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Travis Tygart expects the UCI to move forward with a truth commission in the next few weeks. Photo: AFP
For all the non-stop talk of a vast truth-telling commission since last year’s doping revelations, real action has been scarce. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO, however, believes that will change, and soon.
“We’ve been screaming from the mountain tops at every chance we’ve gotten. Well over a year ago now, to have a process where you give the athletes the opportunity and others to come forward and be truthful, and you put a stake in the ground,” Travis Tygart, USADA CEO, told
VeloNews. “We are confident that it’s imminent that a process to give it a chance to unshackle itself from the past is actually going to happen very soon.”
Last week, Canadian Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp) admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs earlier in his career, and that he had worked with USADA. Tygart said he understood the frustrations that come admission by admission.
“Look, I understand the frustration, whether it’s Ryder or anyone else coming out. That frustration ought to be aimed not at those riders who have voluntarily come in and been truthful with authorities at this point. That frustration ought to be aimed at [the] UCI. And look — we’re as hopeful as we’ve ever been with the new leadership … we’ve had very good, productive conversations,” he said.
New UCI president Brian Cookson pledged to make an open process a priority as a candidate for president, and over the weekend told The Guardian that an amnesty program was a tricky process.
“It’s difficult to do within the WADA Code. If people have committed an offence, they are still guilty. I have a lot of sympathy for people who say, ‘OK, it’s outside the statute of limitations but that guy stole my career,’” he said. He also said that Lance Armstrong, who has said he’d be the “first man at the door” if a truth commission were to take shape, hasn’t been in touch.
Tygart has maintained a persistent call for a commission since his reasoned decision in the Armstrong rocked pro cycling in the fall of 2102. Time, he said, should be a driving factor.
“And we were, over a year ago, at a point where that Omerta could have been crashed and removed for good for a period of time, and the UCI just decided to kick the can. And it’s their process that would have to happen for it to be fully done. And they just kicked the can continually down the road,” he said. “Now, the can’s been picked up, and we have all the hope and confidence with the current UCI leadership that they are on the eve in the next, you know, in the next weeks, not several weeks, not months, but weeks, of having a plan in place to address it all.”
Each year the UK Royal Air Force runs a photographic competition for its personnel and the results are usually fantastic. 2013′s efforts are no exception. And this image of a Panavia Tornado GR4 from RAF Marham-based IX (B) Sqn is taken from this year’s shortlist.
A truth commission might help stanch the sport’s bleeding.
Photo: Casey B. Gibson | www.cbgphoto.com (file)
Last week, to exactly no one’s surprise, Ryder Hesjedal admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs. Forgive me for being jaded.
Cut. Cut. Cut.
The traditional gantlet followed his admission, which of course itself followed an accusation. The news stories, the statements, the condemnations, the very brief social-media outrage.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
And then things quieted down again. Until the next time someone admits to taking EPO while racing during an era in which EPO was pretty much jam on toast. Until then, it was but one more paper cut to the flesh of professional cycling, one more painful wound that bleeds into the world around it.
Since June 2012, when the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency sent its initial letter to Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel and Co., announcing that the jig was up, the sport has been gashed time and time again, with each wound thoroughly and publicly salted by journalists, athletes and fans.
We cut the sport time and time again. It sells magazines, it actually is the news, it drives readership, and it’s irresponsible to ignore, because we’ve been covering it for years and should not stop now. It’s the very ugly business of the sport, and we’re all part of that business now, either as riders making the initial choices, journalists writing stories, or end users reading the content.
In some way, this sport’s blood is on us all. And it has to stop short of the fabled thousandth cut that leads to death.
It’s been said before, and it’ll be said again, by people with bigger voices than mine: It’s time for the truth-telling process to begin at the Union Cycliste Internationale level. And not just because it would lessen the steady drip of doping news on screens and shelves with one large unwrapping of misdeeds, but because it’s the right thing to do. The fans deserve it. The riders do, too.
Say what we will — and of course, we have — about the fact that riders like Tom Danielson and Dave Zabriskie were able to dope early in their careers and then go on earning comfortable livings as professional cyclists. Was it the wrong choice to take drugs, ethically? Yes. Was there a moral imperative within the sport at the time to do otherwise? Absolutely not. Have they paid a higher price than most who pedaled, earned money, and took drugs in that era? Yes, they have.
That may send many of the have-not professionals from that time into a blind rage — after all, these guys won big races and made much more money than your average North American pro — but the fact is that any instrument conceived now to air cycling’s dirty deeds so that the sport may move on will be just that, and not a way to right the wrongs of the EPO generation. Those profits won’t ever be returned; those races won’t ever be unwon.
It will be tough to cop to lying and cheating. But we’ve got a blueprint for how it might work. Garmin-Sharp has essentially been the beta version of a truth commission — those who came forward served six-month bans (yes, in the off-season) and took the initial round of public flogging that will likely befall any others who follow in their footsteps.
Would there be suspensions in a larger process? Probably not. Would guys get to keep, say, monument wins on their palmares? Maybe. Would that be a tough pill to swallow? Yeah, it would. But this is an ugly business.
Some, like Levi Leipheimer, haven’t been so lucky. Omega Pharma-Quick Step sacked him immediately last year after he admitted to lengthy use of PEDs. And while he may have been fired in part to make room for Mark Cavendish, it still came off as good old-fashioned, head-down, mouth-shut professional cycling.
With every news release, things get worse. With every half-assed omission, things get worse. The redacted names in USADA’s Reasoned Decision gave rise to a mentally paralyzing cynicism. It’s hard to suspend disbelief after all these years. We need a way forward.
It’s time for a broad, UCI-backed commission that protects those who admit to taking banned drugs and offers a window for clarity that we’ve yet to peer through. It’s time to bulldoze the past, because then, and only then, can we set a stricter standard for the future.
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codeusirae writes “RAF pilots were left ‘blinded’ by a barrage of images while flying at speeds of over 1,000 mph when a number of technical glitches hit their high-tech helmets. The visors were supposed to provide the fighter pilots with complete vision and awareness, but problems with the display produced a blurring known as ‘green-glow,’ meaning they were unable to see clearly.The green glow occurred when a mass of information was displayed on the helmet-mounted display systems, including radar pictures and images from cameras mounted around the aircraft.”
Travis Tygart expects the UCI to move forward with a truth commission in the next few weeks. Photo: AFP
A truth commission might help stanch the sport’s bleeding.
Photo: Casey B. Gibson | 
