I feel rather sorry for Lance Armstrong. That puts me into a minority group right away. There was a time, not that many years ago, when men who rode bikes for sport were almost unknown off the European continent. But not any more. Britain has moved to the forefront of bike racing on road and track. We now have a group of men and women who are among the best in the world and at the Olympics in Beijing and London we dominated the racing in the velodrome. Also, bike riding has been on the rise in both North America and in South America. And there are many top-rated riders from Australia — the 2011 Tour de France was won by Cadel Evans. But today no other rider has quite the world-wide profile of Lance Armstrong — a man who recovered from testicular cancer and went on to win the Tour de France seven times between 1999 and 2005. The problem is the revelations concerning his use of performance enhancing drugs.
I have little time for the anti-drugs establishment. They are concerned not so much with eliminating PE drugs from sport so much as organizing yet more conferences in Geneva, Monte Carlo, Rio de Janeiro and Sidney — among other cities — in order to discuss the matter yet again. You will note that they avoid places like Rotherham and Scunthorpe — places that lack the sea or lake-side luxury of the listed cities. For years, Lance Armstrong has been insisting that he never used PE drugs and he sticks to that line today. Officially he never failed a drugs test although it is now being suggested that he did and the result was hushed up by somebody of other. Nevertheless, it is still the case that he has no record of a failed drugs test against his name. He has been found guilty of PE drug use by USADA as a result of a collection of sworn statements made by at least ten other bike riders who had been in Armstrong's various teams at the same time and tell us that they saw Armstrong both using PE drugs and handing them out to other riders. All of them have admitted that they also used the drugs over many years but are speaking out now in return for immunity from any further sanctions.
I have always thought that Armstrong used drugs, just as I think lots of other riders used drugs, When the Festina scandal broke in 1998 and the team lead by Richard Virenque was forced to withdraw from the Tour de France, there was much unrest in the peleton as French police carried out searches in hotel rooms and in team cars and buses. Lots of stuff was rapidly dumped and poured down the toilet because Festina had been caught doing something that most other teams were doing as well. No rider who did not use drugs stood any chance of winning anything in the Tour de France. Armstrong was just one of many. He got his first win in 1999 as the recovered cancer patient. Now USADA have taken away his seven wins because he cheated. Can they do this? They did not award him the yellow jerseys anyway. If he is no longer considered a winner over the seven years, who did win? And was he 100% clean? There is no answer to that question. Is the Tour de France and other cycling races now completely drug free? I doubt it.
Today, it has been announced that the Dutch bank, Rabobank is to withdraw its sponsorship of a team in the Tour, telling us that "We are no longer convinced that the international professional world of cycling can make this a clean and fair sport," said Rabobank's Bert Bruggink. He may be right in one sense; that drug use will continue. Ten years ago when it was very probable that every team was using something, they were on a level playing field. I am sorry that Rabobank have withdrawn — it may be a good time to cut back on sponsorship expenditure anyway. There have been drug issues in the past in the Rabobank team without the bank getting too upset about it. Before the 1998 Tour, I had never heard of Festina; now I know exactly what they are and what they do. Is it still not true that all publicity is good publicity?
So Armstrong was just one of many, many riders who used drugs. He may have been aggressive in encouraging other riders to do the same thing but I do not accept the line that they were pure and clean bike riders until they were forced into the dark arts by Armstrong. If they didn't like it, they could have gone to another team. But they knew full well that other teams were filled with drug users and Armstrong's teams were the ones that were doing the winning.
Maybe bike riding is cleaner now — drugwise — than it was but in an era of widespread PE drug use, Armstrong was the best rider in the world. To single him out like this is OTT and achieves very little. Interestingly, Richard Virenque — many times King of the Mountains — who admitted his drug use during a trial in France in 2000 is still regarded as a hero in his own country and he is still a commentator on bike racing on French TV and radio. Perhaps the same will eventually happen to Armstrong. Bike riders are still the most fantastic athletes on the planet, with or without drugs. Lance Armstrong will still be remembered as a great bike rider long after all the officials of WADA and USADA have been forgotten.
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