4 ms·

The olympics don't really set the protocol for any of this. the rules and procedures for each sport are set by their respective international sport organizatio

The olympics don't really set the protocol for any of this. the rules and procedures for each sport are set by their respective international sport organization. for cycling that's the UCI. the olympics is only one event, and only happens once every four years. the rest of the season, that happens every year, is much more important and doesn't have an olympic host to provide bikes. so there needs to be some procedure that catches motor doping at all the races, not just one infrequent race. The olympics is just going to follow the same procedures that are used for all the rest of the worldtour level races. and while the olympics might not care about keeping the rider's bike sponsors happy, the rest of the races do. if riders weren't out there promoting bike brands and riding bikes provided by their sponsors, pro bike racing wouldn't be a thing.

dmckeon 2y ago
> promoting bike brands and riding bikes provided by their sponsors Therein lies an answer - change the disincentives - instead of banning cheating riders, ban all of the sponsors of those riders for a time. Now the onus is on the sponsors to discourage cheating.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  I don't know much about sponsorship. How would a sponsor be banned? What sort of activities or relations would be off-limits during a ban?
  - floam 2y ago
    I imagine they would be unable to sponsor participants in that organization for a time, and their name would be dishonored.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
    Maybe it's a bit circular but the organizers could disqualify the racers being sponsored which would mean either the banned sponsor doesn't sponsor anyone or it's done under wraps. The latter would defeat the advertising purpose the sponsor would have for the sponsorship.
  - labcomputer 2y ago
    You wouldn’t ban a sponsor, but a team. People typically refer to a cycling team by a sponsor’s name, but teams can (and do) change sponsors from season to season (or sometimes even within a season like “Jumbo Visma” -> “Visma Lease a Bike” did this year between the Giro and the Tour). Jumbo Visma is the same team as Visma Lease a Bike. They have the same riders, managers, athletic director, staff, etc. Just a different name on the jersey. As for how a team is banned: you simply ban them. In most of cycling you need to be a member of a team (professional) or club (amateur) to even enter a race. Your racing license will name your team/club. If your team is banned you may not register for the race. Also, at the World Tour professional level, your team would have several cars driving within the race to support riders with food, bottles, and mechanical assistance. Since the race will be on a closed course, only official vehicles can drive with the riders. Even if started the race, you would be at a serious disadvantage to race with no team support.
    - kelseyfrog 2y ago
      How does it work now? Are teams banned if caught cheating?
      - labcomputer 2y ago
        They can be. For example, Team Astana’s license was initially not renewed for 2007 following a doping scandal. Unfortunately, the UCI usually reissues the license if the team pinky promises not to dope again. Team Astana signed Lance Armstrong in 2009 and we all know how that went.
    - roelschroeven 2y ago
      (Just an aside, doesn't invalidate any of your reasoning) The name change from Jumbo Visma to Visma | Lease a Bike didn't happen between the Giro and the Tour, it was a lot earlier. I would say, but I'm not 100% certain of this, that the name change happened between the 2023 and 2024 seasons. I think teams have to register their name with the UCI, and can't change it during the season. For example here is a photo of Jan Tratnik finishing first in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on 2024-02-24, long beclearly wearing a Visma | Lease a Bike shirt. The team did change the design of the shirts before the Tour, because their old shirts had a lot of yellow which conflicts with the yellow jersey of the GC leader. Maybe that's what you were thinking of?
- floam 2y ago
  “Red Bull caught cheating at $event in sprawling plot; banned for 6 years” - they might invest some dollars to avoid such a disaster. According to the quote in the article, curbing this is only a matter of will and $$$.
  - Aerroon 2y ago
    Of course it's a matter of $$$. Sports doesn't actually make anything. It's entertainment that's paid for via ads. But that's also why hitting the sponsors wouldn't work, because without them the (professional) sport might not survive.
- OtherShrezzing 2y ago
  Surely this just moves the incentive from the sportsperson/team to the sponsor - who have significantly deeper financial resources to undermine WADA's testing regimes. WADA's budget is something like $50m. The likes of Ineos & Red Bull have sports marketing budgets well into the billions.
  - hervature 2y ago
    It is important to separate the teams vs. the company itself. The Ineos cycling team has a total budget closer to $50M. That's the budget to support 20+ riders and all the support staff.
  - adolph 2y ago
    I had to look up Ineos bc I’m only familiar with the Grenadier truck. Turns out to be a 20b English chem/energy chaebol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineos
