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I still maintain that the issue in most other spots is likely to be far less significant.

Its a distraction.

Psychologists have a model for how we deal with traumatic news. There are 4 stages and each has to be gone through. The first is denial - well, we've been there for years! The second is "self justification" - stuff like "what about all the other sports" and "don't they know how hard bike racing is?". From there we get more positive with "exploration" and finally "acceptance". I don't think we've got to exploration yet - having a look at the brave new world on the other side!

Like I said before - there'll always be cheats, but it will be nice to get to a handful every season rather than every race!

Rob - why dope in football? More fitness = less tiredness at the end of the match = fewer mistakes = more wins. Arsnene Wegner's comments on the blood profile of some italian that had transfered to his team comes to mind here.

Other sports:

Track and Field: strength for the short events, same benifts as cycling for the longer ones. And we know doping is rife in track and field (Balco)

Baseball, American football and basketball - bulk/strength

Golf? Well, you wouldn't have though it but Tiger Woods has proved that being fit does help the game. Look at this: http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,,22 ... 13,00.html

Cross country skiing is rumored to be rife. Swimming - what about the chinese team?

The list goes on and on.

Where I do agree with you is that cycling is a dirty sport and always has been. I just don't think a lot of others are much better. Better fitness is always a benift, except in Darts, and where the margins being 1st and 5th are small but the rewards are large, there's a real advantage in cheating.

Phil -

but hold on; consensus is that most doping is at an individual, not team, level

Is there a consensus? My belief is that most doping in cycling is (or certainly was) organised by the teams. Look at Graeme Obree's comments on why the left his pro team.

I did say there were exceptions. Track and field, swimming, weight lifting and baseball get dreadful press just like us. I'd like to know what's going on in rowing. But in general in general we have to look in the mirror.

OK, I'll put it another way - saying that footy, basball and golf players are all doing it is not going to sort out our sport is it? Its our problem. We need to do our part by showing our displeasure and therefore applying pressure through the sponsors.

I agree that the issue of doping in other sports doesn't make doping in cycling any more acceptable, but I think if there was more acknowledgement of it then it may help the sport of cycling be a bit less defensive about it. Sometimes at the moment it feels like cycling's under attack in the media, when it should be doping that's under attack. I think Gerard Vroomen's comment is valid that at present, when doping controls work, the whole sport gets punished - and this isn't helpful.

Arthur - Obviously I don't know the true attitudes of the teams to doping, but it *appears* to have changed in the last few years - at least in a number of teams. Things like the Fuentes affair seem to be about individual riders making their own arrangements, although I'm sure some teams are more tolerant/supportive of this than others - one or two Spanish and Eastern European teams spring to mind...

'WADA President Dick Pound has asked German antidoping crusader Werner Franke to send him the documents which are said to show that Alberto Contador was a client of Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes.'

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