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| Should Ricco be 'Banned for Life'? |
| YES |
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| NO |
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| Total Votes : 99 |
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Lee
World Champ
Joined: 12 Jul 2002
Posts: 12612
Location: Hertfordshire
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 Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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| karlos wrote: |
| Lee wrote: |
Karlos, you arn't one of life's great thinkers are you.......  |
Hey Socrates, even rhetorical questions need question marks. Guess your not one of life's great spellers touché |
No I'm dyslexic. And it wasnt a question more of an observation.
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| Tucker wrote: |
| But, on reflection, you're probably right... |
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B_Ugli
Cat 1 Groupie
Joined: 27 Feb 2008
Posts: 151
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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If this is an isolated offence then he should be punished according to the rules.
If however he claims it to be the only time he has doped (as did Millar, Basso et al) and subsequent investigations into his Giro d'Italia performance prove otherwise then maybe a lifetime ban would send out the right message.
Lets face it he claims to have had a naturally high haematocrit since turning pro which means there is every chance he has been on it since junior level and possibly earlier.
They all seem to have used it just the once dont they? Maybe 10 year bans for telling porkies are the way forward. |
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Clubber
E, Bronze
Joined: 19 Jun 2002
Posts: 296
Location: Bristol
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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He should be banned for two years - that's the rules and that's what the CAS would agree should anyone try to impose a harsher ban.
In future though, the ban should be four or five years - long enough to cause really significant impact to the earning/sporting potential of the rider's career whilst giving them a small chance to ride again afterwards, assuming they're young enough.
Any team that has two or more riders banned for doping should be banned from racing for a year. The DSs of said team should be banned from team management for two years.
Harsh but pretty fair IMO and very clear that teams who have endemic doping won't be tolerated. Current bans on riders alone (not withstanding ASO's position which while not as consistent as I'd like is definitely in the right direction) are massively unfair in pointing the finger at the riders alone when we all know that team management is often (usually) the root cause. |
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Salsiccia
E, Gold
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Posts: 2316
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 12:47 pm Post subject: |
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| karlos wrote: |
| if the riders don't play by the rules why should the race's governing bodies? whats to stop them 'the rule makers' saying 'ok we've had enough, obviously you think we're a soft touch so we're gonna ban you for life, how'd you like that?'. who's gonna stop em? if the ban gets over-ruled after being dragged for 2 years thru some euro-kangaroo court, ASO could then just not invite the riders team to the tour. saying 'you can't change the rules after the event' is utter hogwash, who says you can't? and also saying that 'its as simple as that', er no it isn't sherlock or else we wouldn't be debating it here. |
Judge: You are guilty of drink driving.
Criminal: Yes.
Judge: I know the law says I can only sentence you to 5 years in prison; but I think too many people have been breaking the law like this, so I sentence you to death.
Is that fair? No? So why would it be fair for cycling bodies to act in contravention of their own rules and act arbitrarily? Those enforcing the law must act within the law, yes, even in sport.
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karlos
Cat 1 Groupie
Joined: 18 Apr 2007
Posts: 149
Location: sunny belper
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:11 pm Post subject: |
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| but its not THE LAW its a rule |
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Clubber
E, Bronze
Joined: 19 Jun 2002
Posts: 296
Location: Bristol
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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| karlos wrote: |
| but its not THE LAW its a rule |
In effect though, it is a law - CAS will ensure that the "rules" are upheld. Also, civil courts will side with the athlete if an organisation breaks its own rules. |
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Legs
E, Gold
Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 3046
Location: Sierra Tango One Zero
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Salsiccia wrote: |
Judge: You are guilty of drink driving.
Criminal: Yes.
Judge: I know the law says I can only sentence you to 5 years in prison; but I think too many people have been breaking the law like this, so I sentence you to death.
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That's patently unreasonable.
How about (independent of any specific cases);
Judiciary: From <future date> onwards, anyone found guilty of drink-driving will be sentenced to death because <insert good justification here>. Everyone must sign up to this agreement by <future date>.
That would be fair though, wouldn't it?
Moving back from the analogy to the case in point, my understanding is that there are already custodial sentences available for sporting fraud in Italy (and France?) and that they should be used!
