The fact is the sport today is as dirty as it every was. The proof of that was the 2013 Vuelta a España when a domestique who had never once been in contention for GC in a Grand Tour suddenly, at the age of 41, finds his inner racehorse and wins the Vuelta.
Pharmstrong had a term for performances like that. He called them, “Not normal.”
The most bizarre part is that Horner’s miracle win hardly raised an eyebrow, despite the fact that it came AFTER Pharmstrong’s “Come to Oprah” performance, when everyone’s rose-colored glasses SHOULD HAVE BEEN off. Yet no one (publicly) connected his performance with his past association with Pharmstrong, whose lieutenant and confidant he had been for the two seasons of Pharmstrong’s “un-retirement.”
The truth is, not not just cycling, ALL professsional sports are awash in PEDs, and most amateur sports as well. Doping, particularly in professional sports, is a classic positive feedback loop. You spend money to dope. If you do it right, you win more prizemoney than before, so you have better funding for your future doping efforts.
1. Buy dope. 2. Win more money. 3. Repeat.
Anti-doping, OTOH, is a zero sum game. WADA has “X” amount of cash to spend on anti-doping. And it matters not one whit how many dopers they catch, the next season they still only get “X” dollars for combating the PEDs scourge. There is no rewards system, no positive reinforcement. Past successes contribute nothing to future efforts.
Plus, anti-doping has to play by the rules, and the dopers know exactly what those rules are. The dopers (obviously) DON”T have to play by the rules. They can do whatever they want (so long as they don’t get caught). They’re constantly testing, tweaking and amending, changing substances, administration strategies, masking agents and adulterants, because that’ the only way to #1) stay ahead of the competition and #2) stay ahead of anti-doping.
So WADA/USADA are shooting at a moving target. By the time they’ve figured out what it is the dopers are doing, the dopers are on to something else.
Ergo the axiom, “You can’t fail the drug test unless you first fail the I.Q. test.” Meaning as long as you follow the established regimen, as long as you don’t break the protocol, you won’t get caught. So they dope with impunity.
Which is why anti-doping will NEVER catch up unless there’s an internal change in the sport and the athletes themselves decide to give it up. Because right now, as a risk/reward proposition, ...doping is looking pretty damn good.
Truth forever on the scaffold, death forever on the throne!