Cleaning up

The spectre of drugs still looms large in cycling Keystone Archive

The Tour de Suisse should offer the world of cycling a welcome diversion following the doping scandal that rocked this month's Giro d'Italia. Not that the organisers of the Swiss event plan to duck the drugs issue.

“The raid in Italy had no effect at all on our own preparations,” Tour de Suisse organiser told swissinfo. “We didn’t get any negative comments from either our partners or our sponsors. The only negative effect was that Italy’s Dario Frigo was one of the riders due to take part this week and now he’s been suspended.”

Biver admits though that the massive Italian raid, in which hundreds of police officers removed allegedly illegal substances from riders’ hotel rooms, has delivered another blow to the sport of cycling in general.

“But I’m convinced in the long term,” he adds, “that these checks and the preventative measures brought in by the UCI (cycling’s world governing body) will improve the sport, and that in a couple of years we will have clean riders and a change of mentality.”

Although the net effect of the Giro raid may, in the end, improve cycling’s image, Biver shares the UCI’s misgivings about the way in which the Italian police chose to act.

In Switzerland the police do not have the powers to carry out pre-emptive raids in the manner of their Italian counterparts, and Biver for one is glad they don’t.

“I think, in the future, the human dignity of the athletes should be respected,” Biver argues. “You can’t just run into a cyclist’s room and check his luggage. And even if you agree with having 400 policemen interrupting a sporting event, why is it only cycling that gets this treatment?”

The arguments over how best to tackle doping are not likely to be resolved in the immediate future, but it’s hoped that a clean Tour de Suisse can play some part in restoring the sport’s reputation.

by Mark Ledsom