Classics Corrections? With Rebellin CERA Positive, Will 2009 Classics Results Be Adjusted?

Just what cycling needed: another asterisk next to two of the biggest races of 2009. With Davide Rebellin's positive A sample for CERA at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a slew of questions need to be answered regarding races that Rebellin has raced in, and sometimes won, since his failed test. Beginning with that fateful Olympic road race performance, where Rebellin seemingly rode with courage and panache to a 2nd place finish, the results will now likely need to be amended to reward those riders who competed clean. If such a change is made, Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara would move up to the silver medal spot while Russia's Alexandr Kolobnev would move into the bronze spot. 

In looking at this season, there would be additional adjustments as well to the recently run hilly classics. Rebellin won the recent Fleche Wallonne classic over Andy Schleck, and if he were to be stripped of the title then the young Saxo Bank rider would be designated the winner of two of the three hilly classics. Damiano Cunego and Sammy Sanchez would round out the podium. For Liege-Bastogne-Liege Schleck would of course remain the winner, but the much maligned Lotto team would now have the third place finisher in Philippe Gilbert. It would be a huge, if anti-climactic, result for Belgium's second biggest cycling team.

Regardless of whether the results are changed for the above races is moot. If Rebellin's B sample comes back positive, it will have meant that each of the races will experience a case of "what if" regarding their outcome. How can the absence of a rider like Rebellin from a given race even be calculated. Similarly to past instances regarding retro-active adjustments to events in the sport of cycling (like the 1996 Tour de France win of Bjarne Riis), no good would come of the re-classification except for the individual athletes who were compromised by the results. In terms of knowing how the race would have turned out without Rebellin, we the cycling public will unfortunately never know.

In echoing other voices in cycling that have wondered why it takes so long to go forward with test, EP must ask the same question. Why now, halfway through the 2009 cycling season and nearly NINE MONTHS since the Olympics are we now finally notified of a positive doping test? Is there no way to speed up the process? If there is not, then those cheaters that win races will be looked at with scorn rather than admiration when they win a race. So far, the Tour de france has been the only organization who has been capable of delivering speedy test results. It would seem, with their limitless financial resources and expertise, that the Olympic and UCI governing bodies could do at least as good, if not better than the ASO. Thus far though that has not been the case. Cheaters have been able to continue to reap the rewards of their subversive choices, pulling the wool over the eyes of the collective cycling public.