Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford insists the British cycling outfit will be standard bearers for the anti-doping crusade as the sport battles to deal with the shockwaves from the Lance Armstrong scandal.
Sky, for whom Bradley Wiggins triumphed in the Tour de France this year, this week made it clear they will enforce a zero-tolerance policy to doping in a bid to avoid being tainted by the Armstrong doping controversy.
Every Sky rider and member of staff has been asked to sign a statement to confirm they have never been involved in doping and failure to do so will result in almost certain dismissal.
The move comes in the wake of the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s 1,000-page report into the practices of Armstrong and United States Postal Service team.
Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, while Nike, Anheuser-Busch and Trek bikes withdrew their backing in the wake of a string of devastating allegations that the American was involved in what USADA describe as “the most sophisticated and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen”.
The Armstrong revelations couldn’t have come at a worse time for Sky, and British cycling in general, as the sport was surfing a wave of unprecedented public enthusiasm following Wiggins’ Tour triumph and the success of Britain’s riders at the London Olympics.
As one of the most successful teams of recent years, it is inevitable that cynics have seized on Sky’s connections with Armstrong to claim there must be doubts about whether they are running a clean team.
Canadian rider Michael Barry, who spent three seasons with Sky before retiring last month, admitted to doping earlier in his career in giving evidence to USADA as one of 11 riders who testified against Armstrong.
Sky sports director Sean Yates worked with Armstrong at the Motorola and Astana teams, but has denied any knowledge of doping, while Australian Michael Rogers, a key member of the Tour-winning team, worked with disgraced doctor Michele Ferrari, implicated in the USADA report, earlier in his career but also denies using performance-enhancing drugs.
However, Brailsford is adamant Sky are completely clean and he wants to make sure they continue to set the standards for driving doping out of the sport.
“Given the revelations of the last couple of weeks I think it’s important, even with a team that is beyond doubt like ours, that we sit down and take this seriously,” he said.
“We’ve had an absolutely brilliant summer, we’ve had some brilliant results, we’ve won the Tour de France with a clean British rider for the first time, but when there are more difficult issues to address, let’s not waste time, let’s confront them.
“There’s the past in this sport, which is becoming more and more clear, there’s the present and there’s the future.
“For sure the past in this sport has got something to answer for. It’s quite clear. In the late 90s, early 2000s there was certainly a big institutionalised doping programme in teams like US Postal and several riders got caught up in that.”
Brailsford is confident the sport is cleaner than ever, with proof coming in the time taken to ascend climbs compared to the drug-riddled period.
“In the Tour de France of late times have got slower and slower, which contrasts the normal progression of sport,” Brailsford added.
“There’s only one explanation and it’s that the sport has cleaned up.
“That’s a clear indication that the sport has moved in the right direction, people are doing a lot to make sure all the results can be authentic.”
Sky happy to be standard bearers for cycling's future
