Francois,
First, I respect your opinion (not always agree), you seem to think and more important inform yourself before you post.
But on this doping question, which seems to be of great interest to you, I feel you’re somehow on the wrong path. This is not specifically on this post but a general feeling I have about your comments on PED.
Although I like the idea of the mentioned lable, I don’t see the value it has to prevent cheaters from taking PED’s. An excuse gone, true, but excuses come in all forms, even grandmothers brew some kind of tea to treat a cold (Claudio Ciapucci I belive:-))
Here are some of my thoughts, no facts, no solutions but maybe some new points of view:
Professional Cycling or Triathlon is a profession. Therefore, racing at the TDF or an IM as a pro is a job. The Stakeholders will have some kind of employment contract for that job e.g. pro licence. When I choose a job as a physicist, I get an offer which includes the conditions and rules under which I will work. Then I can descide weather I want the job or not. If I don’t play by the rules, I get fired. How is that different form professional sports?
I am almost certain that one could design a procedure that will almost exclude the possibility of an athlete taking an illeagal substance. This would obviously include regular blood and urin sampling (probably bi-weekly or so) during the whole period of the contract, year round. Every athlete will have it’s own “fingerprint” of substances in his/her blood. It would then be easy to predict what and when an athlete would benefit from what kind of substance and check for those substances more specifically. A doping positive would then not be a one time thing but a history. Like every company the UCI or ITU have to check on their emplyees.
The only drawback I see is cost. But If the sponsors want to continue on using the lable of triathlon or cycling, they might have to invest, or the whole thing goes down the drain after it’s completly washed out.
As an example:
Athlete X wins olympic gold. The same athlete gets tested positve a couple month later at a unimportant race or in training, maybe with some BS about transportation or time-line for the samples. What and whom should we and the sponsors believe, or do we even care?
Athlete Y wins olympic gold. He or she has a 20% performance increase over 1 month before the olympics and the blood-picture (e.g. haem. dest. etc.) changes significantly over that period. The athlete can be specifically tested for substances that might cause those changes or when a positive test occurs a couple month later, we have something to campare with.
