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World War Cycling: Australia

Stuart O'Grady admitted to using PEDs in 1998. (AAP Image/Tom Miletic)
Editor
30th June, 2015
7

The first non-European to wear the Maillot Jaune as leader of the Tour de France, Phil Anderson is a cycling legend. In 1994 the Aussie and his Motorola team, including 23-year-old Lance Armstrong, had a meeting regarding the peloton’s increasing pace.

“We had a discussion, we had the team doctor there, and he came out and said he thinks it’s because of this EPO product that’s come in,” Anderson told The Roar over the phone.

“We made a decision – I’m not sure if it was a medical decision or a direction of the team decision – nobody was going to do any of that shit.

“Firstly, it was illegal, but nobody knew what it was, what it could do.”

Catch up on the rest of World War Cycling
PART 1: The Prologue
PART 2: The United States of America
PART 3: Italy
PART 4: Doping learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan
PART 5: Spain
PART 6: Germany and Denmark
PART 7: France
PART 8: Belgium

By this stage of his career, Anderson said he had heard the stories of young, fit cyclists dying in their sleep, but it’s only with the benefit of hindsight that EPO was seen as the cause of these deaths.

Regardless, he said using the blood booster was never on the cards for him.

“I certainly wasn’t going to, because [1994] was my last year. My life started once I retired so I wasn’t going to jeopardise my health or that of my colleagues.

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“So I think I got out at a very good time.”

Getting in at what was clearly not a good time was Stuart O’Grady, who in 1995 made the transition from the track to the road.

When O’Grady retired in 2013 he had ridden a record 17 Tours de France, wore the yellow jersey as race leader in two Tours, was the first Australian to win one of cycling’s Classics, and had even continued on the track, winning gold at the 2004 Olympics.

Arguably Australia’s greatest all-round cyclist, O’Grady’s entire career has been called into question after he admitted to doping during the 1998 Tour, having been listed as having “suspicious” levels in the French Senate’s July 2013 investigation into EPO.

While he has insisted he only doped the once, Anderson said O’Grady’s defence was “like being a little bit pregnant”.

“It’s his word and if you’re going to cheat your word’s not worth very much,” Anderson said.

“It’s gotta be really tough because, like Lance, he nearly got away with it.

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“If he would have retired and nothing came out he would have been the hero of Australia, possibly bigger than Cadel Evans.

“I thought he was a clean rider and he was just such an all-rounder, to be able to ride at the front for hours on end, at the front of the peloton, suit up and still beat the majority of riders on certain days, just bury himself for his team.”

Now Anderson says he questions O’Grady’s results.

Though he rode for a variety of teams over the years, O’Grady’s final two years in the peloton were spent with Orica-GreenEDGE.

The first Australian team to be granted a UCI license, OGE have been a source of great pride for Aussie cycling fans, with their riders winning stages and wearing the leader’s jersey at all three Grand Tours, recording victories in Classics, and killing it on YouTube.

While O’Grady’s admission was an awkward one for OGE, it came after he had retired, and any issue had occurred over a decade before the team had even come into existence.

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What was a stickier issue was USADA’s case against Lance Armstrong, which listed OGE’s directeur sportif, Matt White – who had ridden on Armstrong’s US Postal team from 2001-03 – as having used performance-enhancing substances as well.

White was stood down from OGE in October 2013, the second time his employment had been jeopardised due to doping issues.

In 2011 White was dismissed by Garmin-Cervelo, for whom he was a directeur sportif, as a result of sending one of the team’s riders to Dr Luis Garcia del Moral for Vo2 testing.

“All medical referrals are approved by our medical staff. In this instance, this vital rule was broken,” was the team’s official line.

However Garmin, under reformed doper and former US Postal rider Jonathan Vaughters, have been staunchly anti-doping. As such, sending a rider to Dr del Moral – who has since been given a lifetime ban by USADA for his role in the US Postal doping program – would have raised a pretty big red flag for Vaughters.

In May 2013 White opened up about his use of performance-enhancing substances, telling SBS’s Cycling Central, “I had already used doping products before I arrived at US Postal…

“I’d work very, very hard to get into the professional ranks and I realised everyone around me was using performance-enhancing drugs. I made wrong decisions because I thought I needed to use… drugs to keep my job.”

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Interestingly, White did not ride on any of Lance’s Tour de France teams – although he was a domestique for Roberto Heras in his victorious 2003 Vuelta a Espana campaign – and said he had never discussed doping with Armstrong.

In June 2013, OGE released a report on best practices in anti-doping written by “world-leading expert in anti-doping policy” Nicki Vance, and reinstated White.

“We have reviewed and will constantly continue to review our management, and it was clear that Matt White is the right person for the job,” OGE general manager Shayne Bannan said.

“Matt White’s appointment is consistent with the framework for treating past and future offences recommended in the Vance Report, and the team has gone further by making Matt White’s appointment subject to a 12-month probationary period.”

OGE’s other directeur sportif, Neil Stephens, remained with the team throughout White’s absence, though as a member of the Festina team in the late ‘90s, he was the Aussie face of the Festina Affair.

Stephens said to reporters at the time, “We’ve all got families, I’ve got a child, I know I’ve got a good image, I’ve been a professional for 15 years, and I’ve passed more than 200 dope controls.”

Giving a shrug and a grin, he finished, “I’m clean.”

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Stephens was later found to have used EPO, though he contested he had been deceived into using the substance, being told it was a vitamin injection. This excuse was good enough for Cycling Australia, and he was not given any ban.

When asked his thoughts on White and Stephens bringing through the next batch of Australian cyclists, Anderson described the situation as being “a really difficult one”.

“I think they’re doing a good job but I’m not sure if I’d want my kids being on a team led by a director who was… y’know whether it’s Bjarne Riis or Neil Stephens,” Anderson said.

“Those guys are getting on now and it’s just a matter of time before the new generation of directors comes through – it’s the evolution of the sport…

“I’m not sure where GreenEDGE would be without those guys. But the sport’s becoming a lot more scientific now, and you find there’s coaches and personnel coming over from other sports, so I think the life and times of having riders like that, or ex-riders, who have a record, I think their days are numbered [in terms of] how much longer it will be accepted for them to still be in that position.”

The Roar contacted Orica-GreenEDGE for comment, at time of publication they have not responded.

Next week: The final part of the series (for real this time), World War Cycling’s podium.

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