The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

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Trecker off base on Beke
Editor:
I wanted to reply to Mike Trecker's comments about Belgian triathlete Rutger Beke's overturned doping offense. (See Thursday’s Mailbag: "Repeat until caught, then lie"). Mr. Trecker makes it seem that Beke was guilty, found a loophole, and now seeks compensation. In truth, after doping control tests showed him to have a high level of EPO in his system, Beke went through exhaustive physiological testing which finally determined that he produces a naturally high level of EPO and can therefore test positive under the WADA protocol. Even the French lab that developed the test has confirmed his innocence, according to a statement on Beke's website. His lawsuit is an attempt to re-coup the costs to proving his innocence.

Mark Steckel
London, Ontario, Canada

Don’t condemn without facts
Editor:
I read with dismay the letter from Mike Trecker concerning Belgian triathlete Rutger Beke. While the comment that he failed the EPO test twice is true, Mr Trecker forgets to mention that he was acquitted after it was found he was producing the proteins detected by the test without the use of EPO. How sad it is that people are so ready to condemn others without regard to the facts.

Jim Robson
Sunderland, United Kingdom

Science strips drama from cycling
Editor:
Not only has doping taken away from the reputations of the sport and the riders, the current clinical approach to sports has also removed much of the drama. Today's athletes are so well attended to (whether through legal or illegal means) that recovery from day to day is almost guaranteed for a top endurance athlete.

Maybe its my faded memories, but there seemed to be much greater swings in day-to-day performances, and the accompanying drama, when athletes were not attended to like test-tube subjects. I remember the excitement when Stephen Roche had to make a superhuman effort to recover time from Jean François Bernard in one Tour's mountain stage. It was a calculated gamble with a rest day to follow without which Roche's Tour chances would probably have been put in severe jeopardy.

In some ways stage racing has become more like watching robots compete, with only a crash or bad luck able to seriously alter a race's outcome. Today's endurance athletes are often referred to as "machines." I just wish it all seemed a little more human...

John Crowley
North Vancouver, British Columbia

What’s so bad about the UN joining dope war?
Editor:
Perhaps it is merely my left leg jerking, but there seems to be something amiss in Bob Weidler's letter. UNESCO wrote and proposed the treaty. It is not effective until it is enacted by individual nations. My reading of the UNESCO site seems to indicate that the UN would not handle enforcement, as Mr. Weidler seems to indicate.

Consistent enforcement at all levels of some form of rules relating to doping seems to be a good idea. The treaty, if enacted by the countries, would attempt to do this so that the particular restrictions, testing standards and penalty would be the same no matter where or when the vampire chose to alight and suck some blood.

William E. Lloyd, Jr.
Beverly Hills, California

Radical political opinions unwelcome
Editor:
It would be nice if we could keep radical political opinions out of the cycling press. (I presume the gentleman writing the letter was referring to the UNESCO initiative against doping, which can only be a good thing, if it encourages governments to get involved in the prevention of doping among youth and amateur athletes.) Psychopathic ranting about the evils of the United Nations is unwelcome on these pages as far as I am concerned.

W. Rotsel
Lake Orion, Michigan

Um, may we assume that your political opinions are exempt from this restriction? –Editor

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The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.