I wish more teams would pass this message on to doper cyclists. This promoter believes Di Luca is bad for his event because he is a fraud. The UCI needs to figure out that dopers are ruining pro cycling and do something serious about it. For example, they could start imposing the 4-year bans that they are authorized to impose. I would use these bans for marginal violations (when some ever so slight potential for doubt exists, as in the Contador case) and change the rules so if you're caught even one time in an obvious and indisputable case of doping you are banned for life. Di Luca should be out of cycling forever, in my opinion.
Some serious penalties just might clean things up! Until changes like this, I expect the UCI to slap Contador's hand and doping to be in the news for a long time...
I just read this comment from Pat McQuaid of the UCI. I think it's laughable.
ReplyDelete“I’m increasingly going for four years because two years is very quick,” McQuaid said of doping bans. “An athlete returns to the peleton very quick. I think it’s unfair to the clean athletes that guys who have cheated in premeditated cheating can come back so quickly.”
What exactly is non-premeditated cheating? Is he referring to what is happening with Alberto Contador? Next time I am caught committing fraud, I'll ask for a lighter punishment because my fraud isn't premeditated.
I am sensitive to the fact that in cases where there is a higher degree of uncertainty about the results of the tests, that it would be wise to be judicious in doling out punishment. However, to say in these cases that cheating isn't premeditated because the detection system's results leave some doubt, I believe is crazy. If you are doping in cycling, it's premeditated. End of story.