Unmasked and besieged, international cycling still refuses to break off its incorrigible affair with drugs.

Published May 2, 2004 12:00AM


Dispatches, October 1998Sport *We Are Shocked. Shocked. Now Pass the Hypodermic Needle.* Unmasked and besieged, international cycling still refuses to break off its incorrigible affair with drugs. By Russ Spenser It was impossible not to feel a stab of compassion on July 17 for Jean-Marie Leblanc, director of the Tour de France, as he emerged shaken and exhausted from the Chez Gillou caf‰ in provincial Correze and declared, “They are out of the race. Period!” Once a noted racer himself, Leblanc had just completed the unenviable task of informing Festina, the most popular French team, that it was being booted from the world’s grandest cycling race less than 48 hours after setting off the most incendiary drug scandal in Tour history. Even more dismaying than the Tainted Tour itself, however, is the possibility that cycling authorities may have failed to embrace this crisis as a unique opportunity for reform. A stricken Leblanc did issue a halfhearted proposal to institute a “good conduct charter” for riders — but the notion was almost laughably meaningless, given the sport’s desperate need for strict outside enforcement and sanctions with teeth. At press time, the Union Cycliste Internationale had yet to put forth a single noteworthy initiative, prompting one French government official to propose stripping sports federations of the responsibility for drug testing altogether and handing those powers over to a state-run council. Meanwhile, the UCI’s torpor has forced observers to conclude that the most accurate reflection of its sentiments toward the abuse of the performance-enhancing drug EPO was the response of its president, Hein Verbruggen. On vacation in India when the scandal broke, he made no effort to return early. “The most powerful man in the sport should have been around,” opined retired British cyclist Paul Sherwen, who raced in the Tour seven times. “It’s telling.” There are, however, encouraging signs that the debacle may have sounded a wider call to arms within the International Olympic Committee, which has scheduled a world-wide antidoping conference for January in Lausanne, Switzerland. The conference’s mission will be to accelerate the development of conclusive drug-testing methods and sanctions not only in cycling, but also in swimming, track and field, weight lifting, and cross-country skiing. Despite the failure of similar initiatives in the past, insiders hope this could be a watershed moment. “There’s a chance,” says Philip Milburn, a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s anti-doping committee, “that things will start to shake up.”

Dispatches, October 1998Sport
We Are Shocked. Shocked. Now Pass the Hypodermic Needle.
Unmasked and besieged, international cycling still refuses to break off its incorrigible affair with drugs.
By Russ Spenser It was impossible not to feel a stab of compassion on July 17 for Jean-Marie Leblanc, director of the Tour de France, as he emerged shaken and exhausted from the Chez Gillou caf‰ in provincial Correze and declared, “They are out of the race. Period!” Once a noted racer himself, Leblanc had just completed the unenviable task of informing
Festina, the most popular French team, that it was being booted from the world’s grandest cycling race less than 48 hours after setting off the most incendiary drug scandal in Tour history. Even more dismaying than the Tainted Tour itself, however, is the possibility that cycling authorities may have failed to embrace this crisis as a unique opportunity for reform. A stricken Leblanc did issue a halfhearted proposal to institute a “good conduct charter” for riders — but the notion was almost laughably meaningless, given the sport’s desperate need for strict
outside enforcement and sanctions with teeth. At press time, the Union Cycliste Internationale had yet to put forth a single noteworthy initiative, prompting one French government official to propose stripping sports federations of the responsibility for drug testing altogether and handing those powers over to a state-run council. Meanwhile, the UCI’s torpor has forced observers to conclude that the most accurate
reflection of its sentiments toward the abuse of the performance-enhancing drug EPO was the response of its president, Hein Verbruggen. On vacation in India when the scandal broke, he made no effort to return early. “The most powerful man in the sport should have been around,” opined retired British cyclist Paul Sherwen, who raced in the Tour seven times. “It’s telling.” There are, however, encouraging signs that the debacle may have sounded a wider call to arms within the International Olympic Committee, which has scheduled a world-wide antidoping conference for January in Lausanne, Switzerland. The conference’s mission will be to accelerate the development of conclusive drug-testing methods and sanctions not only in cycling, but also in
swimming, track and field, weight lifting, and cross-country skiing. Despite the failure of similar initiatives in the past, insiders hope this could be a watershed moment. “There’s a chance,” says Philip Milburn, a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s anti-doping committee, “that things will start to shake up.”