Sports in drugs denial

Cycling boss says Olympics is wilfully blind to the issue, reports Sam Lane.

OLYMPIC sports remain ‘‘in denial . . . [and] not doing anywhere near enough’’ about their doping problems while cycling, in contrast, had at least confronted its drug-infested past, declared the head of world cycling.

Brian Cookson, president of the Union Cycliste Internationale, told Fairfax Media at the Rio Olympics said this was a ticking time bomb scenario he thought would inevitably explode.

He said cycling had emerged from that ground-zero position and was well down the road to redemption and recovery which, the UCI head believed, now placed it ahead of deluded sports resisting that difficult route.

‘‘I’ve often said that, for me, there are two groups of sports: sports that have a doping problem and are doing something about it – and I believe we’re in among the leaders in those – and sports that have a doping problem and are in denial and are not doing anywhere near enough about it,’’ Cookson said. ‘‘And I think sooner or later those sports that are in denial and haven’t done enough are going to have – and perhaps are already having – the sorts of problems that we had.’’

Cookson stressed: ‘‘I’m not pointing the finger at any particular sport here, I’m just making the general point.’’

Athletics, particularly in the countdown to these Olympics, and swimming, through the pool competition in Rio, have had no shortage of doping-related issues bubbling around them.

The International Association of Athletics Federations imposed a blanket ban on Russian track and field athletes who were headed to Brazil over a statesponsored doping programme. In swimming, discontent was highlighted when, on the biggest sporting stage, champions like Australia’s Mack Horton and America’s Lilly King made overt strong statements about fellow competitors and indicating unease about doping surveillance. The commitment of swimming’s international governing body, Fina, to monitoring doping rigorously has also been questioned.

Fairfax asked Cookson to nominate sports he considered to be ‘‘in denial’’ about their doping ‘‘problems’’ and policing.

He replied: ‘‘I think people can make up their own minds about that.’’

Lance Armstrong’s exposure as a systematic cheat in October 2012 shattered the reputation of elite road cycling and the sport’s governing body that governs it. Rio is the first Olympics since then, and Cookson, who was president of British Cycling for 17 years until 2013 when he took over the utterly rocked UCI, used the marker to applaud the UCI’s establishment of what he termed ‘‘genuinely independent antidoping processes, genuinely independent case management’’.

‘‘I don’t want to be complacent or to criticise other sports. I think what we have done was necessary for our sport,’’ Cookson said.

‘‘And I’m not at all complacent, but I think we’re in a good position as a sport. I think our credibility is much higher than it was a few years ago, but we need to keep working at that.’’ The Sunday Age