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Operacion Puerto investigation, uncovered in 2006 a homologous blood doping ring based in the Madrid offices of Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes. Linking bags of stored blood to over two-hundred athletes in European football, tennis and cycling, the investigation revealed that no stone will be left unturned by the unsavory characters of sport in their quest for illicit potential. Even Gatlin, after successfully appealing his two-year ban and returning to his sport to claim Olympic gold and equal Asafa Powell's world record in the one-hundred meter dash, is now serving an eight-year ban from the track after cooperating with authorities in the wake of testing positive for excessive testosterone levels.

Cycling and other international sports, however, are doing everything they can to combat the scourge of doping in their sport. Cycling especially has done more than any other sport over the past four decades to curb the use of otherwise-legitimate pharmaceuticals to illicitly enhance athletes' performance. The UCI and World Anti-Doping Agency, in cooperation with national federations, conducts thousands of urine and blood analyses on professional cyclists each month for over two-hundred banned substances. Understandably, some athletes slip through the cracks as the science of doping advances faster than the science of drug detection. At the same time that the UCI was taking a proactive stance, though, Major League Baseball and other American sports were naively standing by as their representatives on the playing field turned into bodybuilding monstrosities.

Now, the UCI has requested that its athletes sign a pledge which would bind them to full disclosure of any positive results, their full cooperation in providing DNA samples to cross-examine with the blood confiscated from Fuentes in Operacion Puerto, and the payment of a fine equivalent to a year's salary toward the fight of doping if found guilty of themselves committing a doping offense. In addition, individual teams such as T-Mobile, Unibet.com and CSC have implemented in-house doping controls and independent testing of their riders above and beyond the sanctioned tests of the UCI and WADA. In contrast, Major League Baseball only made amphetamines legal this season, nearly forty years after pitcher Jim Bouton revealed their widespread use in his 1970 expose "Ball Four".

It is easy for American audiences and sports news outlets to criticize events like the Tour de France for the reprehensible actions of some athletes. It is much harder to turn a critical eye to those athletes whom a majority of audiences see every day on the baseball diamond or football field. The real problem with doping lies with the organizations which police athletes. And, in this respect, at least international organizations are making a concerted effort to curb the use of performance-enhancing drugs. And, while their draconian policies might sometimes unjustly unseat an athlete's career, the intentions of the sanctioning body are at least couched in noble intentions. Most American sports seem content to watch unnatural feats on the field, waiting to make examples of certain athletes to protect its chosen stars. The hypocrisy of criticizing certain sports for their disclosure of positive results while glorifying other sports who willfully cloak their cheaters does little to solve the real problem of performance enhancement across all athletic competition.

Learn more about this author, Zach Bigalke.
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