Spinopsys

Cycling fails WADA’s doping test

Posted June 16th, 2006 in Dope

In what is clearly a nice rebuttal to it’s critics within the cycling community, WADA has released it’s annual statistical report which confirms cycling to be the sporting worlds biggest doping cheats.

From a Globe And Mail report.

Cycling produced the most positive tests for banned substances of any Olympic sport in the latest global statistics compiled by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

WADA-accredited laboratories reported 482 positive samples for cyclists in 2005. Baseballwas second with 390 positives, while soccer was third with 343. Track and field — the most tested sport — was fourth with 342.

Cycling also had the highest percentage of positive tests, with 3.78 per cent out of 12,751 samples, followed by baseball (3.69 per cent out of 10,580) and boxing (3.41 per cent of 2,433) and triathlon (3.41 per cent of 2,170). Track and field had 1.67 per cent positives out of 20,464 samples.

Overall, the number of positive samples increased by 34.4 per cent, from 2,909 in 2004 to 3,909 in 2005. Of the total samples, 2.13 per cent tested positive last year.

If one thing is evident from the stats, it’s that the cycling world has no real grounds to claim that WADA is engaging in some kind of witch hunt of it’s athletes, doctors and DS’s - if WADA is taking a hard line with the sport it’s clearly based on solid statistical justification, past and present.

Secondly, the narrative that cyclists are being tested more often, or the sport is being specifically targeted is also put to rest with the numbers coming out of Track and Field, where a larger testing regime has produced a smaller return of positives. If any sport has a right to wallow in continual rounds of self induced paranoia it’s Track and Field.

The sport should also be seriously worried about what these kinds of reports do to it’s image and sponsorship potential, it can’t continue to defend the indefensible. How many major sponsors will look at results like these and decide that their partnership dollars would be better spent elsewhere. Right now Luge, Polo and Tug-Of-War are looking like safe bets for the sponsorship dollar.

Lastly, I’m intrigued to learn that WADA has lowered the testosterone to epitestosterone ratio from six to four. If there is one unreleased statistic I’m sure WADA keeps is how many athletes return samples close to or at the legal threshold - thresholds that are notoriously lenient from a medical point of view. It looks like there were far too many athletes pushing the testing envelope so a change in the testosterone benchmark was in order.

Update: Lance Armstrong get’s personal and makes some pretty wild accusations about WADA’s Dick Pound in a letter to the IOC.

The June 9 letter marks the next turn. It alleges that the French lab’s “misconduct” came at Pound’s “direction and insistence” and asks the IOC to convene a “disciplinary commission” on the grounds that “this is a critical situation that requires decisive action.”

And as the Tour de France blog observes in this post on the change to a new naming rights sponsor at Team Phonak.

Phonak was unhappy with a string of positive drug or dope tests on the team, notably Tyler Hamilton’s positive at the Vuelta in 2004.

I for one don’t think a new coat of paint will change the damning facts about the history of this team.

technorati tags: cycling, doping, wada

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