Sky on the spot over link to shamed Armstrong
TEAM SKY were facing yet more uncomfortable questions last night after it emerged that one of their support staff used to work for Lance Armstrong’s US Postal team.
There is no suggestion Peter Verbeken was ever linked to a doping programme the US anti-doping agency considered the most sophisticated in the history of sport.
But his role at Sky — first as a soigneur (caring for the riders) and now as their service manager — again leaves them exposed to accusations of hypocrisy, given US Postal’s prominence in cycling’s dark past and their own zero tolerance policy on doping.
Last night Sky officials insisted Verbeken would have been subjected to the recruitment process they employ as part of their stance on drugs in sport. Team principal Sir Dave Brailsford said: ‘We’ve got a process that everybody has to go through and they have to sign up to everything.’
Sky re-interviewed all their staff after USADA’s ‘reasoned decision’ behind stripping Armstrong of his seven Tour titles, with Bobby Julich, Steven de Jongh and Sean Yates among those who left the team.
While Julich and De Jongh admitted to doping as riders, Yates — a former team-mate and sporting director of Armstrong’s — cited family reasons.
Only recently Sky had to defend their decision to employ Servais Knaven, who is here at the Tour as a sporting director. Knaven rode with De Jongh on the Dutch TVM team that was expelled from the 1998 Tour after doping products were discovered in their hotel. He denied doping to his Sky employers. But on a day when Armstrong returned to France to ride two stages one day ahead of the Tour for charity with former England footballer Geoff Thomas, Verbeken’s employment raises further questions.
Sky are already concerned that attempts are being made to discredit their star rider and Tour leader, Chris Froome.
Verbeken was recruited to US Postal by fellow Belgian Johan Bruyneel, currently serving a 10-year ban from cycling for his role in the scandal, to work for the American team on a freelance basis after he retired as a professional rider in 1998.
Sources have told Sportsmail they remember him working regularly with the Postal team for one, possibly two seasons, including Armstrong’s first Tour victory in 1999.
Verbeken joined Sky in 2012, having worked for HTC Columbia prior to that. He was a soigneur — Sky now call them ‘ carers’ to distance themselves from cycling’s doping past — in the 2013 Tour that Froome won.
In fairness to Sky, they could point to plenty of other professional teams here in France who have employees and riders linked to doping. But it is only Sky who make such a virtue of having a zero-tolerance policy.
Froome faced more questions relating to his own performances yesterday, with another video published of his performance data; this time of him climbing at last year’s Vuelta Espana.
Froome, who finished safely with his main rivals here in Cauterets on a mountain stage won by Tinkoff-Saxo’s Rafal Majka yesterday, is facing such accusations because the data reveals a relatively low heart rate when he is riding at his hardest.
On the data already published, he said: ‘I’ve put that part of the data out there myself in my book. My maximum heart rate is only at about 170.
‘After two weeks of a Grand Tour I’m quite surprised it went as high as 160.’
Confirming Sportsmail’s story yesterday, Froome said he was ‘open-minded to potentially doing some physiological testing’ in a bid to demonstrate he is clean.
And he was once again asked about Armstrong riding one day ahead of the professional peloton, starting today in Muret.
Froome replied: ‘ You’ve got to look at what he’s doing, which is Geoff Thomas’s cause to raise money for blood cancer research.
‘As I’ve said earlier, I support his cause.’