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Clubber
E, Bronze
Joined: 19 Jun 2002
Posts: 296
Location: Bristol
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:31 pm Post subject: |
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| gswarbrick wrote: |
The Court for Arbitration in Sport can stop them and if anyone had the will to pursue it, it could overturn the ASO's refusals to invite teams... |
Are you sure about that? As a commercial event (the TdF), the organiser can choose to invite whoever they choose so long as they haven't signed a contract that commits them, for example, to invite all protour teams. |
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climbingwizzkid
E, Gold
Joined: 08 Sep 2006
Posts: 2369
Location: ilson
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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think we should shoot the riders who dope! ricco =  ! he must die now!   |
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gswarbrick
E, Gold
Joined: 14 Jun 2005
Posts: 2478
Location: Why would anyone care?
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Clubber wrote: |
| gswarbrick wrote: |
The Court for Arbitration in Sport can stop them and if anyone had the will to pursue it, it could overturn the ASO's refusals to invite teams... |
Are you sure about that? As a commercial event (the TdF), the organiser can choose to invite whoever they choose so long as they haven't signed a contract that commits them, for example, to invite all protour teams. |
No, I'm not sure. It would have to go to court. But I strongly suspect that the CAS would take a dim view of arbitrary refusal to accept a race entry. Remember, the event is still run under sporting rules, albeit those of the puppet French federation.
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Salsiccia
E, Gold
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Posts: 2316
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Legs wrote: |
How about (independent of any specific cases);
Judiciary: From <future date> onwards, anyone found guilty of drink-driving will be sentenced to death because <insert good justification here>. Everyone must sign up to this agreement by <future date>.
That would be fair though, wouldn't it? |
Absolutely. But just to make the point of my (dodgy) analogy clear; I was responding to the post that suggested the various cycling bodies ignore their own rules that are currently in place and act in an arbitrary manner i.e. banning someone for life when the current rules stipulate a 2 year ban. If the rules are changed to allow life bans, all well and good. But under current rules a first offence is punished with a two-year ban. CONI/FFC/whoever can't ignore their own rules, as was suggested by the original poster.
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karlos
Cat 1 Groupie
Joined: 18 Apr 2007
Posts: 149
Location: sunny belper
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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| climbingwizzkid wrote: |
| think we should shoot the riders who dope! ricco = ! he must die now! |
climbingwizzkid i worship at your altar (unless this is tongue-in-cheek).
kill kill kill kill !!! come on lets chant together kill kill kill kill !!! |
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Clubber
E, Bronze
Joined: 19 Jun 2002
Posts: 296
Location: Bristol
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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So if I want to enter an F1 race, I could buy a team and enter? I don't think so... The TdF is not run as an 'open' event and therefore not inviting Astana or anyone else is not in contravention to the FFC or UCI rules.
If it really had been against the rules that the ASO had to abide by then Astana (and in the past, Unibet) would have been suing ASO for loss of earnings/etc. as would most likely some teams who didn't get wildcards, etc. |
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AlbertHerring
E, Silver
Joined: 02 Apr 2008
Posts: 1342
Location: Cistridentine Nottingham
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Clubber wrote: |
| gswarbrick wrote: |
The Court for Arbitration in Sport can stop them and if anyone had the will to pursue it, it could overturn the ASO's refusals to invite teams... |
Are you sure about that? As a commercial event (the TdF), the organiser can choose to invite whoever they choose so long as they haven't signed a contract that commits them, for example, to invite all protour teams. |
Nothing is ever truly independent. ASO in particular are moving towards gaining what would be considered in EU law as a dominant position in various markets (eg the market for televised road cycling coverage and the market for advertising via professional cycling) so they need to be pretty careful not to start falling foul of monopoly/antitrust law (which comes down to abuse of a dominant position). I suspect that they are well aware of this (which is why they have stopped overt cooperation with RCS Sport in particular and to a lesser extent Unipublic, since cartels are veeeery unpopular with legislators). Effectively denying another legitimate business (a team) scope to operate, or operating arbitrary restraints on trade for individuals are exactly the sort of thing that competition authorities will be looking to jump on.