  - extr 2y ago
    Seems like they would have a lot more to lose as well. A scheme where Red Bull is helping athletes cheat is front page news. It would be catastrophic to their reputation. Much bigger deal than the athlete themselves getting caught.
    - ars 2y ago
      They would just funnel it through some other company that they can blame.
      - dooglius 2y ago
        In GP's proposed scheme, the sponsor gets punished whether or not it knew or assisted
        usrusr 2y ago
        The sponsor isn't punished when their reputation gets associated with a cheat? US Postal sued Armstrong for $100M (settled for $5M) after he got caught. Guilty by association with a PED athlete is the dominant economic risk of sports sponsoring. At least in sports that have dropped the "just pretend we did not notice" attitude that's still going strong in e.g. football (both of them, I suppose)
- eitally 2y ago
  Because the Olympics organization would never want to pay to outfit athletes with non-sponsored gear (whether for cycling or any other sport).
- pdxandi 2y ago
  It’s hard enough for bike teams to get sponsorship. Adding that burden on the sponsor could kill the sport.
- scosman 2y ago
  The sponsors aren't partners who are tuning up the bikes. It's companies who cut a cheque and expect logos everywhere. Individual riders/teams are motivated to win and get sponsor dollars, so may resort to cheating. They know they will lose sponsors forever and be banned if caught, so they try to hide it from sponsors and officials. Basically: the same disincentives exist today. They just need to catch folks. It's just doping v2.
kyleblarson 2y ago
Alternatively it would be interesting to have a race or series of races where it's anything goes, including drugging. It's already such a cat and mouse game so why not just embrace it.
- vlovich123 2y ago
  If you allow e-assist, at that point wouldn’t you just have motorbikes?
  - chongli 2y ago
    Yeah how silly would that be? A guy on a MotoGP bike just blowing past the peloton on their e-bikes.
- andrecarini 2y ago
  > why not just embrace it Everything-goes sounds fun in theory but in practice it'd just kill the athletes (and the sport, by extension)
  - dalmo3 2y ago
    Case in point, Group B rally. https://youtu.be/FN93WoPDJS0?si=vL90dmpYovOLjiiR https://youtu.be/FN93WoPDJS0?si=vL90dmpYovOLjiiR
    - masklinn 2y ago
      And even that still wasn’t “no holds barred”, leaving aside what little safety rules it had (and how weakly enforced they were) Group B did have rules on minimum weight and displacement classes (with negative offsets for turbo and super charging).
- mvkel 2y ago
  This would just mean the teams with the biggest budgets win. Doping is expensive. Not to mention, every person responds differently to doping protocols. What if you're a C rider who becomes an A+ rider when doped? And you race against a B+ rider who becomes an A minus rider when doped. Still not an even playing field. This is effectively what lance did. He had record levels of hematocrit naturally, and an extremely high vo2. It meant he had a magnified sensitivity to doping protocols that the other riders didn't. So his doping advantage actually increased his relative abilities even -higher- than his also-doped competitors. Not to mention kids coming into the sport. Would be a massive mountain to climb to go from a prodigy 16 year old against doped pros.
harry8 2y ago
> if riders weren't out there promoting bike brands and riding bikes provided by their sponsors, pro bike racing wouldn't be a thing. That would be a bonus.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  Not for those that are concerned by this which is the important part.
killingtime74 2y ago
Sailing does this (one design), so it's possible
- ActorNightly 2y ago
  Nobody buys the sailing boats that are being used for recreational use.
  - killingtime74 2y ago
    I myself have sailed several of them. Currently the laser. Previously the 49er and 470. There's actually lots of great second hand boats because of the competitors selling them after 1-2 seasons.
    - ActorNightly 2y ago
      Im talking about the crazy carbon fiber expensive ones that are multi crewed.
- notatoad 2y ago
  It's definitely possible, it just means the professional level of the sport can't be funded mostly from the amateur level of the sport. cycling is getting there, a lot of the big teams have petrostates or oil companies as sponsors now, but the bike brands are still too important to cut out.
ben7799 2y ago
The race organizers actually don't care about the bikes or sponsors the same way. The race organizers (at the world tour level) have a solid income stream. The biggest races are bigger than the World Tour and are older, and will still be around when the current World Tour setup folds. It is the teams that are begging for money, all the teams need sponsorships for bikes and everything else. Teams in cycling have no home stadium and have no place they own and can sell tickets. They aren't in control of TV rights or anything like that for races that are big enough to be televised. It's one of the unique things in cycling. Even at the grassroots levels clubs were often volunteer but race organizers might have been or are for-profit. Even at the grassroots level the organizer charges entry fees.

