The Big Picture of Sport News: Media, Relevant content of the universal fight against doping on 11/7/2019

The election of a new president of the World Anti-Doping Agency should give it the strength to stop countries stealing Olympic medals, the U.S. anti-doping chief said on Wednesday in remarks aimed at Russian state-sponsored doping.

• WADA is set to elect Polish sports and tourism minister Witold Banka on Thursday to succeed president Craig Reedie on Jan. 1. 
• Speaking at WADA’s World Conference on Doping in Sport, Travis Tygart, a strong critic of WADA’s handling of a Russian doping scandal, said the Tokyo 2020 Games would be the fifth Olympics where doping was the main issue instead of athletes’ performances.
• “We can do more and we must do more,” Tygart, the head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), told the conference. “We cannot allow one country to steal medals.” 
• “We must have a strong and independent WADA and not a weak service provider some have enjoyed in the last few years,” he said.  
• Russia’s anti-doping agency RUSADA was suspended after a 2015 WADA report that found vast evidence of state-sponsored doping in Russian athletics. The country has since struggled to restore its international credibility in sport.
• In September WADA again opened compliance proceedings after finding “inconsistencies” in the vast bank of historical testing data finally handed over in January.  
• In separate comments to TASS news agency that were not related to Tygart’s remarks, Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov said that athletes should be punished for anti-doping violations, no matter where they are from.

Reuters, Doping: In swipe at Russia, U.S. says countries can't be allowed to 'steal' Olympic medals, Karolos Grohmann, November 6, 2019.

Formed with good intentions, WADA finds itself at a crossroads as it celebrates its 20th anniversary at a conference this week in Poland. It’s an agency riven with conflicts of interest that have hindered its fight against drugs and exacerbated its 4-year-old struggle to hold Russia accountable for a massive doping scandal.

• Because the IOC provides half of WADA’s annual $34.6 million budget, its members hold six of the 12 seats on its executive board. Representatives from the Olympic movement also hold half of the spots on the 38-person foundation board, which rubber stamps the legislation.
• WADA’s president for the past six years, Craig Reedie, is an IOC member, soon to be replaced by Witold Banka, who also serves at Poland’s minister of sports.
  Both connections — to the IOC and to governments — are conflicts of interest.
• “You can’t be the leading regulator and tell everyone else to be independent when you’re not,” said Rob Koehler, a former WADA executive who know leads Global Athlete, which seeks a louder voice for athletes in the Olympic world.

AP, IOC's large role in anti-doping creates conflict of interest, Eddie Pells, November 5, 2019.

A “groundbreaking” method of using gene testing to catch doping cheats could be ready in time for the Olympic Games in Tokyo next year.

• Thomas Bach, the International Olympic Committee president, said the technology would allow blood doping to be identified several months after banned performance-enhancing drugs such as EPO had been used by an athlete. As things stand some substances can be undetectable by testers after only a few hours.
• “If approved by the World Anti-Doping Agency, such gene testing could be used at the Tokyo Olympics. These new methods will again strengthen deterrence. We want the cheats to never feel safe, anytime or anywhere.”

The Guardian, ‘Groundbreaking’ gene test to detect doping may be ready for Tokyo 2020, Sean Ingle, November 5, 2019.

A more long-ranging test for blood doping could be validated and put into use in time for the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo next year. 

• According to the Guardian, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach announced the news at the World Conference on Doping in Sport in Katowice, Poland on Tuesday. With research on genetic sequencing progressing well, this new approach could be a groundbreaking method to detect blood doping, weeks or even months after it took place," Bach told the conference.
• The new test looks at changes to the expression of a number of different genes in the body that are specifically changed by the use of blood-boosting drugs or transfusions. A number of researchers have been working on 'omics'-type tests for doping, including Yannis Pitsiladis, a member of the IOC medical and scientific commission.
• Operation Aderlass earlier this year showed cycling that blood doping is still happening at the highest level even with the biological passport, with Austrians Georg Preidler and Stefan Denifl, Slovenians Kristijan Koren and Borut Bozic, Croatian Kristijan Durasek and former racer Alessandro Petacchi all banned following the investigation.
• A study by Danish researchers found that re-injecting just 135 millilitres of one's own blood could yield a five per cent performance increase.
• The UCI said it was considering employing the International Testing Agency for anti-doping efforts, while its independent agency - the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation - said such a move could reduce the amount of anti-doping resources available to cycling.

Cycling News, More sensitive blood doping test could debut in Tokyo Olympic Games, November 5, 2019.

