If you read this blog, odds are good that you've asked me my opinion on doping, or that you yourself have been asked. First of all, let me tell how how much I love hearing these questions when they're phrased along the lines of "What's wrong with your sport? Why are they all cheating?"
Heaven forbid I ask you about the doping scandals in baseball, football, soccer, tennis, or even golf. While we're at it, let's not talk about all the cheating in NASCAR.
So cycling is the most tested sport in the world. The penalties for being caught are steep, and the penalty for doping itself is sometimes death. And yet the cyclists keep doing it. Looking at this as a cost/benefit problem, it's clear that the cost is pretty high, but not high enough to prevent cheating.
My proposal: Remove the incentive from victory.
By putting a strict, below-the-poverty-line salary cap on the professionals, we could force them to get second jobs. Work in a bike shop. Sell insurance by phone. Beat hippies with a stick. Whatever.
The second job would provide the professionals with a means to survive... and this income would not be contingent on excelling at bike racing. The idea is that they would still race, because racing is awesome and they are naturally competitive people. However, doping, and the resultant winning, wouldn't result in any more cash-money. Prestige, yes, but no dollar-dollar-bill-y'all.
Sponsors would still get their names plastered all over newspapers and TV and interwebs, so they'd be happy. Racers would still race for a win, because it's in our nature... I've seen people crash each other to win plastic trophies in a cat 5 race.
Doping would still exist... hell, amateur triathletes have been known to dope! So you'd still need testing. However, the cost/benefit analysis would be shifted, not by increasing the cost (which has been pretty clearly shown to not work), but by decreasing the benefit. Ipso facto ergo and voila, much less doping.
In conclusion, this is the worst idea ever, and I just wasted 5 minutes of yours. And you can never get them back.
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2 comments:
give me my time back!
Sweet! Now we can have slower, more boring races by worse-conditioned cyclists! The pro-as-amateur idea is brilliant though...what with the crowds that flock to every soccer game the guatamalans play down the block on the weekends. Andale!
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