Cycling was in the first modern Olympic Games 111 years ago. Some Olympic officials, however, are starting to question if keeping cycling in the family could tarnish the Games as the sport’s doping problems spiral out of control.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge on Friday rejected the idea of banishing the sport. But others on the powerful 115-member Olympic committee are becoming impatient with the incessant doping headlines generated by cycling.
”If cycling doesn’t resolve this problem, I’d go as far as saying it should be excluded from the Olympics,” Swiss IOC member Rene Fasel said. ”Just tell them, ‘No more.’ It’s discrediting all those who are honest and clean. The heads of cycling need to know that if they don’t clean up the sport, and really clean it up, then it’s goodbye.”
Cycling’s doping crisis has reached new lows at the Tour de France, the sport’s showcase event that ends on Sunday.
This week, race leader Michael Rasmussen was ejected by his team over charges of lying about his whereabouts to evade doping controls. Last year’s winner, Floyd Landis, couldn’t defend his crown because of doping charges hanging over him. Two other riders tested positive for doping at this Tour, including star Alexandre Vinokourov, who was sent home with his team.
”I have only one vote, but I know there are others who share my point of view: clean up your sport and come back then. We have to apply some pressure,” said Fasel, president of the International Ice Hockey Federation and chairperson of the coordination commission for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.
Support for now
The Associated Press reached 12 IOC members in Europe and Africa on Friday. Only a minority said cycling’s Olympic status could be at risk, and others were strongly in support of the sport staying on. But IOC member Dick Pound warned that that could change if the sport’s doping woes continue.
”If cycling doesn’t take the steps necessary to bring this under control, then I think the concern of some of the members would be that the perception of cycling will spread to other sports, and that’s overall bad for the Olympic movement,” said Pound, also head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).
Danish IOC member Kai Holm noted that Asian countries are pressing to have their sports on the Olympic programme, and that cycling runs the risk of being dropped to make room. That fate has already befallen baseball and softball, shed from the programme for the 2012 London Games — the first time sports have been dropped in 69 years.
”If you gather enough enemies, you can end in this situation,” Holm said. ”I don’t hope it will happen because cycling is a flagship discipline. But it is a realistic scenario.”
Blackballing isn’t the answer, Rogge told Beta news agency in Serbia. Doping scandals are ”proof that the mentality of the sportsmen has to change swiftly and drastically”, he said. ”It is also proof that the system works, because they have been caught. Eliminating cycling from the Olympics is not the solution.”
Rogge is backed by IOC members, including Mario Pescante of Italy. He said that there is virtually no support for the idea of dropping cycling among other members.
”The rules are very clear. The IOC calls for the exclusion of a sport from the Olympics if the federation doesn’t respect the Wada code, and this is not what is happening,” he said. ”What we are seeing is an increase in tests and an increase in positive cases, which is worrying, but is also a sign that things are being done seriously.”
Norway’s Gerhard Heiberg, on the IOC’s executive board, said its members will meet on August 24 to ”discuss what we can do with cycling”.
”We are as upset as everybody else. This is a very serious challenge for us. We have a policy called zero tolerance when it comes to doping and therefore we take it seriously.”
Tour de France
Israeli member Alex Gilady pointed out that Olympic cycling is completely separate from the Tour de France. Pernilla Wiberg, an Olympic ski champion and member of the IOC’s athletes commission, suggested that making the three-week race somewhat less exhausting might decrease the temptation for cyclists to dope to get through it.
”The Tour de France is a very, very unique event,” Gilady said. ”If you have to cycle 180km every day over more than two weeks, that is taking a toll that some of them are tempted to break the rules. So why speak about cycling as a whole? Let’s talk about the Tour de France. They have to take better care.
”The doping is the problem, and at the Olympics we are taking very good care of it.”
That said, American Tyler Hamilton — banned for two years after testing positive for a banned blood transfusion at the Spanish Vuelta in September 2004 — had an initial positive test for blood doping at the 2004 Athens Olympics, where he won the time-trial gold medal. The case was thrown out because his back-up sample had deteriorated and couldn’t be tested, and he kept the gold medal.
Former Tour de France champion Jan Ullrich won gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. A DNA sample recently taken from the German showed he is linked to the Spanish doping scandal.
The IOC’s Fasel said not only should cycling’s major tours be easier, but even suggested that the IOC drop the Olympic motto ”Citius, altius, fortius [Faster, higher, stronger]”.
”They need to make their competitions more humane,” Fasel said. ”We make things so tough and then people are surprised that athletes dope. Competitions need to be more reasonable.
”We can’t always go higher, faster, stronger. We need to remove this motto. You can’t always push beyond human limits. A champion should be a champion because he is better than the others.” — Sapa-AP