Greg LeMond competed at a time when performance enhancing drugs were just beginning to impact his sport. Rumors of improprieties existed, including USA Cycling's blood doping at the 1984 LA Olympics and Francesco Moser's same measures prior to his 1984 assault on the hour record, but legalities were not sharply demarcated and the practice was not spoken of in the open. Considered one of the most talented cyclists of his generation, from his earliest days of professional cycling LeMond was strongly against taking performance enhancing drugs, largely on the basis of the health risks such practices posed. His career lacks the suspicious results that have tarnished his successors. His willingness to speak out against doping and those prominent individuals involved inadvertently linked him with the sport’s doping scandal controversies. In his opposition to fraud, corruption and what he saw as complicity on the part of cycling officials, LeMond became a lightning rod with the sport's most prominent personalities. In 2001 LeMond was one of the first professional cyclists of note, and the only former Tour champion, to openly express doubts over the legitimacy of Lance Armstrong's three-consecutive Tour successes. He consistently questioned the relationship between riders and sports doctors like Italian Michele Ferrari. In 2006 LeMond noted that the extent of doping in the sport could not occur without complicity from the body that regulates international professional cycling, and he accused the Union Cycliste Internationale of serious doping-related corruption. In an open letter in December 2012 he asserted that UCI's Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen were central to the problem in professional cycling. LeMond claimed professional cyclists are treated as "lab rats," while the doping facilitators escape harm or responsibility. He told an audience at Coventry University, "The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price". LeMond's statements have brought him into conflict with some of the sport's elite, including the UCI's McQuaid and Verbruggen, the Trek Bicycle Corporation, and riders Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, and Alberto Contador. In the interests of reforming the sport, LeMond offered to serve as president of the UCI, taking over the position of former president Pat McQuaid.
UCI and Pat McQuaid
In around 2006, LeMond had described Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) as "corrupt" in an interview in L'Équipe about doping in the sport. In response the UCI and Pat McQuaid threatened to sue him for defamation in Switzerland. In 2007 LeMond, inspired by a positive experience at L'Étape du Tour, felt that perhaps the Tour de France could start a clean-up in the sport by separating from UCI. He made his feelings known to Patrice Clerc and Christian Prudhomme. LeMond soon after received a letter from UCI's Pat McQuaid threatening him with another lawsuit.
Following the United States Anti-Doping Agency findings against Lance Armstrong and U.S. Postal Service in 2012, LeMond stated that a change needed to be made at the head of leadership for the UCI, and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond: "It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case, another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term." LeMond came to support British Cycling president Brian Cookson in the UCI Presidential battle. Said LeMond: “I have met and spent some time discussing with Brian about where cycling lost its way, how it lost its way, and what to do to bring the sport back to where it is not only a sport that leads by example, but a sport that inspires people once again. I feel confident after meeting Brian that his interest is to bring honest and transparent leadership to a sport that so desperately needs it. My hope is Brian will be the one to bring all interested parties together to once and for all do what was needed to be done years before, find solutions, both short term and long term, and to make it a priority that cycling comes first, not the other way around.” Cookson defeated McQuaid at the September 2013 UCI Congress in Florence, Italy.
Lance Armstrong and Trek
In July 2001, LeMond criticized Lance Armstrong for associating with Michele Ferrari, an Italian physician and sports trainer who admitted to practicing blood doping and advocated the controlled use of the banned substance erythropoietin by athletes. Ferrari has been accused by professional cyclists of providing banned substances.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
