MADRID — Cycling’s ruling body let Lance Armstrong’s associates draft a report into whether he took banned drugs in 1999 to protect its star athlete, according to an investigation published Monday.
The Union Cycliste Internationale allowed the American’s advisers to become “directly and heavily” involved in Emile Vrijman’s 2006 report, according to the probe’s findings.
The Dutch lawyer was examining accusations by L’Equipe newspaper in 2005 that Armstrong took erythropoietin in winning his first Tour de France title. The newspaper linked back-tested samples from the race to Armstrong. At the time there was no EPO test in place.
Cycling’s ruling body “purposely limited the scope of the independent investigator’s mandate” against Vrijman’s own suggestion, the investigation found. “The main goal was to ensure that the report reflected UCI’s and Lance Armstrong’s personal conclusions.”
Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour titles in 2012 by the UCI, endorsing a decision by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency which uncovered proof he cheated. He subsequently confessed to doping. The U.S. agency’s chief executive officer, Travis Tygart, said in a statement Monday the UCI’s handling of Vrijman’s so-called independent report was a “sordid” deceit.
“Greed, power and profit — not truth — motivated UCI leaders and allowed the EPO and blood doping era to ride rampant,” he said. “This is a tragic loss for all cyclists who sought to compete clean during that era.”
A culture of doping still exists, according to the report published Monday, although there has been “steady” improvement and a willingness to combat cheating that has changed the behavior of cyclists considerably since 2006.
Doping programs are “generally sophisticated” and minimize the risk of getting caught, the commission said. It recommends drug testing in the middle of the night to stop riders micro-dosing. There is currently no testing of athletes between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.
The new report by a three-person panel, the Cycling Independent Reform Commission, was mandated by the UCI’s current president Brian Cookson. Hein Verbruggen led the Aigle, Switzerland-based organization for 14 years through 2005, when he was replaced by Pat McQuaid.
Verbruggen said the report was “unfairly critical” of his period overseeing the sport, although he said he and McQuaid were too close to Armstrong, according to comments reported by Dutch news agency ANP.
McQuaid told Ireland’s RTE Radio Monday that he made mistakes at UCI but is proud of his fight against doping, including introducing biological passports, and didn’t give any rider preferential treatment.
“It wasn’t a question of defending and protecting Lance Armstrong,” McQuaid said. “We tested him over 200 times, and he never tested positive.”
According to the report, the UCI didn’t start to do enough to combat the “endemic” doping in cycling until 2006. Doping was portrayed by UCI as the behavior of a few individuals but not a structural problem.
The UCI allowed some cyclists “to be above the rules” and intentionally didn’t enforce anti-doping regulations, Tygart said.
Cookson, the UCI president, said in a statement that the ruling body had put itself in an “extraordinary position of proximity” to certain riders.
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