Two telling paragraphs for me in Jens’ article.
?And to avoid the impression that I don’t want talk about the past, or want hide my past, here I am saying very loudly: Keep my samples, test them, and re-test them, in 10 years or in 100 years from now. Go back in time and open my sample from five years ago or 10 years ago. Feel free to do so! There will never be any surprises because I have nothing to hide.
This convinces me that he is clean. Someone should call his bluff and actually go test to be sure, but as a fan I have a lot of respect for a rider who would say this. Its certainly something Lance has refused to say. In fact I am very suspicious of any rider who wouldn’t say this.
But this paragraph doesn’t ring true
have taken very clear stands on doping throughout my entire career, and I hope you folks understand that. I have a family and children, and I am sick—read it from my lips—I am sick of my wife getting asked in the school if I do drugs. I’m sick of getting asked myself at the kindergarten if I dope. I’m sick of having to explain my job to strangers and justify my existence. And for me the line is definitely crossed when my family gets involved and gets stressed out because of the ongoing doping stories in our sport.
If Jens is genuinely sick of this there is plenty of things he can do to help stop it. Stopping hanging out with Lance would be a good start, speaking out about individuals who dope would be another. He has a status in cycling above most others and with that he has the influence to end the Omerta, yet he doesn’t.
He says it was right that Johan Bruyneel got fired from Radioshack, but the information about Johan and Lance has been in the public domain for years, why wait until now to say something. Why ride on his team? When Leopard merged with Radioshack why not say “If that dirty doping cheat is my DS then I’m leaving”, who would the sponsors stand behind? The cult hero in world cycling, adored by fans around the world, or some creepy Belgian?
Jens, unless you end the Omerta you don’t have any right to speak out about the suspicion that you are also a doper. A doper by association.