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Thor Hushovd at the 2011 Tour de France Presentation © Simon MacMichaelUSADA chief slams Thor Hushovd for silence after Lance Armstrong doping admission
US anti-doping chief Travis Tygart has slammed Norwegian former pro rider Thor Hushovd for keeping silent after Lance Armstrong admitted doping to him in 2011.
Hushovd's autobiograohy, Thor, was published recently in Norwegian. In it, he tells of a lunch with Armstrong after the 2011 Tour of California. Armstrong's former team-mate Tyler Hamilton had recently admitted doping and accused Armstrong of being at the centre of doping at the US Postal Service team.
"We all did it," Armstrong told Hushovd.
But Hushovd subsequently gave non-committal answers when asked about Armstrong's doping.
Now Travis Tygart, the head of US Anti-Doping, has hit out at Hushovd for not coming forward with what he knew.
"You're no hero when you sit still without doing something about injustice against great athletes," Tygart told Norwegian news website VG.no. "It is especially difficult to [fight doping] when someone in the sport abusing his power by trying to attack the idea of a clean sport and clean athletes."
Hushovd maintains he rode clean for his whole career. Asked about doping at the launch of the book, he said: "It's not my job to clean up here."
Hushovd said that if he had gone to the anti-doping authorities in 2011, Armstrong and his friends would have destroyed his career.
Tygart wants to hear why Hushovd felt unable to speak.
"It's a sad day when athletes are afraid or unable to stand up for fair play and integrity in sport," he said. "Doping Norway and USADA would very much like to hear from him why he did not do anything, but instead sat quietly and let the lies and deception continue."
The World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) has told cycle racing website CyclingTips that it does not consider Hushovd to have broken the anti-doping code by staying quiet.
Meanwhile Hushovd says anti-doping authorities should stop what he calls the "witch hint for old sinners" and concentrate on improving tests so they are harder to fool and evade.
Tygart is unimpressed.
He said: "It is the kind of thing you'd expect to hear from someone who sat still and let the deception continue. Those who heard these things, however, should have said so.
"Sport will only be cleaned up if those who have cheated in the past are held accountable for what they did. If you cheated before without getting caught, so the chances are very much greater that you will continue later, in the belief that you will never be discovered. That gives little hope for all of us who love sport."
Tygart admitted that he was not sure if information from Hushovd would have made USADA's pursuit of Armstrong any easier.
"Eleven former teammates of Lance showed enough courage to talk to us," he said. "It is difficult to be absolutely certain. I hear among other things, about an episode where Hushovd saw someone with a syringe in a hotel room.
"But we might have missed a great opportunity with Hushovd not talking at the time. He could have at least given some of those who talked more credibility when the storm was bad. I'm thinking of Betsy Andreu who for years claimed to have heard Armstrong admit doping in the mid 90s."
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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58 comments
Travis Tygart ( always want to call him Bickle ) is a zealot on a huge ego trip who cares nothing for cycling and as no knowledge of the sport or it's history.
Thor was right to say nothing it wasn't his role or appropriate . He would have know doping was wide spread if not universal at the time Armstrong was referring to and would have been breaching personal confidentiality in a fairly dispicable way if had said anything . Doping in sport is not criminal offence and the only victim in the true sense of suffering potental harm is actually the person doping .
The admirable people in the Armstrong affair are people like Slava Ekimov who have kept their own counsel
Ok, we'll agree to disagree. Btw, what do you think about his view of not pointing the finger at convicted cheats (not even calling them cheats)? - ties in nicely with the actual article on Thor's view.
The omerta is strong with this one...
Just because Betsy Andreu went through hell to speak out against Armstrong doesn't mean it's right to criticise others who didn't.
It's easy for Tygart to stand where he is, and criticise others. As others have said, whistleblowers themselves often suffer injustices and (in this case) can have their livelihoods ruined, and I don't think he's in a position to judge cyclists in this way.
I find it very, very difficult to believe that Michelle Cound has a better working knowledge of sports nutrition than the sports nutritionists at BC and Sky.
Tygart is literally like a 13 year old snot nosed PUSSY boy.
sissified pussbag. Guy makes me ill with his pussy remarks.
What a Vagina. I mean this man-boy is such a pussy, his momma probably tells him to man up. Ugh, what a whiny
People are still asking the questions. USADA requested that Chris Horner be tested, but he used the whereabouts rule to get out of that one.
But you should not look at the Armstrong affair as a failure. It was a success. But it just goes to show how hard it is to get the dopers.
There is a disconnect between the governing bodies and the ADAs. You'll never get them allowing the ADA to get all the top riders.
I wish that football, athletics and rugby did half as much to get rid of doping as cycling.
Absolutely. Athletics have at least been trying to some degree, for as long as I can remember (in it late 70s/early 80s), but they're miles behind still. Almost utter denial in the other two alas...
