November 3/12 22:46 pm - Beware - Doping Website Has No Verification

Posted by Editor on 11/3/12
 

We are sorry to admit that we were caught by 'doping' story that had no verification.  There is a website called sorryidoped.com that purportedly allows dopers to confess their sins .  There is just one problem - it does not do anything to ensure that the people confessing to their doping actions are the actual individuals named in the so-called confessions.

A case in point is Matt Guse, a Canadian road racer that raced in the mid-2000s, attending races such as Tour de Beauce.  A 'confession' was posted on this site, supposedly stating that he had doped.  We received feedback from a number of reliable sources on this posting and decided that we needed to report it - while we did state that we had no verification, we did not contact Mr Guse directly (we had no contact for him).

He did contact us to say that this was not posted by him, and was not true.  In his words "I had the chance to race some big races, went as far as I could, but wasn't good enough to go any further".  We removed the news piece immediately.  Subsequently, a so-called confession went up stating it was from Steve Bauer.

These sort of false statements are the worst thing that can be done to clean up the sport.  Not only do they taint the names of riders who have no connection with doping investigations, but they add to the impression that cycling is only made up of dopers - something that is not true.

We are ashamed to admit that we were caught by this falsehood, and urge everyone to be careful in what they read.

Rob Jones
Editor