A little off topic but can anyone explain how Riis is still allowed to have any involvement in the sport of cycling, let alone manage a professional cycling team?
It’s why it’s taking so many years to clean up cycling. A very high percentage of riders go into things like team management, coaching, commentary etc when they retire so they keep everything covered up nicely. They doped, they know how it was done, they introduced the younger riders (the ones who are still racing) to doping, those practices get a bit more refined then when they retire they’ve got their cushy little commentary number or a role as DS but if they speak out, suddenly all the sponsorship comes crashing down, the team fragments, the younger riders who looked up to these guys suddenly have their career ended – so they don’t speak out.
That’s part of the reason that a lot of the cycling press never questioned LA’s results cos he’d simply deny them interviews and photos – this at a time when interviews with LA sold magazines and photos and got hits on websites. Hence everything published about him was always about how great he was…
The UCI is supposed to be introducing some sort of rule that prevents anyone with a doping conviction from working within the sport but that hasn’t happened (yet).
Ashenden’s reply (or more tellingly, the comments underneath it) show just how divided it is. The issue is no longer about LA doping. It’s about different sides in a war sniping at each other, pot shots about who’s got the biggest axe to grind, who knows “the truth”, counterclaims to the other sides claims. What a total mess.
