LOS ANGELES: Cycling’s governing body set up a drug testing system that was designed to fail and allow Lance Armstrong and other riders to avoid detection, said the ex-boss of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Doping officials knowingly ran a testing regimen that the sport’s top teams circumvented and where competitors would be tipped-off in advance, Richard Pound, who headed up the WADA between 1999 and 2007, said in an interview.
Despite alleging eight years ago that cheating was rife, his complaints to the UCI (International Cycling Union) about the sport’s anti-doping measures were repeatedly ignored, Pound said.
“It is not credible that they didn’t know this was going on,” Pound said.
“I had been complaining to UCI for years. They come in in the morning at 5.00 am and do tests then go away, and riders are not chaperoned.
“The race starts at 1.00 pm to 2.00 pm in the afternoon and there are no tests prior to race to see if they are bumped up,” adding that after a day in the saddle, riders would be unchaperoned for an hour before being tested again.
“So then you go in and get saline solutions and other means of hiding the effects (of performance-enhancing drug) EPO and whatever else it is,” he said. AFP
