UNFAIR TREATMENT
Do cyclists get a raw deal from the press and public when drug use is questioned, asks Mark Bailey
Should we feel sympathy for today’s pro cyclists who face a relentless tsunami of dopingrelated innuendo and abuse? After all, this lot get paid to ride £10,000 bikes all day. But when it comes to headlines and the court of public opinion maybe they are getting a rough deal.
Lizzie Deignan (née Armitstead) and Manchester City don’t often appear in the same sentence but their stories have become entwined. Just before Rio 2016 news broke that Deignan had missed three drugs tests in 12 months and was facing a two-year suspension, until the Court of Arbitration for Sport chalked off one violation because the tester hadn’t followed correct procedures. Deignan was exonerated but still faced a public grilling. “Riding with a cloud over her,” commented one broadsheet. “Questions will still linger,” said a tabloid. She later mourned: “People will think I’m a cheat for the rest of my life.”
Fast-forward to January 11, 2017, and reports circulate that the Football Association has charged Manchester City for failing to provide testers with the whereabouts of its players three times in 12 months. The sports pages reported the administrative cock-up, but the language used was milder: the club “faced embarrassment,” noted one paper; another said they were “in hot water.” Then… silence. The club – owned by Sheikh Mansour, a man with a net worth of $38 billion – is expected to receive a £25,000 fine.
Unlike footballers, cyclists inhabit the toxic wasteland of the post-Armstrong apocalypse, but the deeper issue centres on how different sports identify responsibility. In individual sports monitored by the World Anti-Doping Agency, such as cycling, athletes are responsible for their whereabouts and can – rightly – suffer repercussions if they break the system. But in team sports clubs are responsible for players’ whereabouts (although individuals can still be disciplined, as with Rio Ferdinand’s 2003 ban for not giving a sample).
This results in two unfair discrepancies. A generic club fine will appear feeble in comparison to the career-wrecking carnage of a possible individual ban. And cyclists – monitored as individuals – are easier fodder for a public monstering. The issue is mirrored on a broader scale. Of the 52 athletes currently sanctioned by UK Anti-Doping, 27 are from rugby union and league (compared to five cyclists), making rugby – statistically – the dirtiest sport in Britain.
The skewed court of public opinion must grate with pro cyclists but being held to account so publicly is exactly what offers hope of redemption for a sport that threatened to implode post-Armstrong. The current generation of pro cyclists may have to get used to different testing standards, punishments and levels of public scrutiny than other athletes, but for the future of the sport, maybe that is a price worth paying.
Being held to account so publicly is what offers hope of redemption for a sport that threatened to implode