{"id":22692,"date":"2013-02-11T17:33:22","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T07:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/?p=22692"},"modified":"2013-02-11T17:33:22","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T07:33:22","slug":"sport-and-doping-the-spreading-tentacles-of-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/?p=22692","title":{"rendered":"Sport and doping – the spreading tentacles of capital"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tI ride a bike a lot. I raced a bike in European competition for many years. I also started the www-site – cyclingnews.com – which is now the largest of its type in the world. I started it as a way of bringing back news from Europe to my bike racing friends back in Australia who were starved of results and information about cycling. In the 1990s, I was regularly in contact with Lance Armstrong and spent time with him riding and recording his 1998 World Championship campaign in Maastricht. I knew team managers of some of the big teams and lots and lots of riders and other insiders. I know a lot about the insides of the sport – the bellissimo sport – the drug-riddled sport. One and the same. I also have a theoretical framework for analysing the practices in the sport that I think delivers understandings that go beyond the way the mainstream media react when some athlete tests positive to some substance that happens to be on one side of a very arbitrary and inconsistent line which demarcates legal and non-legal. Theses issues are dominating national news in Australia at present after the – Australiam Crime Commission<\/a> – released the first of its reports on how drug and crime infested Australian sport is. It comes as no surprise.
\n
\nI started what became known as cyclingnews.com as a grass roots news and results service because I found it easier to post the information I got everyday from friends, contacts and, increasingly, complete strangers – on the WWW rather than send them by fax or E-mail. Many people didn’t yet have E-mail although they did have access to the burgeoning WWW. The origins of the site are recorded Here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The grass roots www site which became so huge (more than a million hits a day in 1998) that I had to hand it over. The only problem is that the site went from being a grass roots site based on the principles of open source collectivism to a privatised mega capitalist site aiming to please corporations. In my view, while the domain name remains the same the site I started lost its meaning. It created a new meaning, which is more consistent with the dominant paradigm in the sport – corporatism and profit. The way the sport has gone.<\/p>\n

When I ran the site, I took on issues – including corruption among cycling federations, in particular, with respect to drugs in sport. My last statement as the originator of that site came on September 10, 1999 – Time to move on … <\/a>.<\/p>\n

One paragraph from that statement read:<\/p>\n

\nAnd I cannot leave without commenting on the state of cycling administration around the world at professional and amateur levels. The international and national federations have been culpable in allowing drugs to be part of the sport. They have known all along about it. The only reason we get these pathetic statements from federations these days about stamping out drugs is because the French cops got into the act and started locking people up. Pathetic. In my own country, cycling is being damaged on a daily basis by an anachronistic, inept and corrupt organisation. The sport is badly promoted and barely alive. There are always selection scandals as favoured riders get put in teams in front of those who are not in the coterie. There are other scandals which get covered up. Cycling Australia should just resign en masse and hand the sport over to riders who care. The situation couldn’t get worse that is clear.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was wrong. The situation did get worse but only because it is now public. The real world of cycling has always been thus. The public revelations about the organised and corporate nature of the practices are due to the work of a few fierce stalwarts such as USADA and David Walsh (the Sunday Times columnist). They have fought almost single-handled battles against the power elites in the sport, the media and in governments.<\/p>\n

The French government also played a significant role when they decided enough was enough and set the cops onto the professional cycling teams.<\/p>\n

These issues are now increasingly becoming public knowledge and the recent Lance revelations, including his admissions on US television, which became a world event have brought some (read: highly qualified “some”) of the practices of international cycling into our living rooms. It was compelling watching but hardly doing more than identifying the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n

There are many out there who have made fortunes (or continue to do so) who still hide behind the veil of respectively or “cycling legend” or “cycling gold medallist” etc who comprise the below the waterline part of that iceberg.<\/p>\n

Many of us know a lot more than has come out as yet but to validate it requires certain parties to speak out – and for many reasons, some legitimate, some not so, they are reluctant to produce the goods.<\/p>\n

So some of those in high places, who run races, who coach or have coached, who commentate, etc would not be in those positions if the truth was known about their activities with respect to doping – doping themselves, their riders, other riders, etc.<\/p>\n

On February 7, 2013, the Australian Crime Commission released the findings of their “12-month investigation into the integrity of Australian sport and the relationship between professional sporting bodies, prohibited substances and organised crime” (Federal Minister of Sport’s Press Release<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The Australian Crime Commission investigation was in liaison with the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) and the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).<\/p>\n

The brief of the investigation was:<\/p>\n