As far as bans go, as I said above, the two year ban from all competition on a first culpable offence has (it seems) been accepted as a maximum legally enforceable penalty (although there are arguments about how sane it is to apply the same rules to competitors in different sports where career lengths vary widely - for example, in sports where the only way to make anything of a career is to succeed at the Olympics, a ban that happens to cover the games is obviously massively more of a punishment than one that falls between them). However, I can't see why some setup that allows penalised riders to earn a crust while keeping them out of the really big money for a while longer shouldn't be permitted. Then again, I'm not a lawyer.
Last edited by AlbertHerring on Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:40 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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climbingwizzkid
E, Gold
Joined: 08 Sep 2006
Posts: 2369
Location: ilson
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:47 pm Post subject: |
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| kill kill kill kill !!! come on lets chant together kill kill kill kill !!! |
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Clubber
E, Bronze
Joined: 19 Jun 2002
Posts: 296
Location: Bristol
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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| AlbertHerring wrote: |
| Clubber wrote: |
| gswarbrick wrote: |
The Court for Arbitration in Sport can stop them and if anyone had the will to pursue it, it could overturn the ASO's refusals to invite teams... |
Are you sure about that? As a commercial event (the TdF), the organiser can choose to invite whoever they choose so long as they haven't signed a contract that commits them, for example, to invite all protour teams. |
Nothing is ever truly independent. ASO in particular are moving towards gaining what would be considered in EU law as a dominant position in various markets (eg the market for televised road cycling coverage and the market for advertising via professional cycling) so they need to be pretty careful not to start falling foul of monopoly/antitrust law (which comes down to abuse of a dominant position). I suspect that they are well aware of this (which is why they have stopped overt cooperation with RCS Sport in particular and to a lesser extent Unipublic, since cartels are veeeery unpopular with legislators). Effectively denying another legitimate business (a team) scope to operate, or operating arbitrary restraints on trade for individuals are exactly the sort of thing that competition authorities will be looking to jump on. |
That's quite a different discussion then - more about monopolies rather than the right of an event to invite whoever it wants to.
Anyway, too much serious discussion. I think I'm feeling the red mist descending...
KILL KILL KILL!!!!  |
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gswarbrick
E, Gold
Joined: 14 Jun 2005
Posts: 2478
Location: Why would anyone care?
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Clubber wrote: |
| So if I want to enter an F1 race, I could buy a team and enter? I don't think so... |
Erm, yes you could. I'm not sure it's relevant, but it happens all the time. It'll cost you, but you can do it.
| Clubber wrote: |
| The TdF is not run as an 'open' event and therefore not inviting Astana or anyone else is not in contravention to the FFC or UCI rules. |
I'm not sure that's true, but those aren't the only laws that apply to sport. Competition and trade laws have been used before. If there's a pattern to the invites (all UCI ProTour teams, for example, are invited bar one) then you could argue restraint of trade.
| Clubber wrote: |
| If it really had been against the rules that the ASO had to abide by then Astana (and in the past, Unibet) would have been suing ASO for loss of earnings/etc. as would most likely some teams who didn't get wildcards, etc. |
Unibet was slightly different. The reason given was TV advertising of gambling (other than France's national lottery) being illegal in France. The loophole that allowed Lotto to appear being that Lotto is also a national lottery. I think it might well have been possible to challenge it in court.
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trackcycling
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AlbertHerring
E, Silver
Joined: 02 Apr 2008
Posts: 1342
Location: Cistridentine Nottingham
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Clubber wrote: |
That's quite a different discussion then - more about monopolies rather than the right of an event to invite whoever it wants to.
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Well, ASO have a monopoly (dominant position, anyway) over a market, so their freedom of action is limited by the need not to do anything that the courts will deem to be abusing that position, and apparently arbitrary refusal to allow top teams to ride in the biggest race on the calendar (or a refusal on grounds that are applied inconsistently, especially in ways that suggest national bias) would appear to be just that.
The highly dubious legal grounds on which ASO chose Unibet as scapegoats last are not necessarily the same as the reasons for having done so (which were to demonstrate their strength in a fight with the UCI and to let another French team in). One of their other strengths is an ability to make decisions like that too soon before the race for legal action to have any impact, of course. |
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