Having retired before his pro career had really begun, and with no skin in the game anymore, Kenneth Mercken is unfailingly honest with his insight. “I think it’s a bit better as the time when the film is situated was a really crazy time and there’s a lot more products that can be traced nowadays,” Mercken says, before admitting: “I think it’s still really bad.

• Kenneth Mercken was on his way to becoming a pro rider, and was prepared to do and take anything to help him achieve that goal.
• This year he’s released an autobiographical film about his career. 
• The central conflict of ‘The Racer’ isn’t between the young Belgian rider and the performance enhancing drugs, at the turn of the millenium that was par for the course. 
• Mercken’s story is a familiar one, of lines incrementally being crossed until a dose of EPO is no bigger of a deal than your morning coffee.
• While the Belgian’s decision to start doping was gradual, getting out of that world was a decisive moment.
  “I went to see the doctor and she told me that I had to use a growth hormone because of my delayed puberty. And I was like ‘yeah let’s do it’. Everybody else was doing it. Why not me? And then she said ‘hold on, you’re gonna have to do it your whole career every day.’
• Mercken does, however, see hope for the future due to the fact that young riders are now able to compete in some of the biggest races, potentially hinting at the likes of Remco Evenepoel, who won the Clásica San Sebastián this year at the age of just 19.
  “I’m still hopeful because I think nowadays you see young kids that are 19 years old that can win big races with the pros again, that was impossible in my day.

Cycling Weekly, ‘Doping is still really bad today’: Former Belgian champion reveals own blood doping past in gritty autobiographical film, Jonny Long, November 3, 2019.

A film by Kenneth Mercken. This equally intoxicating and critical take on professional cycling makes the competitive, destructive lives of the pro cyclists almost physically tangible.

YouTube, International Film Festival Rotterdam Channel, Coureur - Trailer | IFFR 2019, Jan 3, 2019.

A superb new drama about cycling, drugs and pressure, out on Monday, has as good a crack as anything at asking why sportspeople do what they do.

• The who, the how and the what of sport are covered with passion and forensic detail as never before; the why of sport remains a more elusive beast, and the question of what motivates people to push themselves beyond their limit lurks at the edge of the frame of so much of what we watch. 
• Coureur is the debut feature film from Kenneth Mercken, himself a former Belgian amateur national champion who was faced with a pair of stark choices during his attempts to turn professional in Italy. Firstly: would he take the drugs that were being offered to him? This was an easy one: yes, he would, because he wanted to be a competitive proposition. But the second question was harder: was he prepared to bear the high risk of cancer that his unique medical history put him at if he stayed on the drugs? Ultimately, he was not: he quit cycling and went to film school; this movie is a drama based on his experiences.

The Telegraph, Kenneth Mercken's debut film Coureur shines a light on toxic masculinity of winning at all costs, Alan Tyers, 

Business: The Big Issue, Bradley Wiggins: “I’m detached from cycling now”

This week’s Big Issue cover star shot to fame for his five Olympic gold medals and his historic Tour de France victory, the first Briton to conquer the iconic race. 

But in the past few years he has had to battle to prove his innocence during a controversy over accusations that he had taken a performance-enhancing substance while racing for the then-Team Sky.

• “I don’t give a shit about my cycling career now. I’m just detached from it, I don’t want to live off the back of it,” said Wiggins.
• “I live off of being me, and I’m happy in my own skin. I’ve gone full circle, I watch it as a fan now. I don’t expect to be recognised or anything. Some people like to cling on to those moments. I see it on social media every day, people who are supposed to be your friends, still celebrating that moment. ‘Seven years ago today my mate Bradley won this race in London..’ And I’m like, it was seven years ago, get over it mate.”
• “I felt like I was in the eye of the storm, and I was trying to prove a negative,” said Wiggins. “But the fact that I’m back working in the sport [as a television cycling pundit] is testament to the fact that I did nothing wrong. The people who are responsible for what happened are now on a charm offensive but people aren’t stupid. I’m not angry though, I’ll be involved with cycling a lot longer than those people, because I love it.”

References:

The Big Issue, Bradley Wiggins: “I’m detached from cycling now”, Jane Graham, August 26, 2019.

Complementary content:

Cycling News, Bradley Wiggins to train as social worker as he 'detaches' from cycling career, August 27, 2019.

