(By James)
Tomorrow the Amgen Tour of California starts. The six stage, 640 mile race begins in San Francisco and ends in Long Beach. This race has been given the U.C.I.'s (the governing body of cycling) highest rating of any race outside of Europe. It is attracting cycling's biggest stars and over one million spectators are expected.
Now comes word from today's New York Times that last year's race did not test for cycling's most abused drug, Erythropoietin or EPO. From the Times Article:
That failure is more surprising because the lead sponsor of the Tour of California is Amgen, the California biotechnology company that produces the genetically engineered version of EPO, which is sold primarily to help cancer and dialysis patients battle anemia.
A spokeswoman at Amgen, which had marketed its sponsorship as a way to educate people against improper use of its drug, expressed outrage at the failure to test for it, saying that the company had been repeatedly assured last year that EPO testing was done.
The spokeswoman, Mary Klem, said that when Amgen executives were informed of the oversight, they were angry and surprised. “Our understanding going into the race was that the test would be included,” Klem said. “And we were told afterward that no rider tested positive for EPO or for any banned substances.”
This year, the organizers of the race have agreed to test riders for EPO.
The article continues
But how a sport battling a reputation for cheating among its athletes could have left such a gaping hole in its drug enforcement regimen raised serious questions about its ability to convince fans, sponsors and participants that the sport was clean and that riders were competing based on natural ability.
Professional cycling has been battered for years by doping allegations. Last year, several top riders were barred from the Tour de France after their names surfaced in a drug investigation in Spain.
The Nation accepts the explanation that bureaucratic bungling led to last year's race not testing for EPO. Such mistakes enforce the opinion that the sport is not really interested getting rid of drugs. Further this year's testing leaves something to be desired. Again from the Times Article:
Professional riders are subject to year-round unannounced drug tests, as well as tests at races. As it did last year, the Tour of California will test four riders each day, including the winner of each day’s stage, the overall leader of the race and two riders selected at random from the 144 riders scheduled to start the event.
And
Michael Roth, a spokesman at AEG [the company that organizes the race], said the race organizers last year adopted the standards and protocol for drug testing prescribed by the U.C.I.
He said that AEG did not know that EPO was not part of the standard test, but that the company asked for it to be included this year.
Roth said that the organizers of the race would bear the cost of the extra test, about $400 for each urine sample, or $1,600 for each of the race’s eight days.
That roughly doubles the cost of drug testing for the event, but it also represents a cost that would probably not be prohibitive for a race in which sponsors put up hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As Trust by Verify Notes:
Meaning it costs all of $25,600 to do all the tests for the race, which is not a high cost to insure integrity of the event. As we've said before, if organizers (and the UCI) were really serious, they'd run enough tests that everyone in a stage race was likely to have gotten tested at least once. For a three week tour, it means about 10 randoms per stage. For a one week race, it would be about 25 or 30.
It's Time For Team EPO
The Nation has been arguing that Amgen should consider the lead sponsorship Lance Armstrong's Tailwind team, now sponsored by Discovery. This episode should show that that the alphabet soup of doping regulators and cycling bodies (WADA/USADA/AFLD/UCI/ASO/Pro-Tour/AEG to name but a few) are not capable of getting their act together. The loser in this episode is Amgen. They sponsored an event to raised awareness to the benefits and dangers of EPO. Instead they look like they are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
What can Amgen do? Get away from the bureaucracies. Sponsor their own team. Then they can control the testing. As we noted last week, The cycling team Slipstream as well as Landis and Armstrong are instituting weekly drug tests to help improve the sports image.
Tailwind is one of the strongest cycling teams in the world. If Amgen sponsors this team and wins, they can go a long way to improving their image.
Combat Ignorance
Fans of endurance sports (cycling, distance running, triathlons) usually compete in these sports are well. Consequently they are a healthy lot. They are not aware that EPO is a $10 billion a year drug. They are not aware of the hundreds of thousands of lives that are saved, or improved, because of EPO. Many believe EPO is a miracle drug.
Fans of Endurance sports think EPO is "black death" and little more. They think Amgen invented this drug for the sole purpose of cheating in endurance sports. Or, they think Amgen is marketing it to endurance athletes to increase its sales (illegal sales to endurance athletes are a tiny portion of overall EPO sales. If they were completely eliminated, it would not even amount to a rounding error on Amgen's financial statements). Endurance sports fans think Amgen is nothing more than a "legal Balco." Such sentiment can be found on the message board of the popular distance running site let's run.
Amgen needs to combat this ignorance and is correct in perceiving it as an image problem for their company. They are correct in trying to do something about it. Sponsoring the Tour of California was a good idea. But, the bungling of last year's EPO tests should have taught them why cycling is such a mess, and is dragging them down too.
This issue is too important for Amgen to give more money to bureaucrats and hope they fix it. Amgen needs to take the lead.
Sponsor Tailwind!
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