International Pressure
Dumas had established tests could be conducted and wrote to Avery Brundage, the Games president. Brundage passed the letter to Prince Alexandre de Merode, a member of the Olympic committee in Belgium, who met Dumas and another campaigner, Dr André Dirix of Belgium. The minutes, and a petition by doctors from 14 nations, went to Brundage. Dumas told an international conference:
| “ | We could be reproached for accusing cycle racing above all. It would be a mistake. But we repeat that doping is most spectacular there. Accusations abound, whereas in other sports there are only so many noises made. | ” |
In 1965, Dumas quoted a report by "a national cycle coach":
| “ | Accidents are varied in their consequences but they all have as a starting point a momentary absence of self-control. This starts with the overexcited competitor who, at the finish of a race, runs wild in a manner that his defeat does not entirely justify. Or it is the winner who does not realise until several hours after his victory that he has won. I have also seen slobbering cyclists on the roadside, their mouths foaming. Ill-tempered, they kick their bikes to smash them, making disordered gesticulations. Another hits his head with a bottle of mineral water he has just been given. Yet another throws himself at the barrier and breaks it. This would be comical if it were not so important and pitiable. What can be said of a rider who, in a straight line and on a road 20 metres wide, leaves the road and crashes into a tree? He knocks himself black and blue, and this only a short while after putting his hand into his pocket for a little extra . | ” |
In that same year he began his campaign against soigneurs and team doctors, and riders who treated themselves. He asked riders to allow him to test them, promising secrecy. The results helped create the first doping law. The first routine examination of all sports in the Olympic Games started in Grenoble and Mexico in 1968.
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Famous quotes containing the word pressure:
“This is a catastrophic universe, always; and subject to sudden reversals, upheavals, changes, cataclysms, with joy never anything but the song of substance under pressure forced into new forms and shapes.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)