Brian Cookson, president of the Union Cycliste Internationale, has remarked Olympic sports remain in denial and not doing anywhere near enough about their doping problems unlike cycling that had at least confronted its drug-infested past.
The UCI President also remarked it is a ticking time bomb he thinks will inevitably explode. Cookson remarked cycling has come a long way to come clean and added the sport is well down the road to redemption and recovery that places it ahead of deluded sports resisting that difficult route.
Cookson also remarked he has often said that there are two groups of sports: sports that have a doping problem and are doing something about it – and he believe we are in amongst the leaders in those – and sports that have a doping problem and are in denial and are not doing anywhere near enough about it. The UCI chief also added he thinks those sports, sooner or later, which are in denial and haven’t done enough are going to have – and perhaps are already having – the sorts of problems that we had.
The reputation of road cycling and the sport’s world governing body was shattered by the exposure of Lance Armstrong as a systematic cheat in October 2012. Cookson, who was president of British Cycling for 17 years until 2013 when he took over the UCI, used the marker for applauding UCI’s establishment of genuinely independent anti-doping processes, genuinely independent case management. The President of the world governing body of cycling also remarked he does not want to be complacent or to criticize other sports and added he thinks we are in a good position as a sport and also said he thinks our credibility is much higher than it was a few years ago, but we need to keep working at that.
In another development, US cycling athletes Robert Baatz and Mary Verrando-Higgins have accepted sanctions for anti-doping rule violations after testing positive for prohibited substances. Baatz provided an in-competition urine sample on March 12, 2016, at the Tour of Corsicana in Corsicana and his sample tested positive for the presence of an exogenous androgenic anabolic steroid and/or its metabolites, which was confirmed by Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) analysis. The 48-year-old accepted a two-year sanction for the anti-doping rule violation and has been disqualified from all competitive results obtained on and subsequent to March 12, 2016, including forfeiture of any medals, points, and prizes.
Verrando-Higgins accepted a one-year sanction for an anti-doping rule violation after testing positive for a prohibited substance administered with the support of a licensed physician. The 54-year-old cyclist tested positive for the prohibited substance 17α-methyl-5α-androstane-3, 17-diol and 17α-methyl-5β-androstane-3,17-diol, metabolites of Methyltestosterone, as a result of an in-competition urine sample she provided on May 24, 2016, in Winston-Salem.
Anabolic Agents are prohibited at all times under the USADA Protocol for Olympic and Paralympic Movement Testing (the Protocol), the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) National Anti-Doping Policies (USOC NADP), and the International Cycling Union (UCI) Anti-Doping Rules, all of which have adopted the World Anti-Doping Code (Code) and the World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List.
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