Beware the whistle blower

Leaks themselves will never be eliminated and so long as there is someone to protect the source, they may never be discovered, either, writes Anthony Tan.

Before we deplore L'Equipe and its "index of suspicion" story in question as tabloid muck, as the UCI did post-haste in its vain attempt to flick-pass blame onto others, is this fundamentally much different from WikiLeaks publishing thousands of confidential cables on internal discussions between international diplomats and videos that show innocent civilians gunned down in cold blood?

WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, has become something of an anti-hero for publishing information he considered in the public interest; information that was handed to him. Meanwhile the US government has condemned his actions, largely on the basis that national security has been breached and the welfare of its armed forces has been compromised, together with an equally apocryphal rape claim.

The bittersweet truth is that leaks will never cease to exist.

There will always be someone who reaches a tipping point, where their ideals - that range from morality to voyeurism - clash with those of their employer and become a burden too heavy to bear alone. And despite what they've been told and trained to do, they act: in some cases out of the public's right to know; in others out of pure self-interest with an ulterior motive in mind, not caring a hoot for the consequences - which can often be more damaging than the leak.

Over the course of my career in journalism, I have experienced many instances where a person is prepared to talk but only on the condition that their name be withheld. One story that comes to mind is Wire in the blood (article here), a two-month-long investigation of mine into American rider Tyler Hamilton's final appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for blood doping, an appeal he ultimately lost. My source in the story, a high-ranking medical official at the UCI, showed, on the condition of anonymity, how anti-doping protocols at the time soon led to Hamilton being marked as a rider of interest, and inevitably, as someone that had, beyond reasonable doubt, engaged in a perilous game of blood manipulation.

Once I had established my source was telling the truth, and that it was fit for publication, it becomes my duty to protect the source. I'm quite certain the author of the May 13 article in L'Equipe, Damien Ressiot, famous for his 2005 exposé on Lance Armstrong following that year's Tour de France, knows the source of the leak, but it is now his duty to protect him or her.

Is the actual list of names, teams and nations (the latter two indices created by L'Equipe itself deplorable?

I can't provide a definitive answer to that question; it depends on the science used and the methodology. But when you're trying to keep a watchful eye on those competing in the World Tour – ProTeam riders alone account for some 500 men – a list of who to monitor more closely makes sense, whether it be due to naturally-occurring fluctuations in blood and urine values, or circumstantial evidence of doping. It is only logical that anti-doping experts devote greater time to those persons whose values are more volatile than others.

However while I don't condemn the list per se, the leak is not good for how cycling is perceived.

Since we do not know the methodology or science behind it, it is impossible to say how robust a tool or measure it is, though Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme told AFP it was "certainly a bonus in the fight against doping". It casts aspersions of doubt on clean riders, clean teams and clean nations, especially since many would equate riders categorised between '6-10' – where, according to the annotations in the list procured by L'Equipe, circumstantial evidence of doping is "overwhelming" – as guilty as charged, and those ranked '5' as borderline dopers.

But if the circumstantial evidence is indeed overwhelming, why has the UCI not prosecuted these cases? Was the sheer number of cases on the 'to do list' overwhelming in itself, leading to an exasperated member of the UCI or WADA (before last Friday's story, the only two organisations with a copy of the list) to leak the file?

It seems that the UCI's dual functions of promotion and governance raise ongoing conflicts of interest, and on an all-too-regular basis. Back in February, the chief executive of the US Anti-Doping Agency, Travis Tygart, told the New York Times it was like "the fox watching the henhouse".

"At this point, it's frankly difficult to both promote and police your own sport," Tygart told the NYT. "There's this natural tension when the sport attempts to police itself of enforcing firmly and fairly the rules versus the other interest, which is to promote and raise revenue for the sport."

Follow Anthony on Twitter: @anthony_tan