How to Tackle Doping?
July 19, 2007
A new doping scandal involving German T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz led politicians Thursday to question not only the public financing of cycling but of sports in general.
"Public funds are being more than just questioned," said Peter Danckert, head of the German parliament's sports committee. "That applies to cycling in general and for other types of sports as well."
Germany two largest publicly funded broadcasters, which have the German rights to live Tour de France broadcasts, stopped their coverage of the event Wednesday.
In a joint statement ARD and ZDF said they would not be resuming their coverage of the Tour "until clarification of the Patrik Sinkewitz case." About a million Germans are estimated to have been following the competition live on TV.
"It's a warning to cycling and to every other sport," ZDF chief producer Nikolaus Brender said.
Does scandal extend beyond cycling?
Meanwhile, the director of Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (rbb) said that there could be implications for other sports after the decision taken by the ARD and ZDF.
"These decisions could also follow suit for other sports. One can not really imagine that doping is restricted to cycling," Dagmar Reim said.
Uwe Schulz, manager of Association of German Cycle Racing Organizers, said cutting funds and stopping coverage of events where many innocent athletes also compete "is not an effective way to fight against doping in sports."
Private sponsors waiting till end of Tour to make decisions
T-Mobile, which sponsor's the team most directly involved in the doping allegations, would be reconsidering its sport sponsoring program at the next supervisory board meeting, deputy board chairman Ado Wilhelm told Thursday's daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.
T-Mobile Communications Director Christian Frommert, however, said German broadcasters -- and the public -- should wait for results from Sinkewitz's second blood test before passing judgment on the team.
"No one is served by making hasty conclusions," he said, adding that meetings with the team's riders, coaches and management would take place after the race's conclusion.
Gerolsteiner, a German beverage company that sponsors another Tour de France team, also said it would wait until August to decide whether to continue sponsoring cycling, chief spokesperson Stefan Göbel said.
Tour punished for investigating
The Tour de France's parent company, Amaury Sports Organization, said the German broadcasters were placing blame at the wrong people's feet, according to company CEO Patrice Clerc.
"The Tour de France is being sanctioned, but should we sanction an event that is actually doing its best to weed out drugs cheats?" Clerc told reporters. "Cheats are being found, and German TV is playing the 'empty chair' policy. If we don't look for banned substances, we won't find them.
"A lot of sports don't look for anything. We've decided to take another attitude, we're fighting against doping - and we're being sanctioned because cheats are being found! Maybe German TV expects us not to track them down."
The high cost of doping
Former head of Germany's Cycling Federation Sylvia Schenk, however, said broadcasters were right to interrupt their coverage.
"Doping costs a lot of money," she said in an interview with rbb on Thursday. "It's money that sponsors and broadcasters bring to the sport. Obviously you have to take the money out to make people think and to take away the financial possibility to dope."
Sinkewitz has denied accusations of using testosterone or other doping agents to enhance his performance. He has been suspended pending the results of a second blood test and is already back in Germany after dropping out of the Tour Sunday due to a collision with a spectator,
If Sinkewitz's second blood sample also comes back positive, T-Mobile team boss Bob Stapleton said he would fire the rider immediately. The team dismissed Jan Ullrich shortly before the 2006 Tour de France for his alleged involvement in a doping scandal, and other riders for T-Mobile, including 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis and Erik Zabel, have admitted to doping.
"Our stance is that we encourage targeted testing, out of competition testing. It's consistent with our view that if you don't do the right thing you get caught and suffer the consequences," added Stapleton. "When cycling cleans itself up, this kind of thing happens."