Take That WADA! Alberto Contador Exonerated!

How now John Fahey, Pat McQuaid? The Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC) has just smashed the WADA code into oblivion: now you have no option but to appeal this insanity! The moniker of "strict liability" will vanish like a mirage if the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) does not salvage your sorry system! To allow Alberto Contador to race; without any punishment; after a positive test for a prohibited substance detected during a Grand Tour: Horrors! Athletes in every country everywhere will fabricate similar excuses and escape from the WADA gauntlet, um sonst!

UCI President Pat McQuaid has a big problem too. To appeal or not to appeal: that is the question. If the UCI does not appeal will the peloton turn into a shooting gallery where the most innovative methods in illegal performance enhancement prevail?

Yes, the Spanish love their man and they could not force themselves to find him guilty in spite of the evidence, much like the O.J. Simpson jury.

Remember the 2006 WADA executive meeting lamenting the fact that "wealthy" athletes spend inordinate amounts of money challenging "convincing laboratory results?" What an outdated notion! Now athletes spend nothing and win cases loaded with "convincing laboratory results!" Clenbuterol increases performance: clenbuterol was present in Alberto Contador's urine: clenbuterol is on the WADA prohibited list: these are convincing proofs! If WADA was less arrogant: invested more time and money into science and research: the plastic metabolites found in Alberto Contador's urine would have been convincing, not hypothetical bunk and speculation!

Indeed, my head spins over this decision. Compared to the brutal, draconian, treatment of past athletes; this is impossible to believe! The UCI must not allow this decision to stand or there will be an endless number of "contaminated food" arguments; and exoneration!

There is absolutely no reason to argue that doping in cycling is ongoing among a majority of riders. There is no reason to suppose that the total prevalence of doping within the peloton will ever reach more than one percent. But this decision by the RFEC will act as temptation; because riders will reason that the anti-doping establishment has loosened the reigns of vigilance and will allow provable violations to go unpunished if the excuses are imaginative enough.