Dubai: Legendary Irish cyclist Sean Kelly says it’s now impossible to cheat in the sport thanks to the fallout from the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.
American seven-time Tour de France winner Armstrong was stripped of his titles and banned for life for doping last year, before he finally admitted in January to having used performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career.
Speaking ahead of Friday’s Spinneys Dubai 92 Cycle Challenge, Kelly said such a deceit would never happen again thanks to the reforms effected by the sport’s governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).
“Products were out there before controls were able to detect them,” said Kelly, 57, who won 193 professional races including seven consecutive editions of the Paris-Nice event in a career that spanned from 1977 to 1994.
“Now I think it’s the reverse, with biological passports [electronic records of cyclists’ normal biological state] you can see if there are any abnormalities. It’s impossible to cheat now. I’m very confident that those days are over.”
With Armstrong’s victories now struck from the record books, Britain’s Chris Froome will next year bid to become the first cyclist to win back-to-back Le Tours since Miguel Indurain won five in a row in the early 1990s.
And Kelly believes the focus is now on proving dominance can be achieved without drugs.
“We cannot go back to a situation like we had in the past because that would be the death of the sport,” he said. “Now things are looking good, everybody is more confident and sponsors are coming back in. We have to keep on this road.”
Kelly twice tested positive for banned substances during his career, but he claims both instances were as a result of “minor and stupid” accidental intake — one case stemmed from a cough syrup containing codeine.
“Innocent people have been branded as cheats, and it’s not right. That’s where I think the UCI really has to look at clarifying the difference between substances and categorising them,” he said.
That aside, Kelly said his career ended before large amounts of money came into the sport, which helped doping become widespread and highly organised.
“You can’t just point the finger at Armstrong. There was an era of 15 to 20 years where doping grew and a lot of big names were taken out. In my time, the top five cyclists were on good money, but now you can have an eight-year career, win five races and be made for life,” he said.
“With greater salaries came more pressure. Sponsors wanted to get more exposure and teams all wanted a slice of the cake because they had to survive.
“That doesn’t mean you have to go to drugs. You can have a good sport without it. Riders just go a little bit slower, the race isn’t as fast and aggressive, but the racing is still as good. And we’ve seen that over the past couple of years.
“Many of the guys want to take it forward now and make it a clean sport. At its height, it was a problem and many just wanted to get out of that scene. It went on for far too long.”
