How do we stop the dopers in our sport?

[Muddy]

Doping at pro level is theft, which is just another crime, plain and simple.

 

So is taking time to go to the hardware store during working hours and a whole list of other things I could mention if I was so inclined but that is not really the point now is it. Banning offenders from the sport will allow them to move on and continue their lives doing something else if they felt that taking the risk is worth it. But instead we are proposing making them, and their families, a burden the state (tax payers)? Really? I can think of 1001 things that can be done with my tax money. Let the governing body for the sport handle it with all the money they harvest from their members. Impose a ban. Finish. The thief/doper/cheater is gone.

[Paulst12]

Have a payback clause in the contract. If you dope your pay back all money paid by your sponsor, and any earnings won in any race. Banning for life etc, doesnt really have a material impact, however if your bank account is at risk, then thats a different story?

 

I do however believe there needs to be a statute of limitations on the timeline. No point testing results from more than 10 years back because by then peoples careers tend to be over and new careers established. Also you may have inadvertantly taken something which becomes banned and later down the line have to pay for it BIG time?

[Paul Ruinaard]

1.) You cant out the genie back in the bottle wrt sports sponsorship. That is reality is when.Hit the sponsors and the money dries up - witness Nedbank. So get the sponsors to drive it like they are now. Cycling has huge profile, so the sponsors will stya in. 10 yeasr ago we had no Epic. Look at it now. Cycling is great branding.

3.) Stop the antiquated rules around not using technology in cycling and keeping all things the same as in 1950'. Let tech in and let technology negate the performace gains from individual endurance, and allow advances and innovation from design to come through that may mean a team with better technology wins some benefits - like Lemond did and like you see in Formula 1. People catch up and innovate quickly.

4.) Reduce the physical endurance of the tour. People dont care about whether it was the toughest tour. Viewership increases when it is closely contested. It is the spectacle. I didnt know until recently which tour was the fastest ever, but I have watched religiously since 1999, enjoying each one. Make it less about climbing, more about speed (or a mix that is biased to allow a sprinter to win overall and to negate the big mountains where VO2 max and watts/kg matters most)