2011 Vuelta result revision

[Brucey]

Juan Jose Cobo has been found to have 'anomalies' in his 2009-2011 biological passport and has (subject to an appeal) been stripped of his 2011 Vuelta win. Should the appeal be unsuccessful then it means that Chris Froome, currently flat on his back in hospital, wins a bike race that happened nearly eight years ago. I think he'd probably trade it for a chance to ride the 2019 tour right now.

Where will it all end?

cheers

[mattheus]

How long did Armstrong's titles last until he was stripped of them? It was similar, wasn't it?

There are possibly more examples of this from Olympic track (& no doubt other disciplines). Every few months a Russian or African medallist seems to lose a medal - which then gets posted onto someone else. Generally a plucky Brit in the cases that reach our press.

Where do you draw the line? On the one hand, you don't want to give the message that cheats are "safe" after their crime's Expiry Date - but as I think Brucey is implying, it starts to feel a bit bonkers for really old titles. My gut feeling is that the UCI should declare a line-in-the-sand; races could have No Winner, or an asterisk by the winner's name; everyone that matters would know they'd cheated. 10 years? <gallic shrug>

There doesn't seem to be a satisfactory obvious solution - I think some sport would have found one by now, if there was

[De Sisti]

Goldie Sayers to receive a bronze medal from the 2008 Olympics that she was cheated out of.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/48607017

[rjb]

So Froomdog gets the 2011 Vuelta win then has to hand back his 2017 win for a similar issue with excess Salbutamol use. Where will it all end.

[mjr]

How long did Armstrong's titles last until he was stripped of them? It was similar, wasn't it?

His results from 1998 were invalidated in 2012, so 14 years, so 6 years longer than this one.

In that case, the races were declared to have no winner, as you suggest. As I understand it, that was mainly because it was felt unsafe because the potential winners were not tested to anything like the current level, so no winner was "thus avoiding all polemics as to the credibility of eventual winners" according to the French Federation of Cycle-sport. The prize money was redirected to youth cycling projects.

[mjr]

So Froomdog gets the 2011 Vuelta win then has to hand back his 2017 win for a similar issue with excess Salbutamol use. Where will it all end.

I've not heard about the 2017 situation changing. Where's that reported, please? It's not on http://www.cyclingnews.com/riders/christopher-froome/

[reohn2]

What's the alternative?

[mattheus]

So Froomdog gets the 2011 Vuelta win then has to hand back his 2017 win for a similar issue with excess Salbutamol use. Where will it all end.

I've not heard about the 2017 situation changing. Where's that reported, please? It's not on http://www.cyclingnews.com/riders/christopher-froome/

Seems like a major omission.

[mig]

what happens with the prize money?

[mattheus]

Are you BIG mig??

[mig]

Are you BIG mig??

ssshhhh!!!

solo responde la pregunta

[belgiangoth]

Where do you draw the line? On the one hand, you don't want to give the message that cheats are "safe" after their crime's Expiry Date - but as I think Brucey is implying, it starts to feel a bit bonkers for really old titles. My gut feeling is that the UCI should declare a line-in-the-sand; races could have No Winner, or an asterisk by the winner's name; everyone that matters would know they'd cheated. 10 years? <gallic shrug>

If you rode clean and were cheated out of a win, the least they could do is award you the win when a cheater is caught. You've still lost out on the money, contracts, job safety ... 100 years later and it would still be the right thing to do.

[Cyril Haearn]

Why do people call him 'froomdog'?
Having no winner is an interesting idea, matches the "amateur" ethos

[Tangled Metal]

This would make Froome the first UK GT winner ahead of Wiggins. Oh I'd love that justice. Afterall I suspect Froome was the stronger cyclist when Wiggins won his TdF.

Armstrong's wins should never be redistributed because it was a dirty decade for the sport and it was unlikely they'd know how far down the GC you had to go to get a clean rider. Long after that time some big names were DS for prominent teams who had to disappear due to drug issues coming up after the event AIUI. The DS not the team that is.

[Brucey]

Giving one of Armstrong's TdFs to someone who (say) came fifth (and simply didn't have many samples taken at the time) doesn't make very good sense; going the other way you could take blood samples from every rider, every day, and keep them for retrospective testing (i.e. years later) and then you might stand a chance of demonstrating that riders were (or were not) 'drug free' to some current and agreed standard, with retrospective penalties to match. But as well as the logistics of actually doing this, at any time there are 'drugs', 'medicines' and 'unknowns'; the boundaries between these are to be defined and argued over.

It is a bit of a mess.

cheers