My basic message is that all stakeholders need to continually send the same message. Cheaters are not appreciated, cheaters (if and when) caught, will not be let back in the club, and that athletes, race directors, coaches and federations need to keep the message out there. I understand the various articles that have outlined how to cheat, where to get drugs, how to try to avoid getting caught etc. I also know that speaking with friends who have lived, coached and trained with the cycling population of 10+ years ago, and living and training and traveling daily with the triathlon circuit, I don't get that "feeling" or "culture".

There are cheaters in all parts of life (from church to business to teachers) and that will never be stopped. But, I have spent signficant time with the very best in the sport, and don't believe they have had to cheat to win (therefore you can be clean to win). I think Lance and most of the guys of his era, have all noted that they did cheat, to win, because they felt there was no way to win without taking drugs. I truly believe the majority of top athletes WOULD like to race and win cleanly. Its only when cycling didn't enforce fairness, and the top officials contributed to the problem, that it got truly out of hand.

I have seen at the ITU level particularly, a demand for drug-free sport, from the athletes, coaches and majority of the federations. They are third party tested (often and out of competition). I have noted that because the age group bunch are not tested often, I can't make comments about the% who may have used drugs because I simply dont know. I am confident there are some STAND OUT performances in a few of the categories which makes one wonder. But cycling is not talking about their age group athletes, their problem and the conversation with Tom and others is around their pros. To that order I have very very high confidence in a very low problem in ITU and that WTC and other longer distance race series are doing a better job every year testing AND that the athletes are very anti-drug in their actions and words.

My goal of continually pushing a positive agenda, is to keep it the NORM and for athletes who come into the sport to appreciate what the expected culture has been and wishes to remain.

Honest question - what is it about triathlon that you feel draws these inherently honest people that the three individual sports by themselves lack?

That is really what it boils down to (for me, at least). All 3 sports which make up triathlon have a history of doping. But yet somehow, triathlon 9a sport made of all 3 of those individual activities) has risen above the history of its component sports and is (largely) dope-free. No matter the fact that there are Olympic Gold Medals, lucrative endoresement contracts (if you get to the top), etc......triathlon (with its well-noted lack of testing), through some virtuous element has been immune.

Does anyone really believe this to be the case?

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Personal behavior? Where am I saying that he's the gold standard? I said Floyd blew the whistle on USPS, I question why Vaughters, as an anti-doping advocate, wasn't the one who came forward about the practices.

A complicated question without a 100% easy answer.

1. Is duration a sport has been around. I think there has been a larger problem in cycling, then speed sprinting in track and field, and then distance/mid distance running. These sports have been around for nearly 100 years so they have had more time for problems to start with.

2. The more $$ that can be made, increases the chances for people to want to (consider) cheating. The benefits and even the cost of cheating can be more easily be repaid.

3. The sports have not wanted to stop cheating. I personally blame the federations and their key officials more then I blame the athletes because if they bosses were 100% committed then it would be less easy for the individual athlete or team to cheat.


Until recently, triathlon simply did not repay cheaters enough return for a large number of pros to cheat. They couldn't rationalize the cost of cheating for a modest return on investment. Many of those pros who have been found in triathlon, have had a direct link back to bike clubs and teams/groups who aleady had that history and culture and knowledge. If triathlon starts cracking out multiple million dollar budgets for winning and teams, then I think its only logical that more people will see the benefits of cheating for the rewards. Up to this point, its been low.

4. I believe that a few of the greatest influencers, have truly been ANTI-DRUGS in their development of athletes, and if they as the top coaches in the sport were doing things cleanly, then others were not forced to cheat to compete with them. I am talking about people like Brett, Darren, Siri, Joel and others. These top coaches have never had a whiff (from what I have ever seen) of cheaters, drug users or illegal methods to win. They have coached the top pros in the game for 1-2 decades and I believe they have wanted to keep the sport clean for their crew and the next generation that has come in.

Do I believe that all triathlete are somehow better or more honest then the cyclists or current track runners being identified? Absolutely not. But I do believe that without a lot of previous money to motivate them to bad behaviours, and current top coaches who have continued to produce champions (without any whiff of cheating) that the the young sport of triathlon has been given a small window to be very clean. 100% clean? Obviously not, but its not the core of the sports functioning to start off figuring out how to cheat to keep up with the top athletes.

I do believe as many future strategies as are possible (financially and practically) to keep the sport clean in the next decade needs to be addressed and implimented. And lastly, anyone involved needs to be a policeman and raise a RED FLAG when they see a problem. I know numerous very respected people, who would not have a problem pointing a finger whether that was at a fellow coach, group, federation or program that was generating cheaters.

