Monday’s Mailbag: Our conversation with Pound

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

“I don’t want my kids or my grandchildren to have to considerbecoming chemical stockpiles in order to be good at sport, just becausethere are a bunch of sociopaths out there doing the same thing. “

That being said, I didn’t find anything in the interview that convincedme that the australian blood doping test is problem free. Tyler’s casestill seems far from open and shut to me, and I’m hoping he’ll
eventually be cleared.Thanks again for giving the doping issue the attention it needs.Rob Roeder
Austin, TexasDue process?
Dear VeloNews,
I found your interview of WADA head Dick Pound to be very fascinatingreading (see “VeloNewsInterview: WADA’s Dick Pound“). While I think he definitely hashis heart in the right place, there are a few flaws in the whole drug testingsystem that heconveniently neglects to mention.Pound says:

“If you’re charged with a doping offense, you’re entitled tofull knowledge of the charges and what the facts are and you have the opportunityto be represented and to make your case. But, that said, I don’t thinkit’s a criminal offense and you don’t have the benefit of having someonehave to prove a case beyond all reasonable doubt…”When you are charged with a doping offense, you get a fair trial andwhatever the outcome is, the outcome is.”

How convenient… for him. So the burden of proof of innocence ison the individual cyclist, fighting with his personal resources againstan organization with literally millions of dollars to throw at him andan
overwhelming political interest in seeing him declared guilty? Thelast time I read anything about the Hamilton case, Tyler had not been givenfull knowledge of the charges and what the facts are. Has the UCI now releasedfull details of the tests conducted so that he can prepare his defense?Then again, what exactly is sufficient proof to Pound? He mentions nothingabout setting concrete standards for such proof of doping beyond a positivetest. Are these tests really reliable? Apparently we re just supposed totrust him that they are. Meanwhile, he has made – and continues to make- prejudicial statements regarding the Hamilton case. And that is the reallyserious problem here. He talks as if this case has already been decidedlong before the supposedly fair hearing he talks about therider getting. He makes it clear that the important goal to him is gettingguilty verdicts. The rights of the individual riders are of strictly secondaryimportance.I find it ironic that Pound makes such critical comments regarding collectivebargaining in American sports, because such treatment of athletes as piecesof property without rights is one of the big reasons
that American athletes ended up organizing in the first place.Dave Kraus
Schenectady, New YorkStraight shooter
Dear Editors:
Great interview with Dick Pound!! I was fascinated.Like him or not, its Dick Pound, with his convictions, and no nonsenseapproach, and people like him, that will bring credibility back to cycling.There is hope for our sport!David Anderson
St Paul, MinnesotaGood responses
Dear VeloNews,
I read your letters column regularly and am heartened by some of yourcorrespondents’ reactions to the interview with Dick Pound.It gives me some confidence that there may be some light at the endof the tunnel with the issue of cheating in sport, particularly after thehuge evidence of a state of denial within the cycling community witnessedin this column in the last couple of months.Steve Webster
Brisbane, AustraliaGive credit where credit is due
Dear VeloNews,
While I generally enjoyed the interview with Dick Pound, I was surprisedat his apparent lack of knowledge about recent steps taken by the U.S.congress and the Bush administration to combat doping:

“Well, it’s been a busy year, hasn’t it? But the point is thathe’s now on record. That means something.”

On October 22, 2004, President Bush signed the AnabolicSteroid Control Act of 2004 into law. This law has closed a loopholein Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 that allowed manyathletes access to hormonal supplements for non-medical uses. Specifically,it reclassifies some over-the-counter “supplements” as controlled substances,placing them in the same legal classification as cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines.Now arguably this will do little more than push the really desperatedopers to black-market sources. At a minimum the dope catching netshave been spread a little bit wider. Hopefully this is only one of manysteps to be taken.Rob Cowart
Friedberg GermanyI like the Sheriff
Dear Editor,
I just read the full interview with Pound on VN.com. Glad that guyis there doing his job.He is realist in a position that takes a realistic, no BS person. IfTyler Hamilton is innocent, let him prove the WADA wrong. So far,their evidence is very strong. Keep up the good work (both VN and Pound)!!Glenn P. Davis
Mays Landing, New JerseyBut a hypo’ on the cover?
Dear VeloNews,
I know that drugs are a big part of pro sports and I don’t want topretend that it isn’t a problem but a hypodermic needle on the cover ofVeloNews?I could ramble on about how wrong that is and why it shouldn’t be thefocus of a cycling publication but I won’t. I will say that cycling givesa lot more time to the drug issue than other sports do. I don’t want toput my head in the sand and pretend everyone is clean but I also don’twant drugs to be the main story. The dopers get as much coverageas the clean riders.I know that there’s not much cycling to talk about now so it makes forgood filler but put it by the velomarket in the back not on the cover.Why isn’t it Jonathan Page or Katie Compton on the cover? They just wonthe ntional cyclo-ross titles for mud sake!Justin Maines
Boise, IdahoMore than one source of DNA
Velo,
In your latest issue, you discuss briefly the issue of Tyler Hamilton’srequest to use DNA testing to evaluate his positive samples. WADA’s responseis that blood is not a good source of DNA because red blood cells don’thave nuclei. Red cells lack nuclear DNA, but they have mitochondrialDNA that is routinely used to type forensic blood samples.This testing could be done on all of Mr. Hamilton’s samples, includingthe frozen B sample from the Olympics (flow cytometry requires live cells,this testing does not).Assuming Tyler is paying the bill, not allowing him to have these testsdone is exactly the same as denying a convicted criminal a chance to beexonerated by DNA evidence. Which is worse? Allowing a cheater to escapejustice, or making an erroneous judgment against an honest person?John M. Salmon IV, M.D.
Pathology Consultants of Central Virginia
Lynchburg, Virgina

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