dmckeon 2y ago

> promoting bike brands and riding bikes provided by their sponsors Therein lies an answer - change the disincentives - instead of banning cheating riders, ban all of the sponsors of those riders for a time. Now the onus is on the sponsors to discourage cheating.

kelseyfrog 2y ago
I don't know much about sponsorship. How would a sponsor be banned? What sort of activities or relations would be off-limits during a ban?
- floam 2y ago
  I imagine they would be unable to sponsor participants in that organization for a time, and their name would be dishonored.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
  Maybe it's a bit circular but the organizers could disqualify the racers being sponsored which would mean either the banned sponsor doesn't sponsor anyone or it's done under wraps. The latter would defeat the advertising purpose the sponsor would have for the sponsorship.
- labcomputer 2y ago
  You wouldn’t ban a sponsor, but a team. People typically refer to a cycling team by a sponsor’s name, but teams can (and do) change sponsors from season to season (or sometimes even within a season like “Jumbo Visma” -> “Visma Lease a Bike” did this year between the Giro and the Tour). Jumbo Visma is the same team as Visma Lease a Bike. They have the same riders, managers, athletic director, staff, etc. Just a different name on the jersey. As for how a team is banned: you simply ban them. In most of cycling you need to be a member of a team (professional) or club (amateur) to even enter a race. Your racing license will name your team/club. If your team is banned you may not register for the race. Also, at the World Tour professional level, your team would have several cars driving within the race to support riders with food, bottles, and mechanical assistance. Since the race will be on a closed course, only official vehicles can drive with the riders. Even if started the race, you would be at a serious disadvantage to race with no team support.
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    How does it work now? Are teams banned if caught cheating?
    - labcomputer 2y ago
      They can be. For example, Team Astana’s license was initially not renewed for 2007 following a doping scandal. Unfortunately, the UCI usually reissues the license if the team pinky promises not to dope again. Team Astana signed Lance Armstrong in 2009 and we all know how that went.
  - roelschroeven 2y ago
    (Just an aside, doesn't invalidate any of your reasoning) The name change from Jumbo Visma to Visma | Lease a Bike didn't happen between the Giro and the Tour, it was a lot earlier. I would say, but I'm not 100% certain of this, that the name change happened between the 2023 and 2024 seasons. I think teams have to register their name with the UCI, and can't change it during the season. For example here is a photo of Jan Tratnik finishing first in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on 2024-02-24, long beclearly wearing a Visma | Lease a Bike shirt. The team did change the design of the shirts before the Tour, because their old shirts had a lot of yellow which conflicts with the yellow jersey of the GC leader. Maybe that's what you were thinking of?
floam 2y ago
“Red Bull caught cheating at $event in sprawling plot; banned for 6 years” - they might invest some dollars to avoid such a disaster. According to the quote in the article, curbing this is only a matter of will and $$$.
- Aerroon 2y ago
  Of course it's a matter of $$$. Sports doesn't actually make anything. It's entertainment that's paid for via ads. But that's also why hitting the sponsors wouldn't work, because without them the (professional) sport might not survive.
OtherShrezzing 2y ago
Surely this just moves the incentive from the sportsperson/team to the sponsor - who have significantly deeper financial resources to undermine WADA's testing regimes. WADA's budget is something like $50m. The likes of Ineos & Red Bull have sports marketing budgets well into the billions.
- hervature 2y ago
  It is important to separate the teams vs. the company itself. The Ineos cycling team has a total budget closer to $50M. That's the budget to support 20+ riders and all the support staff.
- adolph 2y ago
  I had to look up Ineos bc I’m only familiar with the Grenadier truck. Turns out to be a 20b English chem/energy chaebol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineos
- extr 2y ago
  Seems like they would have a lot more to lose as well. A scheme where Red Bull is helping athletes cheat is front page news. It would be catastrophic to their reputation. Much bigger deal than the athlete themselves getting caught.
  - ars 2y ago
    They would just funnel it through some other company that they can blame.
    - dooglius 2y ago
      In GP's proposed scheme, the sponsor gets punished whether or not it knew or assisted
      - usrusr 2y ago
        The sponsor isn't punished when their reputation gets associated with a cheat? US Postal sued Armstrong for $100M (settled for $5M) after he got caught. Guilty by association with a PED athlete is the dominant economic risk of sports sponsoring. At least in sports that have dropped the "just pretend we did not notice" attitude that's still going strong in e.g. football (both of them, I suppose)
eitally 2y ago
Because the Olympics organization would never want to pay to outfit athletes with non-sponsored gear (whether for cycling or any other sport).
pdxandi 2y ago
It’s hard enough for bike teams to get sponsorship. Adding that burden on the sponsor could kill the sport.
scosman 2y ago
The sponsors aren't partners who are tuning up the bikes. It's companies who cut a cheque and expect logos everywhere. Individual riders/teams are motivated to win and get sponsor dollars, so may resort to cheating. They know they will lose sponsors forever and be banned if caught, so they try to hide it from sponsors and officials. Basically: the same disincentives exist today. They just need to catch folks. It's just doping v2.

