It’s time to draw a line in the sand

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but the recent news that Alberto Contador has tested positive for Clenbuterol has polarised my thoughts. It’s about time professional cycling cleaned up it’s act. And by that I mean totally clean.

In all other professional sports drugs are unacceptable. This is an unequivocal fact. The pressures of performing at big events are too great for some – take the athletes banned at the Commonwealth games for example. But what’s important is that cheats get caught and banned. No messing, and straight away. So as a spectator, my impression is that the playing field for competitors is level, or as level as technology can make it.

This is certainly not my impression of cycling. Alberto Contador has tested positive for Clenbuterol. A very small amount was found in his system, a lot lower than until recently tests would have found. But he shouldn’t have any in him! Has he been banned? No, just suspended pending further investigations.

Contador has protested his innocence, pointed the finger at contaminated beef. Others have said that the amount was so low that it wouldn’t have made any difference to his performance anyway. After the positive test was announced, rumours circulated of a blood transfusion on the rest day because of plasticises in his sample, possibly from blood transfusion bags (a test that is yet to be proven reliable and so wouldn’t count as evidence in a court of law).

This is all beside the point. If it were any other sport than cycling, Contador would have been banned by now and his victory at the Tour de France stripped from him. But the UCI will not act. I think they want to kick this into the long grass and hope it goes away. As they do with so many other doping cases. And those riders that do get caught and banned are only getting short bans and coming back a couple of seasons later. In a sport where careers can be 15 years or longer, this is little or no deterrent at all.

The two biggest victims of this approach are the riders who ride clean and the fans. Contador is a supremely talented rider. If you are an up and coming cyclist hoping to compete against him, what message is it sending to you? He’s one of the best and he still needs to cheat to win! The next generation are being forced down the doping route if they want to succeed. And until the UCI get tough, this won’t change.

And until things do change, fans won’t ever fully trust the sport. To most seasoned fans, this is probably a mute point. They’ve seen and heard so much about drugs in cycling in the last 10 years that if they are still following the sport, they really don’t care. They don’t trust the riders but they love it so much it doesn’t matter. However, professional cycling is approaching a big turning point, and should act now.

The rise in popularity in the last couple of years is set to explode into the mainstream. Many large sponsors will be looking at the sport as an opportunity. But just as many will be steering clear until it really cleans up its act. By doing nothing, by continuing with the status quo, the UCI is harming the sport’s long term future.

This will sound like I am on a witch hunt, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Ban Contador. And for more than two years. Set a precedent and make an example of him. Send a message to dopers that the technology exists to catch you and that you will be caught. Clean up the sport and watch the sponsors come back as the growth continues over the next five years. Get tough now and reap the rewards down the line.