By Hedwig Kröner
High officials of the International Cycling Union and the Tour de France organisation, whilst in disagreement over details of the current cycling calendar ProTour and its marketing revenues, have found common ground again in the fight against doping. In the aftermath of the latest doping affairs involving the greatest stars of the sport, Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich and now the 2006 Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, both UCI president Pat McQuaid and Tour director Christian Prudhomme have spoken out in favour of enforced anti-doping rules which would not only call the cheating cyclists to account, but also their immediate team surroundings.
"At the moment, only the riders are sanctioned," said McQuaid while visiting the French Cup race Tour de l'Ain on Monday. "The UCI will reflect the current situation. We have to see how we can make the team managers accountable, too. The answers are often in the hands of the sports directors. It's up to them to make the right decisions."
Independently of the Irishman, the new head of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme, had evoked the same idea in an interview with L'Equipe on Monday. "We need new measures so that the riders do not remain the only ones to be punished (in a doping case)," he said. "It has to be possible that a team manager or sports director can be concerned. And above all, that the doctors or pseudo doctors are punished."
The often-used excuse of some team directors, according to which the directing personnel of cycling teams cannot control every move of its riders, especially during long home-based training periods, could therefore become obsolete. At Paris-Nice earlier this year, Cyclingnews had asked the former director of the Liberty Seguros team, Manolo Saiz, why he thought that team directors were never held responsible when there is a doping infringement. "That's because we cannot control the riders one hundred percent. They go home and stay there for a month... it's very hard to hold other people responsible when this happens," replied Saiz, who as one of the longest-running directors in pro cycling has now been discovered to have organised drug and blood doping within his team for years.
"I'm very happy about Pat McQuaid's clear statements," continued Prudhomme. "What he is saying today goes exactly in the direction we are hoping for."