kyleblarson 2y ago

Alternatively it would be interesting to have a race or series of races where it's anything goes, including drugging. It's already such a cat and mouse game so why not just embrace it.

vlovich123 2y ago
If you allow e-assist, at that point wouldn’t you just have motorbikes?
- chongli 2y ago
  Yeah how silly would that be? A guy on a MotoGP bike just blowing past the peloton on their e-bikes.
andrecarini 2y ago
> why not just embrace it Everything-goes sounds fun in theory but in practice it'd just kill the athletes (and the sport, by extension)
- dalmo3 2y ago
  Case in point, Group B rally. https://youtu.be/FN93WoPDJS0?si=vL90dmpYovOLjiiR https://youtu.be/FN93WoPDJS0?si=vL90dmpYovOLjiiR
  - masklinn 2y ago
    And even that still wasn’t “no holds barred”, leaving aside what little safety rules it had (and how weakly enforced they were) Group B did have rules on minimum weight and displacement classes (with negative offsets for turbo and super charging).
mvkel 2y ago
This would just mean the teams with the biggest budgets win. Doping is expensive. Not to mention, every person responds differently to doping protocols. What if you're a C rider who becomes an A+ rider when doped? And you race against a B+ rider who becomes an A minus rider when doped. Still not an even playing field. This is effectively what lance did. He had record levels of hematocrit naturally, and an extremely high vo2. It meant he had a magnified sensitivity to doping protocols that the other riders didn't. So his doping advantage actually increased his relative abilities even -higher- than his also-doped competitors. Not to mention kids coming into the sport. Would be a massive mountain to climb to go from a prodigy 16 year old against doped pros.

harry8 2y ago

> if riders weren't out there promoting bike brands and riding bikes provided by their sponsors, pro bike racing wouldn't be a thing. That would be a bonus.

prmoustache 2y ago
Not for those that are concerned by this which is the important part.

killingtime74 2y ago

Sailing does this (one design), so it's possible

ActorNightly 2y ago
Nobody buys the sailing boats that are being used for recreational use.
- killingtime74 2y ago
  I myself have sailed several of them. Currently the laser. Previously the 49er and 470. There's actually lots of great second hand boats because of the competitors selling them after 1-2 seasons.
  - ActorNightly 2y ago
    Im talking about the crazy carbon fiber expensive ones that are multi crewed.
notatoad 2y ago
It's definitely possible, it just means the professional level of the sport can't be funded mostly from the amateur level of the sport. cycling is getting there, a lot of the big teams have petrostates or oil companies as sponsors now, but the bike brands are still too important to cut out.

ben7799 2y ago

The race organizers actually don't care about the bikes or sponsors the same way. The race organizers (at the world tour level) have a solid income stream. The biggest races are bigger than the World Tour and are older, and will still be around when the current World Tour setup folds. It is the teams that are begging for money, all the teams need sponsorships for bikes and everything else. Teams in cycling have no home stadium and have no place they own and can sell tickets. They aren't in control of TV rights or anything like that for races that are big enough to be televised. It's one of the unique things in cycling. Even at the grassroots levels clubs were often volunteer but race organizers might have been or are for-profit. Even at the grassroots level the organizer charges entry fees.