Cycling officials
‘committed’ to cleaning up sport battered by years of scandal.
Elite international cycling is much cleaner than it was during seven- time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong’s era and the continued efforts to eradicate, or at least minimize, doping should be where the focus is, Canadian cycling officials said Friday.
They were responding to the news that the U. S. Anti- Doping Agency has erased 14 years of the American’s career and banned him from life from the sport after concluding that he used banned substances.
That move followed a statement from Armstrong, who has consistently denied taking banned substances, declaring that he was tired of challenging the USADA and would not enter an arbitration hearing conducted by the agency.
John Tolkamp, president of the Cycling Canada Cyclisme says the whole thing “casts a black eye over the sport for sure ... but the bigger picture for us is that we’re committed to cleaning up the sport and that’s where the focus is.
“Whether he doped or not, the positives for young athletes is that the sport is getting cleaned up and even if you’re powerful and a hero, you’re not above it.”
The USADA said up to 10 former Armstrong teammates were set to testify that he had used testosterone, Human Growth Hormone, EPO and blood transfusions.
Steve Bauer, the St. Catharines, Ont. native who wore the leader’s jersey during the 1988 and 1990 editions of the Tour de France and who is the current director of Canadianbased Team SpiderTech, said in a statement that the Armstrong case is “not related to our current state of affairs in professional cycling.
He said the sport has the “most stringent policies actively in place among professional sports,” pointing to the individual athlete biological passport system now being used. It means testing agencies don’t necessarily have to detect certain drugs, but can tell by changes in the athlete’s passport that they have been doping.
“No sport is above the cheats,” said Tolkamp. “But kudos to cycling for tackling the issue head on. We’re further along than a lot of other sports.”
Andrew Pinfold, a former pro cyclist from North Vancouver and like Armstrong a past winner of the Gastown Grand Prix, said he’s disappointed Armstrong’s case won’t get full closure without the rider giving his side of the story. But he called Armstrong’s decision to give up the fight against the USADA a “shrewd move.
“In the court of public opinion, he will continue to remain, for some, a seven- time winner of the Tour de France,” Pinfold told CBC Radio. “And for those that believed he cheated, they will continue to believe he cheated. But no dirty laundry is really going to be publicly aired.”
Both Pinfold and Tolkamp suggested, however, that the matter is far from closed and that at least some of the evidence the USADA has is likely to come out in one form or another.
Armstrong won his
first of seven consecutive Tour de France races in 1999 and joins numerous other winners from the ’ 90s and the 2000s to be stripped of their titles for doping.
“That era among cycling circles is known as quite a dirty era with regard to doping,” said Pinfold. “We’ve learned with the admissions of [ former Armstrong teammates] Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton, riders that were lieutenants to Lance, of what was going on in those times and how rampant doping was.”
Pinfold and Tolkamp said it’s encouraging now to see clean Canadian athletes getting results in Europe.
“Ryder Hesjedal winning the Giro [ d’Italia] this year, without the sport being cleaned up, that was not possible in the past,” Tolkamp said in an interview. “The ability of our athletes to bring home higher international results, it’s a combination of funding and athletes doing better, but it’s also more of a level playing field for us.”
Pinfold echoed those sentiments.
“I have good friends who are professionals in Europe who six, seven years ago were struggling to finish in the main peloton and are now winning races. And I’m 100 per cent certain they are clean riders.”
Pinfold, who coaches and mentors young amateur cyclists, said it is an “incredible time to be a young cyclist right now because they don’t have to make that decision whether or not to dope or not. They can pursue their dreams and hit the highest levels of the sport now without having to resort to doping.”