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Cross Country On the Doping Ropes?
posted (March 24, 2016)
Last week you heard from champion cyclist Byron Pope, who won't be riding in the Cross country because a blood test showed banned substances in his body. And while Pope came forward and made a public disclosure, another elite cyclist who also tested positive after the New Year's Classic has not. But he also won't be riding on Holy Saturday because of his positive test. Today we spoke with the president of the Cycling Association and a cycling lifer who weighed in on the specter of doping that hangs over the 88th Cross Country.

Deon Leslie, President of the Cycling Association
"The truth is, it's a process that when major races do happen and anti-doping is done, the federation we only request the anti-doping. Once it's done, it's the national anti-doping organization who take it from there. All the federation is done, we're informed whether the tests come back positive or whether it comes back negative, we're just formally informed by NADO. we don't really have any say even in the suspension if that rider is found with a substance in their body, we don't have anything about that, all we do is enforce a suspension handed down from the national body and from the regional body being WADA."

Emanuel Pech
"Two of those who were tested have been suspended as a result of the test results. Are there any more to your knowledge?"

Deon Leslie, President of the Cycling Association
"No, they are no more to our knowledge. Some riders were tested after that, there were some in season tests that were asked whereby the National Anti-Doping Agency and they did carry out some of the tests. The result have not come back as yet, so as of this moment, we are not aware of anything like that."

Santiago Castillo, Cycling Enthusiast
"I think more attention has to be paid to that, because as I understand, WADA did some out of competition testing recently and those results haven't come back yet and I wouldn't be surprised if one or two of those results may come back positive simply because as I've said, we don't pay attention to that in Belize. We might go to the drug store and 'give me two or those, I'll try one of that. I want to juice up correct for this race and I want to be able to survive that distance'. Maybe some of them it would be B12 they would be putting in their body along with other things but in some of that, there might be some that are on the WADA list. Once that pops up, they're considered to be doping."

Today we learned more about the other cyclist flagged for doping: Greg Lovell. National Security CEO George Lovell spoke about his son, Greg Lovell.

CEO George Lovell, Father of Suspended Cyclist
"We need to be a little bit more educated with what the anti-doping banned substances is all about. if you today would speak to 10 cyclists, just take a pool of cyclists, and ask what are 5 of the banned substances, and what are some of the things that you must avoid in order not to be proved positive with these things, I can tell you that you'd be surprised to see that majority of them don't have a clue."

Emanuel Pech
"What's the story that your son has been given in particular to his being flagged for doping?"

CEO George Lovell, Father of Suspended Cyclist
"Well, I would want to leave the comments up to the association because there was a hearing that they had and to his club. I don't ride with his club and so these things I normally leave up to them. My position on this, is that until such time that we address the whole issue of education on pharmaceutical, I think it will be something that will unfortunately plague a number of our cyclists and we must, at all costs, try to make sure that we prepare ourselves and athletes so that these type of things don't occur to them."

As we understand it, both cyclists - the second and third place finishers in the KREM New Year's Classic - have appeared before Regional Anti-Doping Organization - and now it is only left for NADO, the National Organization to announce the length of their suspensions.

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