CYCLING CHIEFS COLLUDED IN ARMSTRONG DRUG SCANDAL
CYCLING’S world governing body stands accused today of being complicit in the cover-up of doping offences by Lance Armstrong and his contemporaries.
A damning 227- page r eport published by the Cycling Independent Reform Commission into the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the sport’s doping culture says two former presidents of the organisation — Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid — were guilty of colluding with Armstrong and other riders in an effort to protect the sport’s reputation.
The £2.3million report, commissioned by current president Brian Cookson and compiled from 174 interviews with riders, including Armstrong, and officials over the last 13 months, will not make pleasant reading for members of today’s professional peloton.
It states that doping remains a serious problem with the emergence of new designer drugs and it recommends a number of changes to the current system for catching cheats.
But the report’s main f ocus remains the UCI’s role in the Armstrong era when doping was ‘endemic’ in the peloton and the blood-boosting drug EPO (Erythropoietin) was seen as ‘ a game changer’ when it first came into use on the professional road circuit in the late 1980s.
Verbruggen, whose position as honorary president of the UCI as well as an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee must be under threat, was UCI president from 1991 until 2005. He is exposed by CIRC as an autocratic leader who turned the governing body into a personal fiefdom, interfering in doping issues to protect his star riders and allow the cycling boom to take place with Armstrong at its forefront.
Cookson, who has already gone some way to overhauling the antidoping system since succeeding McQuaid in 2013, said: ‘It is clear from reading this report that in the past the UCI suffered severely from a lack of good governance with individuals taking crucial decisions alone, many of which undermined antidoping efforts, and put itself in an extraordinary position of proximity to certain riders.
‘It is also clear t hat t he UCI leadership interfered in operational decisions on anti- doping matters a nd these factors served to erode confidence in the UCI and the sport.’
The report, published today, says: ‘The allegations and review of UCI’s anti-doping programme reveal that decisions taken by UCI leadership in the past have undermined antidoping efforts: examples range from adopting an attitude that prioritised a clean image and sought to contain the doping problem, to disregarding the rules and giving preferential status to high-profile athletes, to publicly criticising whistleblowers and engaging in personal disputes with other stakeholders.’
The report says senior UCI doping officials would even undermine efforts to catch cheats by informing teams in advance ‘what new analysis techniques would be applied at races’.
CIRC say Verbruggen and senior members of the UCI hierarchy saw Armstrong’s emergence as a serious Tour contender in 1999 as the perfect antidote to the Festina doping scandal that had rocked the sport the previous year. ‘The UCI saw Armstrong as the perfect choice to lead the sport’s renaissance after the Festina scandal: the fact he was American opened up a new continent for the sport, he had beaten cancer and the media made him a global star,’ says the report. ‘The UCI president recognised that this was a good opportunity to bolster the organisation’s plans for growth and, above all, his ambitions for power.’
‘Numerous examples have been identified showing that UCI leadership “defended” or “protected” Armstrong and took decisions because they were favourable to him. This was in circumstances where there was strong reason to suspect him of doping, which should have led UCI to be more circumspect in its deal- ings with him. UCI exempted Armstrong from rules, failed to target-test him despite the suspicions, and publicly supported him against allegations of doping, even as late as 2012. In addition, requesting and accepting donations from Armstrong, given the suspicions, left UCI open to criticism.’
In 2013 Armstrong told that Verbruggen helped him cover up a positive test at the 1999 Tour with the use of a backdated prescription. As CIRC says, Armstrong failed four drug tests in winning what would be his first Tour title.
‘According to witness statements, soon after being informed by the French laboratory about the positive tests, direct contact was initiated between high-level UCI officials and the Armstrong entourage, during which the latter was advised to produce a medical certificate,’ says the CIRC report.
Documents from the time expose the extent of the cover-up. In particular, doping control forms thathat prove the prescription was back-dated. The CIRC report says three ree other riders in the 1999 Tour were re allowed to employ the tactic to o escape UCI sanctions.
Two years earlier a similar case concerned rider Laurent Brochard and the CIRC report concluded: ‘The UCI failed to apply its own rules in the Brochard and Armstrong cases which constituted a serious breach of its obligations as the internationall governing body for cycling to govern the sport correctly.
‘Armstrong admitted he took the drug without therapeutic motivation and only to enhance his performance. His doctor issued a certificate where not only was the date wrong, but also what it attested. CIRC considers that it was a case of a false medical certificate and therefore the case should have been reported to the criminal authorities and the relevant medical boards.
‘Disciplinary proceedings should have been opened by UCI against Brochard and Armstrong following their positive tests on the basis that they did not declare the use of a medicine justifying that substance on their doping control form.’
The report highlights how the policy of protecting riders like Armstrong continued under McQuaid when he succeeded Verbruggen in 2005. McQuaid publicly defended Armstrong (left) against accusations of doping, even in response to the US Anti- Doping Agency’s efforts to expose the American.
Under McQuaid there was ‘another example of UCI failing to apply its own rules... the decision to allow Armstrong to compete in the Tour Down Under in 2009, despite the fact he had not been in the UCI testing pool for the prescribed period of time’. CIRC suggest McQuaid made the exception after Armstrong agreed to ride in the Tour of Ireland.
Until now so many former riders and officials have remained unharmed by their links to doping because the most prominent figure in the sport has been taken down, stripped of his seven Tour titles and banned for life.
The CIRC report goes some way to addressing that by stating that Armstrong and the teams he represented were far from alone in employing industrialised doping practices, saying: ‘It appears to CIRC that the doping practices of Armstrong were not any different to those of many others.’
Armstrong issued a statement last night which said: ‘I am grateful to CIRC for seeking the truth and allowing me to assist in that search. I am deeply sorry for many things I have done. However, it is my hope that revealing the truth will lead to a bright, dope-free future for the sport I love.’