Its not a simple process. It will only get more difficult, but triathlon has been given an easier starting position because they were so late starting and there was such a discrepancy in money involved (which to me is likely been the biggest ingredient in cheating for most of the people and sports you will likely address).

"Highest respect and regard has been at the ITU level where testing has been the longest, most pronuonced and most consistent."

one point of order. actually, ironman tests more than the ITU. not a lot more, and maybe this changed since the last time i looked, but, the ITU as testing authority commissions about 9 tests for every 10 that ironman commissions.

now, you might say no, that when you add the NF daughter federations this ups the ITU total over the ironman total. but we really don't know that. both the german and the french NFs tests a whole big bunch, but we really don't know what they're testing: roth, frankfurt, nice, or the ITU athletes in and out of competition.

what i can tell you is that these NFs pretty routinely refuse to take results management from ironman when the ironman offers it, and that's pretty shameful in my opinion. when ironman catches a doper righteously, and that doper's NF refuses to take on results management, then the ITU ought to step in and comment on that. this is what i'm talking about, barrie, when i mention the distance between words and actions when it comes to anti-doping.

same with USADA. when results management has been offered to USADA, that organization has refused to accept it, tho i would guess they'd accept it if they were paid to accept it. this is the difference between talking anti-doping and actually doing the work of anti-doping.

in my opinion, an elegant solution to all of this is that the ITU should handle all of ironman's results management, and ironman should handle all of the ITU's results management.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Dan could you expand on the pert above re results management?

My understanding at least in Canada is that CCES is the "testing authority" IE as a WADA signatory WTC (in Canada) would call CCES and say we want 10 tests at Whistler/Calgary/IMMT etc.

That is where WTC's involvement begins and ends (until a positive), IE they request testing and then pay for it. CCES would conduct the tests and sanction the athlete accordingly. At that point in the event of a positive, the athlete first and then WTC and their respective NGB would be notified of sanctions.

Maybe I have this wrong…that is my understanding though.

Are you saying that there are WTC positives out there that no one knows about because various NGB's are not taking action?

Maurice

WTC has improved dramatically over the past few years in its testing and its great to see. ITU have been leaders and any motivation that they can give to WTC, Challenge or anyone else is a bonus and a good thing for sport. I am not 100% knowledgeable why some of the hamonionzation issues have occurred between races and drug testing agencies, but its clearly an area for improvement by all. I do believe that Marisol and Andrew have had meetings about this very topic and ITU taking an even bigger role in it.

When a triathlete tests positive, it hurts everyone, so whether they are an ITU athlete within a federation (where their is closer input from federations) or a long distance athlete (who essentially has very little connection to their federations) the sport and that country, region, race organization are hurt by the negatie media and implications. So everyone working for one very tough process is optimal for sure.

I am optimistic that the key players (ITU, WTC) and numerous National Governing Bodies do want to catch and prosecute cheaters and this maybe one of the first things they can all really work together on.

I really don't see how it could be any more cut-and-dry. The guy lied (doped) 15 years ago. He is welcomed back by the fans with open arms (there is a GS poster up in my son's room), but with the understanding that he is truly sorry, truly going to put things right. He has built his very nice lifestyle on this. Then, when the ideals that he built the entire team (and his career in the sport he's trying to "save") around become inconvenient for him, it's "subtle" and "complicated". If he would have quit, it would have been the ultimate statement in favor of the sport-over-self. Actions have consequences. One guys dopes, 100 people lose their jobs, full stop. If that was the consequence, the hiring would get pretty black and white in a hurry. If there was even a hint of sketchy behavior, it would be game over for life, time to get a real job. No more "victim of doping culture" crap did we excuse the Enron folks for being "victims of a greed culture"

Him resigning would do absolutely nothing . I get what some of you are saying, but some comparing his not resigning as him being a liar on the level of Lance, Vino, Och , Riis, is a bit of a stretch for me.
Years ago my wife yelled at me and said if I ever raised my voice at her again she would leave me. Well I did and we are still married. Guess she has no integrity, is a liar and has hurt women's rights forever

Your two statements above are inconsistent, in my view.

Random, middle-of-the-night, out of competition testing is the only way testing will result in consistently catching PED users, and providing a serious deterrent to their use. I see no interest in this from the governing bodies. There was much fanfare when the biological passport system began, but based on the IAAF situation, it has had very little practical effect on PED use in sports.

That leaves the other means to catch dopers - eye-witness testimony and paper trails. The former was how USADA got Lance, and the latter has been the way a few age groupers recently got popped (see links in my previous post).

So for me, a lot of this talk about testing is a red herring. TODAY, in 2015, athletes micro-dose and will only fail drug tests for a few hours. What are the federations doing to address this reality? Answer: nothing. Why? Answer: "When a triathlete tests positive, it hurts everyone"

Going to end this thread as I am not sure there is much extra value in its continued discussion. Those who believe every endurance athlete cheat and all race directors are attached to being blind eye to drug tests are not going to change their mind about triathlon or any other endurance sport (its pretty clear reading various blogs and chains).

Those who think that nobody in their sport cheat are either totally blind to the realities or just dont know what is going on.

I sit in the middle. Some sports have a bigger problem then others for various reasons.

I am not as close to high end track and field or cycling so I cannot give all the answers how to solve their problems. As an endurance coach, I do hope they find solutions because it hurts everyone when great performances are not to be appreciated and trusted and respected.

For triathlon, as a sport where I have spent nearly 40 years of my life, I will continue to help be a positive solution, and to call out any cheater, or federation or race organizer who is not pulling their weight to help be a part of the solution for a clean sport. There are cheaters, there will be cheaters, and many of us need to find solutions (that will continue to evolve) to rid them from triathlon. Having personally lived and traveled and spent numerous hours with some of the sports greatest athletes, I feel very confident in having put my faith into some great people and athletes who have been doing it fairly and properly.

End of the thread for me. Best of summer to all of those who are racing where ever you maybe. I am off to Mt Tremblant (next weekend), Stockholm (the following weekend), Muskoka the following weekend, Edmonton the following weekend, then Chicago and Kona. A fair amount of triathlon events over the next eight weeks.

Regards in safe and fair racing
Barrie Shepley

There are no altruists in cycling. Landis had good reasons for going nuclear.

Michael Ball wanted a Pro Continental license for Rock Racing and, maybe, eventually a Pro Tour one. Landis was going to be the star of the team. Ball was told by the UCI that he would not get a license if he hired Floyd. Later, after racing for OUCH, Landis planned to return to racing in Europe. He was given the cold shoulder by teams. He suspected the UCI was still blackballing him, so he asked JV to query the UCI about hiring him. The UCI advised JV not to. Fearing that this could eventually lead to some sort of lawsuit, JV told Landis that if this ever came up in court proceedings then he would deny it. To make matters worse, Armstrong contacted teams to discourage them from hiring Landis. Floyd found about that and told Lance to stop fucking with him or else. Lance wasn't smart enough to stop.

Floyd was never happy with the lying that goes along with doping, but he was enough a realist and a cynic to accept that it was a necessary part of systemic doping. If he could make a good living from cycling then he could live with it. With the UCI and LA preventing him from making a living as a professional, he felt there was no reason to continue to endure the stress that came with lying about everything. Taking down LA and exposing the UCI was frosting on the cake for what they had done to him.

After Floyd decided to admit to doping, JV counseled him to not to implicate others. When Landis' email to USADA leaked to the press, Wiggins, Vandevelde, and Millar gave public interviews where they did their best to cast doubt on Landis' allegations and question his mental state or sobriety. Some of Slipstream's non-rider staff did the same. All knew Landis was telling the truth. JV could have made a huge difference when Landis' admission became public. He could have backed him up and detailed the doping that went on at Postal during the late 90s. Instead he clammed up and kept his head down.

As I said before, JV is a weasel. But that isn't really relevant to this stupidity of people thinking that JV killing the team will scare the peloton straight.

Travis Tygart did say that Vaughters was cooperating with USADA before Landis came to them. Wasn't Vaughters also one of the people pushing Landis to come forward. Also Vaughters telling his riders that they would not lose their rides if they talked with USADA was big, do you think people like Hincapie or Levi would have talked if they knew all the Garmin people were not talking? That is what I do not like about Sky's policy, it just rewards people for hiding the truth if they did dope.

So, how about Kevin Moats? He cheated to the max. At least 7 years doping. Hired the lawyers to say he did not know it was illegal. Only got like 6 months.
Stole so many titles from other athletes. And now is still racing and at the top of the USAT rankings. The system sure did nothing to him, so why should
others worry? Nina Kraft is still racing.

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

Given how short of window an athlete will glow- if doping correctly- such as micro-dosing and only the ability to test positive in the night, when they are not testing athletes, along with how few times an athlete actually gets tested, makes you wonder how many athletes might truly be doping.

Now- the very best, potentially best ever female, ITU athlete, Gwen Jorgensen, has only been tested 3 times so far in 2015 by USADA. I don't know if she's been tested by any other anti-doping federation, and I'm not implying that she's doping in any way, but just emphasizing how few times arguably the best triathlete in the world is currently being tested.

http://www.usada.org/...thlete-test-history/

Curiousity led me to look up the other following athletes- not implying anyone is doping, other than what we know about Danielson.

