time they rode this stage was 1985 and the average speed was around 25 km per hour. The next year, Greg LeMond finished the same stage in 26 km per hour; roughly the same speed. Then, in 1990, LeMond raced to the top of that mountain at 39 km per hour. That’s a significant improvement. Today the speeds are even higher; Lance Armstrong won the stage in 2003 at around 42 km per hour. Training practices and equipment have become much, much better than they were in the 80′s, but I find it hard to account for the difference between 1986 and 1990 by just those factors. The late 80′s and early 90′s coincides precisely with the time that EPO is rumored to have arrived in the pro ranks and it likely accounts for at least some portion of the increase in speed we’re seeing.

Cycling’s public fight against doping started in the 60′s when British rider Tom Simpson died on the Mont Ventoux in the Provence region of France; an autopsy later revealed doping products in his system and they were ultimately blamed for his death.

The next big blow came in 1998 when Willey Voet of the Festina team was arrested with loads of doping products in his car which he later admitted were for the Festina team where a team-wide, systematic doping regimen was in place. This came amidst rumors that powerful drugs such as EPO were in wide-spread use in the pro peleton, and it started the trend of the modern witch-hunt approach to finding the “cheats” among the pro ranks. This approach usually involves a laboratory or government group leaking privelaged information about a dope test or doping investigation to a newspaper, and Cycling’s governing body – the UCI – takes a reactionary and half-measure approach to it in what seems to be a largely political maneuver to appear that they’re doing what they can to fight doping. Usually, WADA jumps in at this point and Dick Pound flaps his gums about how evil cyclists are. Top-ranked riders such as Marco Pantani were targeted and accused without so much as a shred of actual evidence, their names drug through the mud, and their careers ruined. In the case of Pantani, it tragically ended with a drug overdose that may have been suicide but was certainly the result of a severe depression brought on by the accusations against him.

The witch-hunt tactics continued throughout Armstrong’s career; and although Armstrong was constantly being investigated or sued or accused by one group or another, no claims ever stuck, and he never tested positive. Then, one year after his retirement, a Spanish doping investigation dubbed Operation Puerto broke during the Giro d’Italia. The style in which this case has been handled in the press is absolutely reprehensible. First of all, all the major communication and accusations have come via the Spanish newspaper, El Pais; not from the organizations performing the investigation, and almost no evidence has been found against any of the accused. And, what documents have been produced in the case appear to have been forged, falsified, or otherwise tampered with.

Puerto started when Spanish authorities arrested a doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes, and a Director Sportif of one of the prominent teams in the Pro Tour, Manolo Saiz. The doctor was caught with bags of blood which were suspected to be intended for the use of blood-doping and his offices were raided. 58 riders were named in the investigation, many of whom were top-level riders including Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso. Weeks went by and finally, in the final days before the Tour de France, many were suspended – including Ullrich and Basso. Part of what continues to boggle my mind is that Fuentes had the names, hotel rooms, and phone numbers of two major riders – Alejandro Valverde and Alexander Vinokourov – in his wallet, but they have somehow never been strongly named in the investigation. This circumstantial evidence seems at least as strong – if not stronger – than the evidence pointing at riders like Ivan Basso, but somehow it hasn’t stuck. At least not yet.

The case was finally dismissed and closed, and all the riders – except Ullrich – were cleared and allowed to race again. Then, this past winter, DNA comparisons were made between Ullrich and several of the bags of blood found in Spain, and the result confirmed the blood was Ullrich’s. Now, of course, this doesn’t prove any doping happened, but apparently it’s enough convict him of it.

Ullrich’s DNA match caused a new flutter of interest in the case, and most countries re-opened their investigations of the accused riders – including Basso. Now – again weeks before another major Grand Tour – riders are being forced out and back into limbo.

But it’s not just the riders who are in limbo. The fans are, too. The fans don’t know who to root for, and get their hopes up that they’ll get to see certain people at the races. Then, at the last minute, the tables are turned and it ends up being politicians and newspapers who determine the outcome of the races, not the riders.

For me, I’m getting a bit calloused of the current cycling scene. I’m at a loss to know who to be a fan of; they’re either whiny, arrogant weasels like Levi Leipheimer, or they’re suspended, or it looks like they will be suspended at a moment’s notice due to ongoing stop-go investigations. I find myself falling back on the racers of the past: Fausto Coppi in the 40′s and 50′s, Eddy Merckx in the 60′s and 70′s, and the Ullrich and Pantani of the late 90′s. Merckx and Coppi both have an unbelievably cool past, but I have to say I’m particularly fond of the 1998 Tour battle between Ullrich and Pantani – it has to be my favorite of all time.

Ullrich was fresh off his first Tour win in 1997 and looked to be the next Tour great. Pantani was a tiny climber who could sail over the mountains like they were molehills. In the ’98 Tour, Pantani – who was notoriously bad at time trialling – finished dead last in the opening day prologue. Ullrich then won the first long time trial and took the yellow jersey. Everyone expected him to hold it for the rest of the race, but Marco had other plans. When the race hit the mountains, it was pouring rain and freezing cold – so Pantani attacked. He attacked on two days: the first was just to win a stage, but he managed to gain enough time that he stood a fighting chance of taking the yellow jersey. The next time, he attacked on the third-to-last mountain from the finish and took 8 minutes out of Ullrich to take the yellow jersey – and keep it. Following is a video of his fantastic riding in the ’98 Tour.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are not intended as a statement of fact. Neither the author nor Productions warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed. In other words, this is a fucking blog. Get over it.