• In an interview published in this week's Big Issue, Wiggins also addresses the scrutiny he was put under following the 'Fancy Bears' hack that revealed his use of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) to allow intramuscular injections of the corticosteroid Triamcinolone Acetonide to treat his allergies ahead of the 2011 and 2012 Tours de France – the latter won by Wiggins – and the 2013 Giro d'Italia.
• The contents of a Jiffy bag delivered to his Team Sky bus at the conclusion of the 2011 Critérium du Dauphiné, later said by team manager Dave Brailsford to contain the decongestant Fluimucil, was also a key part of a Select Committee investigation into anti-doping policies at Team Sky and British Cycling.
• Wiggins, who has been in Spain this week at the Vuelta a España for Eurosport, also revealed he is going to study to become a social worker. At the weekend, it was announced that the Team Wiggins Le Col Continental team would cease operations after the Tour of Britain.

Cycling Weekly, Bradley Wiggins embarks upon social work degree in career path change, Michelle Arthurs-Brennan, August 27, 2019.

• Wiggins, who grew up in Kilburn, had a difficult relationship with his father.
  “Those horrific things I saw when I was growing up … nothing can shock me now, and I want to use that mental toughness working as a social worker. And when people say, ‘Oh you’re that cyclist’, I’ll say: ‘No, that was a few years ago. I’m a social worker now’” he said.

Cycling Tips, Bradley Wiggins: “I don’t give a shit about my cycling career now”, AFP Newswire, August 27, 2019. 

• Wiggins’ reputation has suffered since his retirement after internet hackers revealed details of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) Wiggins was granted ahead of some of his biggest races, including the 2012 Tour.
• An investigation into the contents of a jiffy bag delivered to the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine for his use was inconclusive.
• At the time, Wiggins called the controversial investigation a “malicious witch-hunt”.

Business: The New York Times, Doping Cloud Still Looms Over a Thrilling Tour de France

Marco Bertorello/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

With new drugs that can help cyclists lose weight without losing muscle mass and the rise of micro-dosing, doping triggers fewer flags than ever.

• This sport was nearly consumed by doping. In the 1980s and 1990s and deep into this century, one champion after another fell away: Marco Pantani, Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong, who was barred for life and stripped of seven Tour de France titles.
• This much can be safely said: Cycling today is far cleaner than before. Testing has improved by great leaps and athletes have their blood tested out of season, as well. This is essential for any half-serious testing program. As fewer champions perform in ways that make them appear as a separate species, rival cyclists perhaps no longer feel it necessary to illegally pump EPO into their veins, which increases the capacity of the blood to carry oxygen.
• That said, cycling certainly is not altogether clean. In March, the German police found a skier tethered to a blood bag and the investigation led two Austrian cyclists to confess to doping. 
• “Are we catching every cyclist who dopes? No,” says Jonathan Vaughters, manager of the EF Education First cycling team, and author of “One-Way Ticket,” a forthcoming book that examines cycling’s dirty history and his own doping. “But we are leaps and bounds better than two decades ago.”
• Ross Tucker, an internationally renowned exercise physiologist and founder of the website The Science of Sport has tracked doping and performance and notes that in the wake of multiple scandals, cycling times declined. Of late, however, those times have edged back up.
• “The breadth in which you can safely dope has greatly narrowed and that has constrained use,” Tucker said. “What we don’t know are the unknown unknowns. Are there new drugs, new ways?”
• “AICAR offers a way to cut weight without impacting performance,” he noted.
• A cyclist might still try to micro-dose — take small doses of drugs that are difficult to detect — right up to the line.
• Marc Madiot, director of the team Groupama-FDJ, raced in the bad old days of doping and was questioned intensively by the police and was nearly brought to ground in a big cycling doping scandal in 1998.
• Cycling arguably has a notably tougher testing regimen than many American sports, including baseball.
• Many in Major League Baseball’s establishment hailed from a no less dirty rotten steroid era. 
• The persistence of its doping problems owes to the fact that Cycling is about power and endurance.
• Blood doping was — and still can be — a great force multiplier.

There is finally a conundrum that confronts all who would keep doping out of professional sports: The distance between the cup of suspicion and the lip of drop-dead proof is great. 

• “In order to trigger a sanction, you have to have been 99.9 percent likely doped,” Tucker said. “Obviously many fall short. They are highly suspicious but not enough to sanction.”
• So fish slip through the net and maybe we’re the better for that. Better to let 99 walk free than to jail one innocent.

References:

The New York Times, Doping Cloud Still Looms Over a Thrilling Tour de France, Michael Powell,
July 26, 2019.