unethical
Sorry for breaking my usual
Monday – Thursday – Monday routine, but there’s something I just have to get
off my chest.
The UK Government has published
its select committee’s report into the Sky Professional Cycling Team, and its
somewhat surprising administration of certain medicines to 2012 Tour de France
winner Sir Bradley Wiggins.
Bradley did nothing wrong by the
rules of the sport. He took a drug that,
although performance enhancing in nature, is allowable with a therapeutic use
exemption (TUE).
So, no problem then?
The report recognises this
fact. But it’s more damning in its
assault on Bradley’s and the team’s ethics.
And I agree with the report’s comments here.
Cycling, along with many other
sports, has problems with competitors breaking the rules to gain an
advantage. The Sky team, however,
promised a brand-new approach with transparency at its core and an absolute
zero tolerance approach to drug taking.
For me, that approach meant that
their riders would not be taking any performance enhancing medicines. None.
And if they had to take some sort of supplement, within the rules, then
that would be made public. That, to me
at least, is what transparency means.
Also, I would have thought that scrupulous record keeping would be an
important component part of their approach.
How could they guarantee transparency otherwise? How?
Yet, Bradley’s use of a TUE was
made public by a hacker – not the team.
And the origin and contents of a package delivered to the team during an
important race cannot be traced.
This is quite simply just not
good enough, especially for a team promising what Sky promises. And, additionally with the recent Chris
Froome “incident”, for me and many other cycling fans I would assume their promises
lie broken in tatters in the dust.
So, to return to ethics.
The team has quite clearly and unequivocally
broken its own code. But perhaps that’s
not surprising in a sport where money from success is the main motivating
factor. That needs to change. And fast.
Teams have a duty to look after their riders. They have a duty of care. They have to have ethics and morals beyond
reproach. Or we’re going to return to
the dark days of EPO and fit young professional athletes dying in their sleep.
Dream on.
Unfortunately $$$ trumps everything in this day and age.....sad but true. :(
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