my moral compass never worked anyway ...
So, USADA dinged 3 mtb riders for missing their random pee-tests after that last Park City NORBA.
fuk.
All three had dnf'd their races and flat out didn't see the piss-deposit notice. I'm so bummed for them. And each received 1-year bans.
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Now, I'm of the opinion that you NEED to find the Random Whizzer Board at your event when you're racing pro. It's one of the responsibilities of running in the show. However, justice is not a bureaucratic stamp. And, I do believe in mitigating circumstances.
Was the organizer/USADA at fault more than the racers? I don't know. Do these three cats get the serious screw chair?
hell yes.
just another reason why doping fucking sucks. 'cuz it taints all involved, guilty or no.
7 comments:
actually it looks like one of them (Redpath) finished his event.
In any case, like you said, it is part of the responsibility of racing pro. If there is gonna be drug testing, you gotta show up.
That said, it is far from unbelievable that the organizers didn't make things clear or fuk up somehow. But isn't it pretty standard for a list of randoms to be posted right after the race? If it was, and they didn't check it....
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so, it looks like we all better wear our rain hats on saturday, eh?
My experience with USADA is that they have a protocol that even they don't understand very well. I was picked for random testing twice in a row at the USGP races in Gloucester and Boulder. Both times I cut short my warm-down as soon as my manager alerted me, found my way to the drug testing center, and then was looked at sideways by uninformed, confused people. It turned out that I was the alternate both times and would only be tested if the winner was also a random. But no one in the testing room knew why I was there, they couldn't understand how I had shown up without a chaperone and paperwork, there was no mark to identify that I was the alternate, and it took multiple phone calls and blank stares before I was finally sent away. If they're going to test, they need to at least have a system that instills some confidence.
We also have to give "pro" mountain bikers a break. "Pro" in mtb is very different than road. It just means you accumulated enough points to upgrade from semi-pro. so Joe Smo who is totally stoked about his upgrade to "pro" could show up to Deer Valley, DNF, and fail to show up for the random drug test because he has already hopped in his 1975 honda civic to head back to Santa Cruz and had no idea that there were even random drug tests...
Point is "pro" does not mean there is more support than semi-pro or even expert in the mtb world....
Sucks if you do not have the time or resources to educate yourself on being "pro".
I am not "pro" by the way, but I do have a intimate understanding of its lack of importance in mtb....
Guilty until proven innocent. That's how they're working it.
Point is "pro" does not mean there is more support than semi-pro or even expert in the mtb world....
This applies to Pro on the road as well.
Also, imagine being the support dork for a road team and one crashes and is hospitalize d or damages his/her bike and your trying to get that going, meanwhile your also trying to make sure the bottles are there at the finish and every is ready to pack up and head out for the day.
There were a few times I had to make phone calls back to people at the event to check the numbers for me, or turn around and check...
Sucks.
If its random it seems to me they could call out at the start.. "number 512, 215,485, report for random dope tests after the event!".
Course how many of us even pay attention to our number.
ok.. back to my point, its the same pro road and mtb if your not on BiG TEAM.
MTb Pro has absolutely ZERO support unless you are a factory rider or your wife, husband or friend volunteers their support. I think at a minimum there has to be an assigned manager for a pro road team (big or small). You can be a professional mountain biker and not even have a sponsor, let alone a manager/ water bottle distributor. It is a very different structure for the two. I am not saying that the small road teams are not hurting, only that someone SHOULD be in charge of the TEAM affairs.
That just sux.
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