I’m supremely unqualified to talk about drugs in sport – so I’ll begin. You see, as a transplant patient, I take drugs every day to keep me alive – they stop my body from rejecting the new liver that’s has keep me happy, healthy and riding a bike for the last 20 years.
I race with these drugs inside me. The drugs I take are not on the WADA (and consequently the UCI or British Cycling) banned list but some of my fellow cycling transplant recipients have to take steroids and EPO for legitimate medical reasons, like stopping them from dying. That sounds fair enough doesn’t it?
Nevertheless, despite transplant cycling being the only cycling event where if you‘re found negative for drugs you are immediately disqualified I remain a bemused bystander when it comes to performance enhancing drugs (PED). Solving the drugs problem in professional cycling makes resolving the Middle East crisis look like child’s play.
However, we have to begin somewhere so, as a starter, let’s take a look at who knows what.
1. I’ve already said I’m no expert, but I know who is currently taking and who has taken PEDs in the past.
2. You’re no expert either but you know who’s at it too although our lists won’t match.
3. The Director Sportives in the pro teams might know which riders in other teams are taking drugs but can categorically assure you no rider in their team is: until they are caught.
4. All team owners, managers and DS’s who have been busted for taking drugs in the past are now committed to a drugs free sport and transparency unless somebody asks to see any information.
5. Cycling journalists sometimes know who is taking what but some of the riders are their mates so they won’t dob them in until after they are busted.
6. Cyclists who take drugs obviously have a good idea they are taking drugs but couldn’t say if their roommate for the last 10 years did although they might suddenly remember when they’ve retired and need to write a book or are having a subpoena waved in their face.
7. The UCI don’t know anything about anything. Or anybody. Or anybody that knows anything about anybody or anything.
8. The French know they are clean and that’s why everybody else is faster.
9. Everybody knows Lance is innocent. Or guilty. Or neither.
10. We ALL know Edita Rumsas, the wife of the rider placed 3rd in the 2002 Tour who was discovered carrying corticoids, erythropoietin, testosterone, growth hormones and anabolic steroids in her car was simply, as she claimed, transporting them for her 83 year old sick aunt. We also know that the comment ‘if her aunt had taken all of these, she would have got a podium in the Tour as well’ if one of the funniest comments ever made by a copper about drugs.
Rich Smith is the author of ReCycled – a funny book about cycling that you should buy through Amazon without further delay via this link. http://www.amazon.co.uk/ReCycled-Richard-Smith/dp/1781764891/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342594266&sr=1-1
I race with these drugs inside me. The drugs I take are not on the WADA (and consequently the UCI or British Cycling) banned list but some of my fellow cycling transplant recipients have to take steroids and EPO for legitimate medical reasons, like stopping them from dying. That sounds fair enough doesn’t it?
Nevertheless, despite transplant cycling being the only cycling event where if you‘re found negative for drugs you are immediately disqualified I remain a bemused bystander when it comes to performance enhancing drugs (PED). Solving the drugs problem in professional cycling makes resolving the Middle East crisis look like child’s play.
However, we have to begin somewhere so, as a starter, let’s take a look at who knows what.
1. I’ve already said I’m no expert, but I know who is currently taking and who has taken PEDs in the past.
2. You’re no expert either but you know who’s at it too although our lists won’t match.
3. The Director Sportives in the pro teams might know which riders in other teams are taking drugs but can categorically assure you no rider in their team is: until they are caught.
4. All team owners, managers and DS’s who have been busted for taking drugs in the past are now committed to a drugs free sport and transparency unless somebody asks to see any information.
5. Cycling journalists sometimes know who is taking what but some of the riders are their mates so they won’t dob them in until after they are busted.
6. Cyclists who take drugs obviously have a good idea they are taking drugs but couldn’t say if their roommate for the last 10 years did although they might suddenly remember when they’ve retired and need to write a book or are having a subpoena waved in their face.
7. The UCI don’t know anything about anything. Or anybody. Or anybody that knows anything about anybody or anything.
8. The French know they are clean and that’s why everybody else is faster.
9. Everybody knows Lance is innocent. Or guilty. Or neither.
10. We ALL know Edita Rumsas, the wife of the rider placed 3rd in the 2002 Tour who was discovered carrying corticoids, erythropoietin, testosterone, growth hormones and anabolic steroids in her car was simply, as she claimed, transporting them for her 83 year old sick aunt. We also know that the comment ‘if her aunt had taken all of these, she would have got a podium in the Tour as well’ if one of the funniest comments ever made by a copper about drugs.
Rich Smith is the author of ReCycled – a funny book about cycling that you should buy through Amazon without further delay via this link. http://www.amazon.co.uk/ReCycled-Richard-Smith/dp/1781764891/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342594266&sr=1-1
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