Consultancy, content and media expert in Pro-Cycling
raymond@cyclingopinions.com
A foreign anti-doping agency has offered Johan Bruyneel a deal whereby he would be suspended for a maximum of one year. In 2013, Lance Armstrong’s team manager received an email to make this special arrangement. The agreement was that he would disclose incriminating information about a person in the sports world.At the time, Bruyneel was involved in the deal, signed a contract with this anti-doping agency, took a license from a sports association in this country, even received this license, but dropped out at the last minute.
“I had no incriminating information about the person in question. I just wanted to see how far an anti-doping agency is willing to go and consciously break its own rules to catch someone. To me, this was yet another proof that there is no justice in anti-doping agencies. You have rights at every civil court. In sports law they can break all rules and you have no chance to defend yourself. ”
PHOTO: RAYMOND KERCKHOFFS
Bruyneel is currently unable to disclose the anti-doping agency for legal reasons. According to the Belgian, the time is not yet ripe for this.With his story, the former team manager of, among others, US Postal, Discovery, Astana and RadioShack wants to emphasize once again that there is no justice with the anti-doping authorities. Bruyneel sent all information to CyclingOpinions and tells his story in a podcast with Dr. Paul Dimeo (among others author of the book The Anti-Doping Crisis in Sport), Dr. April Henning and Dr. Jörg Krieger. You can listen to this podcast via this link:
“That I had to be punished by the anti-doping agencies is perfectly clear to me,” Bruyneel emphasizes. ,, There is no pin between that. I crossed the border as a rider and as a team manager. Then you don’t get any chance to defend yourself. First, the US anti-doping agency did not control me. If anyone should have punished me, this was the Belgian anti-doping agency or the international cycling union UCI. It also becomes very clear that USADA, by all means, lawful and illicit, grabbed to hang Armstrong and me on the tallest tree. ”
As an example he mentions the statements of the crown witnesses, the ex-teammates of Armstrong: Levi Leipheimer, Christian Vandevelde, Michael Barry, George Hincapie and Tom Danielson. ,, They had a much shorter sentence and were allowed to decide when they were suspended. In view of their statements, all should also be suspended for the “traffic” of doping (four years, RK). Leipheimer has even stated that he administered a blood transfusion to Floyd Landis. However, USADA and WADA apply the rules as it suits them best. They break their own rules when this gives them more publicity and they tackle people more heavily when they have set their sights on it.”
From June 2012 to October 2018, Bruyneel contested his 10-year suspension imposed by USADA. ,, A business that not only bought me a lot of money, but sucked me completely empty. I needed mental and psychological help to recover. The feeling that you are not treated fairly and that the existing rules suddenly do not apply to you is very frustrating. Sports justice has nothing to do with a fair trial. Be it USADA, WADA, any other anti-doping agency or even the sports tribunal CAS.”
Bruyneel also says that in 2014 he spent two days in Switzerland on the committee that produced the CIRC report on behalf of the international cycling union UCI. “I spent hours, hours and hours telling everything there. All my experiences as a professional cyclist from 1987 to 1998 and then my touches with doping as a team manager. When the report came out, I did not read a single word of my statements. Apparently my story wasn’t interesting? The then UCI president Brian Cookson made this no less than three million euro report, which was paid with the money of all cycling stakeholders, just as personal PR for him. By means of this report, he had supposedly investigated the past, so that he could not be judged on it. It had nothing to do with anti-doping or how cycling should continue after this black period.”
PHOTO: RAYMOND KERCKHOFFS
The Belgian once again emphasizes that in 2008 he hired Danish anti-doping expert Rasmus Damsgaard for 350,000 euros to ensure that nothing could happen in his new Astana team. ,, 2008 for me is the turning point in anti-doping in cycling. The biological passport was introduced on January 1 of that year. I came across eight riders from the Discovery Channel, while Astana had just finished the Vinokourov affair. Everything had to go differently. Our policy was much stricter than the UCI’s anti-doping policy. There were many aspects that the entire cycling world could have learned from.”
Bruyneel has long since resigned himself to his lifelong suspension and the fact that he can no longer return as a team manager in the sports world. “But explain to me the difference between Bjarne Riis and me. He explained to the Danish anti-doping agency what he has done as a rider and team manager, just like I have made all those statements. With him, the prescription of the facts was respected, but that was not the case with me. However, we were both born in the same year (1964, RK), competed in exactly the same years as a rider and as a team manager. For example, we met in 2004 and 2005 when the battle for the Tour victory between Armstrong and his leader Ivan Basso was going on. Riis can just get back to work with his new team NTT pro cycling this year. He has even been personally welcomed by Tour director Christian Prudhomme and UCI president David Lappartient. I have nothing against that. I think Bjarne is an excellent team manager. I am also convinced that with his past he can now watch better than many that a doping culture such as in those years does not recur in his team. But why is he allowed to continue and I can’t? Is that justice? “