Bettini - should he have been allowed to ride or not ?

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Steve Austin

The Marmalade Kid
Location
Mlehworld
not sure he should be banned for refusing to sign, but as he has won so much i should imagine he's been tested more than most other riders anyway. and therefore would have been found out anyway.
which i think may be one of the reasons he refused to sign.
a sort of honour thing
 

Tetedelacourse

New Member
Location
Rosyth
It's a completely meaningless document and therefore should not be used to determine who races and who doesn't.

The tdf tried this tactic and hey ho, cheats signed it and then were found out. So what power does it hold? Zip.
 
Not banned, but they should have made him race on a tandem with his lawyer on the back.;)

'Voluntary' codes, however desirable, break down as soon as someone says 'no'. The UCI made an honourable attempt to get things straightened out. It clearly hasn't worked. I think we're back to square two or three and they're faced with trying to get a compulsory code.

The cheats and the weasels have taken out a number of pro teams this season. There's probably one more season left before the rest of the world washes it's hands of pro cycling altogether. I'm not holding my breath.
 

mondobongo

Über Member
Bettini's beef with the code document is the loss of a years wages if a positive test is given which he sees as extortion, given the sums involved I can see his point to a degree, mistakes happen false positives have been known to occur if he was to test positive he is screwed anyway its just that the UCI dont get a years salary off him. He is according to Cycling News willing to provide DNA samples is that not enough.

At the end of the day it wasn't the best result as its put a cloud over the sports head again the blame has to go not to Bettini but to the UCI. They have had plenty of time to stamp out doping but have simply not done enough a 'Voluntary Code of Practice' is not good enough and as has already been pointed out in this thread loses the point as soon as someone says no.

Richard Moore covers some interesting ground in his book 'In Search of Robert Millar ' in the chapter 'You dont put ordinary fuel in a sports car' he covers the subject of 'hormonal rebalancing' and also reports that the French Judge in the Festina Trial accused the UCI of making a a deliberate and long term decision to restrict its action to being against excessive doping rather than doping per se. The UCI needs to get a strong grip on things if we are to move on and have a dope free sport.
 
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