Xplora wrote:
I think your post sums up my opinion, it's all technology, and if they have no way of enforcing these rules about drugs (especially within the statute of limitations) then it is a fool's errand to make these substances illegal.
If you have no way of enforcing... that was what I said. Drug tests is a way of enforcing those rules. Video evidence of a dodgy bike design or poor riding is enough to enable rules enforcement. I'm not saying that they shouldn't try and stop dodgy behaviour - but if you can't detect the behaviour, then you shouldn't be disallowing it. If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to see it, does it even make a sound?
It would be the same as having rules about bike weight, while having no scales. It doesn't make sense, and creates a strange dichotomy.[/quote]
For a start the premise is wrong - there ARE ways of catching drug cheats - just not all drug cheats all the time, right away.
But mainly it's not technology that is really needed - it is a culture of not cheating. I take part in a sport in which equipment costs up to 10 million capital cost + millions per season, and is highly publicised. There is one way in which any team could cheat in a very basic and effective yet undetectable way, and yet (even as a former journo and competitor in the sport) I've never heard of anyone in Oz doing so, or even being suspected of doing so. That is despite the fact that pros could earn significant amounts of money if they did cheat in this simple way.
There has been some cheating in the sport, but not this most effective and blatant of breaches. It may be because everyone knows that if it later turned out that you cheated, you would be shunned for life. Those who have been caught cheating in other ways have generally been ostracised from their sport for all time; even when their official bans expired, most of those involved just stayed away.
That sort of culture could be what is needed in cycling. That sort of culture is created by having clear rules, even if those rules are not capable of 100% enforcement, not by ignoring them.
And of course you cannot catch everyone who has ever wrongly deviated from their line in a sprint, nor can you catch everyone who shifts their saddle mid race or changes to a lightweight bike, so just like drug testing those rules are NOT perfectly enforceable. So the same rules apply - you ban it even if you cannot enforce it 100%
Re the tree falling analogy, yes, some people go into protected forests (or the Botanic Gardens) and chop down trees silently. The fact that you cannot stop it entirely does not mean that you do not prohibit illegal logging.
I work in prevention of a crime in your area. We cannot detect or stop crime in your neighbourhood - does that mean that we should stop controlling it?