That was amazing! Did you just see that!?!? Can you believe what just happened!

In most sports these exclamations are what you want to hear. They get you excited, your eyes glued to the sight, awe growing with each replay. In most sports the unexplainable simply has no explanation. In cycling on the other hand, the impossible is too often easily explained, again and again. But unlike most articles looking at the credibility crisis in cycling this one does not blame doping, dopers, or omerata. Instead, credibility (or lack of), doping, and dopers are concidered together as symptoms of a greater problem; lack of a real name.

First cycling can not win by fighting a biotech war. I’m not saying testing is worthless. But how can you reconcile the claims of a race promoter that testing is making a significant difference with the opinions of a PhD, respected enough enough to get published in the gold standard journal Nature, who calls the current anti-doping system garbage . Worse yet is Phil and Paul’s speculative ”analysis.” What reassurance is there in riders looking tired and collapsing apropriately at the end of a stages. Did these guys forget that before they saw the Look they were completely sold on the Bluff.  And granted Ricco isn’t a beacon of honesty, but his recent sound bite rings just a little too true “During the Tour they took a lot of samples (from me), they made 10 tests in about 13 stages, two were positive and in fact in theory all the tests should have been positive therefore the method needs to be checked.” I know he’s not asking a rhetorical question but his quote actually reads better if you take it that way. What’s the point of testing if its method can prove the absence of cheating?

And what about Ricco? Is he really the one-off nutter as would be convenient to think? Its easy to write off would-be hero’s as villians. Its just as easy as it was to call them losers when they couldn’t live up to expectations. But now our hero’s have declared themselves human, unable to perform with robotic consistency. Fair enough. But if they are allowed to have bad days on the bike then is it really that suprising that they might have bad days off the bike as well?. In Ricco I actually don’t see much Pantani (sorry buddy). To me the likeness is much closer to that of a young David Millar the current poster-child of doping reform.

When Ricco did own up his thoughts were with his team and teamates. Of course he let them down, but didn’t his team fail him as well?

Question, what team did Ricco ride for? Saunier-Duval you said? No that was their sponsor who is long gone. The team still exists at least for now. But with Saunier-Duval gone I don’t even know what to call them. Essentially, like all pro teams at the moment they exist anonymously behind the banner of their sponsors. Teams like the team formerly known as Saunier-Duval frequently dissappear when faced with scandal. But because of their anonymity they have been able to slap on new labels and reemerge leaving behind their baggage and their past. 

Which brings me to the point of this rant. Teams need real names.

Skeptical that something as simple as a name can be at the heart of cycling’s difficulty?

Let’s compare two top teams with similar histories Astana and Team Columbia. Both teams were at the epicenter of Operation Puerto the worst doping scandal in cycling to date. Both teams have histories of probable systematic doping programs. Last year both teams underwent near complete restructuring of riders and staff. T Mobile was reborn as High Road and then Columbia while Liberty Seguros/Astana stayed as Astana. New name Columbia with promissing though unproven riders gets the Tour de France invite and becomes a media darling as one of the new generation of clean-teams. Astana, despite now having the previous year’s Tour de France champion and the same stringent internal anti-doping program, was left with its old name on the sidelines.

What Astana is going through is important for them as a team. They are forced to rebuild their name organically and earn their credibility. And if they succeed in redeeming their name it will stand for more than just a sponsor paycheck.

Recently a name had emerged in cycling that carried credibility. The name stood out because it meant something, it stood for clean cycling. (sorry High Road your name was never around long enough to prove itself). Now this team goes by the name Garmin which stands for electronic gadget company.

Major media unanimously reported Slipsteam’s signing title sponsor Garmin as a victory for the anti-doping effort. It was a confirmation that clean cycling was worth something. I can’t help but worry that we missed the big story. The one about a team giving up their name and the worry of forgetting what it stood for.

Teams need real names, permanent ones that represent their identity. Their names need to be tied to their history, good and bad. Because without real names their word can only be as credible as their anonymous past.