We might be in suspense until well after le Tour is over regarding the swirling dope controversies within it's current ranks. And it could be in part thanks to German television. What if the German media pullout actually did more to closet doping controversies than it did to out them? With jittery members of UCI, Tour Organization, IOC and WADA all vying for the role of most sacrosanct, the threat of further media blackout – and thus the source of all revenue derived from pro cycling – this threat could potentially encourage these nervous Nellie’s to clam up, not clean up. Of the current favorites, Mayo is a former suspected doper, Vino works with the most notoriously dirty doctor in the sport, Chicken is under heavy suspicion on a number of fronts and the entire Astana team has been called into question by the authorities. All this in a tour that has already seen one Astana and one T-Mobile rider confirmed for massive levels of testosterone and kicked from their squads. So when German television blacked out coverage it sent a message, but not necessarily one matching the stated intent of not tolerating doping. Think about the choice race organizers, team sponsors and sanctioning officials have to make when weighing decisions about coming all the way clean. Those who rely on the continued global media success of cycling for their livelihood could be scared into further cover-ups rather than clean ups. Rasmussen has some serious, serious charges leveled against him right now, which are widely ignored in the American broadcast of the race. Astana, while certainly a super-team, has a host of serious charges as well and equally ignored by the friendly color commentators from the US & UK. Should one of Rasmussen’s six tests with apparently adverse results be announced now, or after the finale in Paris? It is obvious from Prudhomme’s press conference yesterday that these test results are known by almost everyone but the race officials. Some say this is a sign that the tests are clean, because obviously a dirty test would be leaked or announced immediately. We’re not so sure about that.
Consider the obvious implication of the German pull out now; if he’s dirty and they announce it before the end of the race it’s possible and likely that they could loose other major media outlets as well. Better to keep it under wraps till the final stage is over; after all, we still don’t know who won last year so we’d obviously sit in suspense about this as well. The printed stories about Rasmussen’s indiscretions are volatile enough that it is laughable to watch the western commentators try so hard not to bring them up. What the hell else do you say about that kid? Hey he trains in secret and missed three mandatory out of competition drug tests and some former racer in California says that a few years ago he was almost duped into muling some frozen blood overseas on Chicken’s behalf. Hey what a time trial. Nah, let’s just talk about his Colnago. The media continuing to broadcast are going out of their way to paint a rose-lens tint on the race they're covering. Look around at the rest of the front end of the field in this ‘open’ Tour. Mayo, no stranger to doping controversy, was nowhere for years and should be past his prime – how the hell is he running with the young guns like Contador? If too much was made of Vino’s relationship with Ferarri, along with Astana’s mix-up in the ‘black jersey’ controversy, advertisers might start having second thoughts about sponsoring daily live and extended coverage. In fact there is no commentary during the Tour about any current, on-going doping cases. Despite the printing of these stories in the cycling press and other general sports news outlets, the broadcasters remain silent; except for Germany who has perhaps sent the wrong message.
What if instead of saying nothing, race coverage was all about revealing the preparations and daily chemical fine-tuning of these athletes? Like you’d be watching the time trial and Phil’d be yelling ‘yarghhh his preparation by his personal doctor was a blend of performance enhancing blood transfusion techniques and a moderate use of steroids in muscle recovery, which came in handy after that massive crash when corticoids were the only thing that could loosen the tightening musculature around his stitched together knees. And look at him absolutely destroy the time of his three minute man…” Have a graphic showing all the racer's heart rates, wattages and physiology numbers - not just the heartrate and cadence of three domestiques. Discuss and publish the training programs, preparations, TUE's - all of it. Bring the doctors and the scientists out of the shadows, show them building the engines. If all the cards were on the table, if you could see who had the best preparation, the most intensely variant training programs, then the field would be level. The audience would start to cheer for the anomalies – for the riders who were too poor or too proud to dope and thus could be seen to ride clean – the underdogs. Hell you could see characters using shaman, keltic chants, holistic healers, all manner of 'alternate' performance enhancements. Guys training in East LA with pit-bulls tied to WalMart bikes. It would make the racers dynamic characters for the cameras, rather than automatons or explosive tragedies. This along with following the suggestions put forth by many; loose the race radios, shorten the stages, etc., it could make a huge difference. And when the underdogs beat the well-funded, well-fortified medicine cabinets of the big teams, the fans would flock to the sport once again. Or not.
Yes it gets wacky there after the German thesis, that's what you get here at the HPT, rants, scratchings and loosely coiled tangents. Was the media pull-out a bad move? It definitely sent a message and raised awareness that the tolerance level for the secrecy and cheating is dropping. That's got to be good, but if the core of the organizations are rotten from within, they will only push the truth deeper into the shadows when the real money is threatened. Onward.
Comments