UCI ‘can’t be so blind to not know this was going on’, d**k Pound
WADA’s former President d**k Pound has noted that UCI must have known about doping in the peloton and also criticised the doping schedule tests and stages that encouraged doping.
He briefed that UCI probably need to change its system as testing cyclists early morning before the race gives them sufficient time to consume doping products later on.
Pound explained that the race starts in the afternoon between 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and the cyclists are not tested at that specific time to verify if they have tried to dope in that time-frame.
“The race starts at 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. in the afternoon and there are no tests prior to the race to see if they are bumped up,” he told AFP news agency
“So then you go in and get saline solutions and other means of hiding the effects (of) EPO and whatever else it is”.
“You have to say, ‘I wonder if it was designed not to be successful?’”
d**k was able to point out the doping issue in the sport of cycling very early, as he told Le Monde in January 2004, "the public knows that the riders in the Tour de France and the others are doping".
Lance Armstrong replied the comments back by calling the comments as, “careless and unacceptable".
On June 9, 2006 the cyclist sent an eight-page letter to the President of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge and demanded an action to be taken against Pound.
Armstrong accused him of “reprehensible and indefensible” behavior and "must be suspended or expelled from the Olympic movement".
The IOC ethics committee suggested that Pound should be extra cautious while making the public statements but clearly rejected the idea of removing him from the IOC membership as it had no authority over WADA.
The latest report by USADA proving that Lance Armstrong and many others in his team at that time doped proves that Pound right after all, with his speech back in 2004.
Several cyclists have already admitted doping and Armstrong has now been stripped-off from all his previous victories including seven Tour de France overall wins, 1999-2005.
Tags: