Tag: doping

The landmark Cycling Independent Reform Commission (Circ) Report has heavily criticised the sport’s leadership during the 1990s and 2000s in its 227-page report. Whilst it broadly cleared the International Cycling Union bosses of ‘outright corruption’ it pulls no punches when it comes to highlighting a damning range of failings including the effective turning of a blind eye to all but the most serious of doping offences. The report, compiled at a cost of over £2m by chairman Dr Dick Marty and two vice-chairs – Professor Ulrich Haas and Peter Nicholson – specifically highlights preferential treatment of Lance Armstrong.

Other findings, the result of interviews with over 170 people including riders and anti-doping experts, included the fact that the use of ‘weight-loss drugs, experimental medicine and powerful painkillers’ is widespread, that doping in amateur cycling remains ‘endemic’ and that other, non-drug related, forms of cheating relating to equipment is still on the rise.

The current UCI president Brian Cookson, who took office in 2013 largely on a clean-sweep and zero-tolerance ticket, responded to the report by saying, ‘It is clear that in the past the UCI suffered severely from a lack of good governance with individuals taking crucial decisions alone. Many (of these decisions) undermined anti-doping efforts; put the UCI in an extraordinary position of proximity to certain riders; and wasted a lot of its time and resources in open conflict with organisations such as the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada).’

The full Cycling Independent Reform Commission Report can be read here.

Lance Armstrong has told the Daily Mail newspaper that former UCI (International Cycling Union) president Hein Verbruggen not only knew about his doping but helped to cover his tracks. The Texan – who was stripped of his numerous titles including seven Tour de France wins after finally confessing to a lifetime of cheating – told the newspaper’s Sportsmail section that Verbruggen aided him in avoiding a ban back in 1999 by agreeing to lay the blame for a positive test on a prescription for a steroid cream to treat saddle sores which was then backdated.

Armstrong’s latest salvo naturally contradicts Verbruggen’s version of events who continues to deny any wrongdoing – in a letter to the UCI earlier this month which marked the end of his tenure as ‘honorary president’ he wrote: ‘I have never acted inappropriately and my conscience is absolutely clean… With the benefit of hindsight, however, I admit that I could have done some things differently, but I do not accept that my integrity is in doubt.’

Armstrong, of course, is trying to fight his way out of a corner and clearly holds no elegance to the former heads of the sport’s governing body despite the prospect of being part of a ‘truth and reconciliation’ process initiated by incoming president Brian Cookson – cooperation holds the potential of his lifetime ban being reduced to as little as eight years. But speaking to Sportsmail he said emphatically, ‘I’m not going to lie to protect these guys. I hate them. They threw me under the bus. I’m done with them.’