Danielson has been tested 3 times in 2015
Horner has been tested 7 times in 2015- he definitely appears to be more targeted, compared to nearly every other cyclist in the pool
Ledecky has been tested 3 times

Thanks for the info on that post..............................and in total agreement with that last line

So...what you're saying is that because your wife didn't follow through on the consequences she laid out to you for unwanted behavior, you still do it. Got it. Thanks for making the point for us.

Any parent will tell you that if you lay out consequences for unwanted behaviors, you need to follow through or they are ineffective as a deterrent....of course, the corollary on that is don't lay out consequences your aren't prepared to enforce in the first place :-/

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

You are a real asshole aren't you. So now because I said I raised my voice to my wife again years ago, you are implying I still do. Want to imply I am a wife abuser to. What I am saying is sometimes the behavior does not rise to a certain level of consequences. No, it would be stupid to get a divorce for not being perfect.
You know, I tried to disagree and answer you respectfully in another post. You then jumped on a comment I made to someone else, now you choose to twist my words and make a personal attack. .............Guess we now know what each of us are about. nuf said

Ummm...didn't YOU say you did it again? I didn't make that up.

And...what part about where I said "don't make consequences you aren't prepared to enforce" didn't you (or your wife, I guess) understand?

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Thanks for your posts. Hope you can engage more.

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

Yep I did. When you were a young man you never argued with your other? And when one does it should mean an instant family break up. So what are you saying about my wife then. I truly hope you do not enforce ebery word that comes out of your mouth to your family, ever.
But hey, this was a cycling thread and you choose to make my analogy a personal attack. Have a great day.

testing authority = the entity that contracts to have the tests conducted, and pays for them.
testing vendor = entity physically performing the tests (NADO or private company), which may include contracting with the DCOs (doping control officers).
DCO = some asshole in an apartment in buenos aires or zurich waiting to get a fax, at which point he grabs his pee cups and fires up his audi.
results management = how you handle the positive test, and it might be an IF, NF, NADO, and ironman could do it.

in the case of the brazilian pro (name escapes me) that ironman popped a couple of years ago, my understanding is results management was offered to the brazilian NF, which refused it. kevin moats, it was my understanding it was offered to USADA and USADA refused it. now, by "refused it" i take that to mean refused it unless a check was written, but i'm not positive how all that worked.

this doesn't mean the result is just not followed up, rather that ironman then accepts results management, which it did (according to memory) for both the brazilian pro and for moats.

results management costs something. you might get sued. you have to go to court, and pay those costs, even if you eventually win. so, i can understand USADA wanting money in order to take care of results management. except that it gets like $10 million a year from the govt to handle anti-doping, so, it's already getting paid. the other way to look at it is, ironman has already done most of the hard work, and paid most of the money, by catching an athlete. ironman is like the cop, and the entity handling results management is like the district atty. ironman did all the police work and handed the DA a case. the question now is whether the DA will take the case. the hard work is in getting the guy red handed.

what you want is for NADOs to handle results management. however, in the case of the jamaican NADO, some of these NADOs find it a matter of national pride not to find its athletes culpable. same thing with IFs. note the problem right now with the IAAF and the allegations of doping (sunday times) that the IAAF didn't pursue. this is a real image problem for the IAAF, and you can see the line of reasoning where one IF might see the value in busting its own athletes, but another IF might see the value in NOT busting its own athletes.

so, one way you get around this is my wisecrack about having ironman and the ITU handle each others' results management. sometimes i wonder if we'd get more busts if the entities that had a vested interest in their sports appearing clean weren't handling the results management for their own sports.

this is why i wish USADA would accept results management. you could argue that USADA incurs costs by handling results management. but you could argue that USADA saves costs by having ironman pay for the police work involved in building the case (which it did, in moats's case).

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Of course...I'm not perfect




Of course not...then again, neither of us has said that the consequences of raising our voices in the future would be divorce. So, that's not really relevant.


What I stated above about consequences for unwanted behaviors is something that has been drummed into me over the years of marriage and parenting...mostly by not following through and then having to live with THOSE consequences.



It wasn't a personal attack. It was merely pointing out the flaws in your analogy and another straw man argument from you. As stated previously, the facts are that the team was basically BUILT around that promise. That promise was laid out there as "proof" as to why we should believe that they are doing things differently. Not following through on that promise just means that there's no reason to trust anything else coming out of his mouth. End of story.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

COME ON B SAMPLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!