At first glance I hate frivolous lawsuits and Leogrande is notoriously suspected for doping his way to the crit championships 2 years ago. Is he doping, probably. But what is USADA’s motive for testing his b samples after the A came back negative, besides hurting his reputation. I don’t agree with doping or making it any easier for possible cheaters to beat the system, but we do have a system in place and USADA can’t just bend the rules to suit their suspicions.
It’ll be interesting to see where this case goes
While doping is no doubt a very serious problem in all sports, cycling has been particularly stung by the issue. There is also certaintly a strong push to legitimize the sport by extensive testing, and I understand that.
However, I believe that there should be a presumption of innocence and that protocol should be followed. It seems that instead of being impartial and following standard procedures, those who do the testing and run the anti-doping programs have almost a religious fevor to their task.
Bad science? bad protocol? Poor test standards? WADA and USADA seem not to care as long as they meet some mysterious quota and get their press releases.
The USADA bends the rules to meet their suspiscions all the time. It’s a government funded program where the money is given with the explanation of if we’re going to go through the process of funding this make it so it’s impossible for us to be beat, even if we are wrong. I’m not saying professional cycling is rosey and clean right now, but they still deserve a fair trial and don’t get it. They are assumed guilty until proven guilty with plenty of reasonable doubt. The best example of this is Floyd. There is no doubt that those very undertrained medical assistants performing the tests made more than enough mistakes to think something was up there. The USADA just overlooks all of these procedural errors and assumes guilty. Why? It’s a pro cyclist he must be guilty. Case closed.
The USADA is giving Cycling a bad rap, while turning it into a witch hunt. They act like they can just bust whoever they want because they don’t like them (which I’m sure they can on some level).