Cycling Update: Just Who Are the CAS?

After almost two years the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has made their ruling about the positive doping test involving 2010 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador.

If you are like many cycling fans you have grown to hate the CAS. They always take way too long to reach a decision, and 99% of the time they will side with the UCI, professional cycling's governing body. The Contador case is another classic example of how poorly the professional sport of cycling is being handled by those running the sport.

In 2010's Tour de France, Contador tested positive for a banned substance. It was a small amount and wasn't in his sample the day before or the day after, but per the rules it did violate the doping standards and so it was passed on to the Spanish cycling federation to investigate and make a decision regarding Contador. By the end of 2010 the Spanish federation ruled that Contador was not at fault and would be granted a racing license for 2011. The UCI immediately appealed to the CAS and that's when the waiting began.

For a year we all watched as Contador competed and won, he won the 2011 Giro d'Italia. Now remember he did this while racing with a valid UCI license and never once failed any drug test in 2011. Still when the CAS made their rulling today they gave him a two year ban going back to his positive test in 2010 and so he had to be stripped of anything he won in 2011.

This has outraged the Spaniards of course sine their federation had cleared him and it has outraged the Giro d'Italia officials who had no choice but to let him compete since he had a valid UCI license. Everyone I know that follows cycling understood as soon as this was appealed to the CAS that Contador would lose and so much of last year was spent knowing that everything he did would eventually be erased. As a fan I'm not surprised by this ruling at all, but I'm bothered by it none the less.

The UCI has rules and regulations and sets up national bodies to oversee their sport. Yet on more than one occasion when the national body makes a ruling the UCI or other national bodies don't like it is appealed to the CAS. If you're going to setup a national body to oversee the sport, then it seems to me you have to trust the national bodies. If you think they are corrupt then revoke their licenses until they prove otherwise. The trick with professional cycling is that it requires corporate sponsors to survive. It's hard to keep corporate sponsors involved when decisions take two years and the bodies that you expect to make governing decisions can be so easily overruled.

Did Contador cheat, probably. Does this ruling prove he cheated, no. Even in the CAS ruling they said they could not prove he doped, it is only the most likely solution to how the materials got in his body. The Spanish Federation had taken that uncertainty and said we can't ban this rider and destroy his professional team simply because we think that's what happened. The CAS has time and again shown that they have no problem with what could've been instead of what was.

Lance Armstrong is very lucky he is not racing in today's world. The national federations have shown a desire to go after their rivals on doping allegations and I have no doubt that Armstrong would have been suspended at some point in his career in today's world. The federations now know that all they have to do is get their complaint in front of the CAS and 9 times out of 10 it is the rider which will lose. I wouldn't at all be surprised if after the US cycling federations makes a final ruling on the latest Armstrong allegation that another federal body will pick it up and go after him, just for spite.