Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/970089
VOL. 55 ISSUE 15 APRIL 17, 2018 P137 less, he wasn't "cheating" and the penalty effectively ended his career. Now, it's Broc Tickle. And this time, he tested positive for meth- ylhexanamine, which used to be used in nasal decongestants. Nowadays, since ephedrine was banned by the U.S. government (and many others), it's used in place of ephedrine as a "natural" stimulant in sports supplements. Often, it's listed on these supple- ments (which, in the USA, are not subject to FDA regulation, due to some weird loophole that everyone refuses to fix) as "Ge- ranium Oil" or "Geranamine." Tickle tested positive way back on February 10 in San Di- ego, and I was standing outside the KTM hauler for a couple hours after the race waiting for him to return from his urinalysis that night (it often takes them a while to pee after a race, since they're often a bit dehydrated due to the exercise). He was upbeat and eating a sandwich as I interviewed him about his first top-five of the season. I very highly doubt he had any idea that it was even possible that he would fail that drug test (over two months later, to boot). So, here's where my simple- mindedness becomes an issue: In my way of thinking, if some- one says they want to solve Problem A, and they propose Solution B, then B had better address A. So, if the goal was to stop people from gaining an unfair advantage (aka: cheating) using drugs, WADA and the FIM would've picked out the spe- cific few substances that are by prescription only, and that give a competitive advantage (EPO, HGH, Testosterone). But it's not "gaining an unfair advantage" to take a supplement that anybody can buy and take. Testing for all of these ancilary substances can not result in a halt to "cheating," because using those substances isn't actually cheating in the first place. It's against the rules, but it's not "cheating." The thing is, rules, just like laws, are not self-justifying. Their very existence doesn't make them right. And frankly I'm con- vinced at this point that many of these substances are added to the banned-substances list sim- ply as a way for WADA to justify its own existence. If you'd like to follow me down this rabbit hole: WADA is big business. The CEO, according to Bloomberg, makes about $1.2 million per year. And if they go too long without catching any- body breaking the rules they set, it's conceivable that promoters and sanctioning bodies would decide it's not worth continuing to pay them all these exorbitant fees to test their athletes be- cause their athletes are obvi- ously "clean." That means their entire busi- ness model relies on catching athletes breaking their (often arbitrarily instituted) rules. And that's why, in my opinion, they're constantly adding new substanc- es to the "banned" list. They cast wider and wider nets to "catch" more and more athletes. This is how they justify their own income. But at some point, somebody has to step up and decide to do what's best for our sport, not what's best for WADA. The NFL, for example, has drug-testing, but the NFLPA plays a role in deciding which substances are allowed to be tested for. They don't test for everything. They test for specific things only. Supercross can do that, too. And it needs to. Because the minimum ban for anybody failing a WADA test (for any reason) is now four years. And in super- cross, that spells the end of Broc Tickle's racing career, over a supplement you or I could buy at GNC. I tell you what, you can give that supplement to anybody who finished behind Tickle that night at Petco Park, and there's no way it would make the differ- ence to beat him. If our choices are just "test for everything" or "don't test at all," I'd rather have the latter option. We haven't caught anybody for actually cheating anyway. At this point, this policy is consistently causing much more harm than good. Ban WADA. CN