Recently in Doping Category

I don't usually berate road cycling adverts for getting it wrong because I think the standard is so ridiculous across the entire industry, stretching from shamefully bad to well-intended disaster.

I've never understood the obsessions with Tron pseudo-science and heritage in road cycling advertising. They are at the root of why road has failed to grow and compete with BMX and then MTB, both of which seem to have realised that fun and excitement are what the vast majority of people want and aspire to when it comes to bicycles, not vertical compliance, lateral stiffness and watts.

I digress. What made me write this was this image in the Probikekit email today.

Really Danilo? I thought your current "favourite weapon" was third generation EPO products.

Either this is one of the most ironic adverts ever, in which case I missed the funny, or it's just a rubbish and ill-judged space filler.

I'm not missing something here am I?

The most compelling reason riders dope is that they don't think they'll get caught. It's nothing to do with the winning, it's all about the perceived risk of sanction.

Joe Lindsey expounded on this in the Boulder Report: Read "Can Black Swans Stop Doping?"

Of course he was talking about Danilo Di Luca getting busted. It's notable that the noises he's been making in his defence are all about calling into question the testing.

Compared to Mikel Astarloza's defence, that's seems pretty coherent. Astarloza is saying that he came up positive for EPO because he had been training in an hyperbaric tent. You can read more on cyclingnews.com

Let's put aside that hyperbaric tents are pretty borderline and are banned in some countries as doping. I'm stuck at how an hyperbaric tent can produce exogenous EPO.

Meanwhile teams that sign dopers, have dopers on their books. Ceramica Flaminia are supposed to have signed Riccardo Ricco for his return. Anyone surprised then that one of their riders got his collar felt?

Read "Biondo suspended after positive EPO test, UCI says" - Velonews

And while we're over on Velonews, it's always nice to see that the glories of doping in national colours hasn't disappeared in the years since the Soviet Bloc dissolved and the Italians applied "can't beat them, join them" logic. Actually, the record suggests that the Italians didn't need any outside encouragement to get pricky with the needles.

Read "Ukrainians arrested at Tour de l'Avenir" - Velonews

Yes, you read that right. These guys aren't even old enough to vote in some cases but they are having to deal with the pressure to dope. It's easy to see why cycling fans anonymous quit.

Five riders named as having produced values irregular enough to warrant sanction was never going to be enough to meet expectations that had built up over months. I think my initial reaction on twitter summed it up pretty well:

"@stephenfarrand Not even enough to qualify as anti-climatic. at least Fofanov had the decency to be on a team that made it newsworthy"

Perhaps the problem lies in how the blood/biological passport has been explained and perceived. Lack of information and a the desperation of fans to see an end to the latest phase in the arms race have led to it being forced into a place it was never meant to be.

Was it ever going to bust everyone? Probably not and maybe some were wrong to hope it would.

Was it allowed to grow a reputation to be feared as the ultimate weapon against doping? Almost certainly, but who is responsible for that is more difficult to define. One person who certainly shouldn't be blamed is Anne Gripper who has resurfaced now that the first results are out and perhaps shed some light on it how it works:

"The passport software actually interprets the raw blood results and it provides information for the experts to review. It also requires the human touch and knowledge of an expert to look at the data and interpret it. Just because a profile exceeds certain limits we're looking at doesn't mean that the rider is doping. The experts then decide if the results can't be explained by anything pathological or physiological or if the rider has been doping through manipulation of his blood."

Read the Anne Gripper interview on Cyclingnews.com

I don't think these first cases will be the last but whether it becomes an effective weapon against doping remains to be seen.

We're into the first week of June and the clouds of war gather ever faster around the Tour De France. There's three stories that you should read to understand where cycling is heading between now and July.

1. Bernard Kohl's doping confession in L'Equipe and his claim "The first ten should have been positive"

via Cyclingfansanon's twitter. While we're on the subject: CFA, isn't it hypocritical to refuse to write your blog until the UCI deliver something from the blood passport scheme while berating others for their complicity in the omerta? Making a sound case isn't something you should rush into to please the gallery, just ask those who are familiar with miscarriages of justice.

Jonathan Vaughters counters Kohl on Cyclingnews

2. Antonio Colom positive for EPO being less than surprising to anyone.

Coupled with the dispute with some of their riders over what constitutes a fair and binding contract, it looks like there's trouble ahead for the Russian Katusha team. Robbie McEwen has denied there's a rift but it seems there is a sticking point. I've seen the suggestion that the management wants 5 years salary for "discrediting" the team, not necessarily testing positive. If that is the case then I fully understand where the riders are coming from.

3. Anne Gripper is alive and the blood passports are set to be tested. Conference today in Paris and the headline is "Riders face action over passport data - UCI".

We'll know names next week and then you can all start filling in your Panini sticker albums for July and marking which pages are going to have gaps in them. There are those who say it's taken too long, I am not one of them. Good investigation takes time, ask any journalist of note. People like John Ware and Peter Taylor don't come up with their work in a matter of months, it takes years of research, experience and blind alleys before they come to a conclusion.

Once you become a fan of professional bike racing, your year develops a pattern based around the race calendar. It shapes your moods and expectations, how focused you are at work, who you dream of being on the bike.

It starts with the early season warm-up races, maybe takes in Tour Down Under or Tour of California as you stare at yourself looking like Bibendum in the mirror and swear you should have done more miles over the winter. Then come the Spring Classics and the pretence that Britain's numerous wheel-snapping potholes are the cobbles of Flanders and Nord-Pas-de-Calais.

Draw breath and then you dive into the Giro D'Italia, with all it's fabulous scenery, routes that grab the attention and the tifosi running after riders like dogs chasing cars. You get the picture? Actually, my highlight this year has been the appearances of the Abominable Snowman roadside. I'm assuming it's something to do with guerilla marketing for an ice cream brand. If not, shine on you crazy diamond.

Now somewhere between the end of the Giro in late May and Tour de France in July there's usually an event which sets the tone for July's three-week trek around "L'Hexagone". It starts with the mention of investigations and top riders which read something like this tweet from Juliet Macur:

"An Austrian news agency, APA, is reporting that police have made contact with Menchov's team as part of an ongoing doping investigation."

Give it a couple of weeks and I'll be contemplating the odds on Betfair and wondering who is most likely to be a non-starter and so worth laying off in the market.

Some riders will be tranquillo, as the saying goes, more in hope than expectation that this scandal doesn't visit on their career while others will be the collateral damage and find themselves struggling to extricate themselves from damnation by association.

It's a sad indictment of the UCI that this keeps happening and that we haven't heard anything concrete about the Athlete Passport scheme other than "expect something soon". The way things are looking it's going to make The Stone Roses second album, The Second Coming, seem like a fast turnaround.

Lionel Birnie was on the money in his Wednesday Comment for Cycling Weekly when he said:

"Professional cycling is like a minefield, but for some reason the UCI seems reluctant to play the role of bomb disposal experts, preferring instead to tip-toe forwards hoping that nothing blows up in their faces. "

It's difficult to see what pleasure a cycling fan can draw from the situation other than that of knowing the timeless quality of scandal.