risk reward will never change the natural skew. The prize and rewards are nearly the same. The tests are god easy to beat. There are a few categories of dopers, and always will be. Perhaps the domestiques might back off. But we are talking the "winners" category. That doping category, competes with itself. The rewards are close to zero sum. (OK, Wiggo's endorsement deals might suffer a little because of Armstrong), and the "winners" will always be competing against their own category of dopers, for the rewards pie, and dividing up those rewards between themselves. Only changes if there is a material level of domestiques who back off completely and ride clean, and do the 200km in the wind everyday on their lonesome at the front of the peloton (on bread and water)Cycling has to clean up its act otherwise I think there is a good chance the 2013 TdF will be abandoned. It's now out of McQuaid's control, he is on borrowed time now. Give it a couple of months and McQuaid and Verbruggen will be gone from cycling and perhaps even facing criminal charges.
It is no longer profitable for the UCI to put up a front when it comes to doping. If they continue to do so all the sponsors will leave and cycling will become a nothing sport. It's now at the point were its beneficial to the bottom line that they do have a strong anti-doping policy (a legit one).
No doubt, riders and team officials are sh***ing themselves right now. The list of riders implicated in doping will continue to increase and the sponsors will have no choice but to sack anyone with a past association to doping. The publics had enough, the sponsors have had enough and hell the riders have had enough, its game over for McQuaid and his buddies at the UCI.
The reality is we will never have a clean tour but I'm confident that the inevitable transformation cycling has to undergo will result in a much cleaner sport, in which the risk-reward ratio of doping will be evened significantly. I genuinely do believe the 2013 tour is going to be one of the cleanest professional races (of all sports) next year and one of the cleaner ones in its 100 year history.
The TdF always will exist as the best and cheapest tourism campaign ever concocted.