zero doping – cero dopaje

Thomas Voeckler is sport entertainment personified.

The reason I watch sport.  The underdog who reaches hidden depths to compete with those at the top of the tree. He made the tour de france this year a spectacle to remember for all time..

He has also been let down badly by the drug authorities.

When contador attacked and Voeckler was finally dropped, was the time when Voeckler slipped from the podium. There is a good chance – I believe – he would have been on the podium but for one Alberto Contador.

But should Contador even have been there? He failed a drug test one year ago without a doubt, and his case is still pending. That is outrageous , that one year on these pen pushing beurocrats (who all should be sacked) are still trying to a arrange a date for a hearing. Over a year on.

Contador too was booed on some stages.

There are only two possibilites. Either he is deemed a drug cheat, in which case he should not have been there, and Voeckler may well have been on the podium. And what of the other events whose outcome was influenced by Contador? Can history be rewritten.

Or he is cleared to race in which case Contador should not have suffered the undoubted turmoil and indignity of having the sword of the ban hanging over his head. How can anyone compete well, with that on their minds? They have damaged contador too.

Reality is the drug authorities have failed both Voeckler and Contador.

Drug doping should be handled RAPIDLY.  CONSISTENTLY. TRANSPARENTLY so justice is not only done , it is seen to be done.

But our authorities handle the case SLOWLY,  INCONSISTENTLY and with as little transparency as they can muster.

We have long campaigned on this site for a level playing field between all sportspeople.

We hate drug cheats with a passion, but judgement  must be consistent.

If the penalty for doping says 2 years for the first offense, it surely must mean two years.

• It should not mean two years extended indefinitely to five, as it seems to have been for dwain chambers, who is still barred from competing.
• It should not mean 21 months as a matter of convenience , as it has for Leshawn Merritt – welcomed back into competition.
• It should certainly not mean “no further action” as it appears to have done for Alberto Contador, with hearings deferred indefinitely.

How can the public have confidence faced with such abitrary decisions as these? Those in authority, you are becoming a laughing stock.

We really are facing the prospect of Leshawn Merritt competing in London where Dwain Chambers will be refused. That cannot be right.