Here's an idea... evidence. Got any for us to discuss?
As an aside, I'm struggling to understand your position. Slamming Sky. Supporting Hushovd's tacit support of doping. Are you a doping apologist, a conspiracy theorist or just amazingly inconsistent.
Up until 2 years ago, what evidence did you have that Armstrong had doped? (or did you previously believe he was clean, and woke up in Oct 2012 in a state of shock?).
I am not supporting Thor, I am merely pointing out the hypocrisy in calling him out over Armstrong! How many other riders (who must also have had knowledge of Armstrong's doping) were speaking up in 2011? What about DS's - how many DS's were speaking up? So if you have a pop at Thor, you should be having a pop at lots of others too! And, don't forget, this is a guy who (claims he) was clean during his career!
Regarding Sky - you might believe in unicorns, but I don't. I love pro cycling, warts and all, but can't stand the smarmy hypocrisy of DB & co. Some of the riders I quite like (Garaint for starters), I just can't support them in that Sky jersey!
The fact Hushovd slams Bassons but doesn't have any criticism for dopers is a little surprising.
Nobody thinks cycling is clean but it's certainly cleanER than it was. Getting Lance was important as he was the poster boy for getting away with it; fame, wealth and a reputation as an all-round good guy via his Foundation meant he was always going to be the #1 target.
I'm encouraged that riders from both Astana and Saxo have been picked up this year as both of those teams have EXTREMELY dubious pasts and if anyone they would be the most likely to have an organised doping program. Could the UCI do more (say, banning dopers from team management), of course but compared to 10 years ago it's a different sport.
I suppose 2012 & 2013 were the cleanest years of the modern era
2011 was way past the tipping point for Armstrong. Hushovd is not telling the truth about his reasons for keeing quiet, I think.
http://crankpunk.com/2014/10/21/4682/
Blimey there are some seriously stretched lines of reasoning there....
There are no excuses for Thor. Not good enough and he knows it.
Wow, that makes almost zero sense. Given that the only difference is that Thor kept to the omerta I'm struggling to see how he's better. He didn't tell anyone anything (except to boost book sales) and kept the fruits of his riding.
Yes, I agree. At least the riders that came forward have helped people to understand the problem and exposed one of the worst cases of doping ever. Which riders did you think would confess to get the full punishment?
But the LA case hasn't helped people understand the problem. If anything it's caused confusion and diversion. Getting Lance Armstrong was personal (probably because he was such a tw@t), and it's now about money - have we heard the intricate details of how, why, where, and the names of EVERYONE involved? Who is asking the questions now the bogeyman has gone away? Thor makes a great point in his book about the recent trend for GC riders to be ultra-skinny - that is a clear signal of modern doping (how can you retain the time trialling power of Cancellara at such a low weight, which at the same time allows you to climb like a goat?). Walsh is too busy loving Sky to ask real questions now his nemesis has fallen!
Clear signal... really ? What makes you think that ? Both disciplines need the ability to maintain a very high percentage of maximum sustainable power for a long time - if you can do that, and have a reasonable FTP, then competitive climbing comes down to power-to-weight.
Peak power is something you can get with big muscles but the ability to apply that power over at a consistent level over an extended period of time doesn't need that and it can be a hinderance as the time (distance) goes up. Where Cancellara (for example) probably has an advantage over someone like Frome is in the sharper, more staccato ramps such as you find in the Classics. Peak power, and fast recovery, is more important there. Clearly you still need to put out a high %FTP but if you can maintain an increase in that percentage the less powerful guys can keep up there.
Sorry, my wording is a bit misleading - I'm not questioning whether it is possible (I know it is - I've seen it with my own eyes!). I am questioning the means by which riders are achieving the sort of body-composition which makes it possible.
Perhaps this article gives some clues:
http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/11395/Doping-AICAR-Telmisartan-and-the...
While I agree there may well be (most likely is) some AICAR abuse in the pro-peloton, my point is it's not a "clear signal". Riders that have had a similar build throughout their career are unlikely to have had access to it (or similar) the whole time, which might indicate that there is nothing going on... or not. Either way, hardly clear - which I guess is part of the problem with detection.
There's a few GC contenders that to my mind have been more towards the stick-insect end of body shapes for as long as i've seen them compete - couple of tidy time-triallers in there too - i'm not convinced they're all on the juice personally, and given their training loads i'd be unsure what they're doing to counter some of the effects things like AICAR will have.
Who exactly?
Wiggins, Frome, van Garderen, Aru - Nibali isn't the fattest git i've ever seen and neither is Contador.
I would contend that of those you name Contador is the one who stands out as having the most consistent weight over his career, and being a naturally small frame has never seemed emaciated.
Froome, on the other hand, is on the record saying the following in an interview with Kimmage (an interview which was buried by the mainstream cycling press):
"...I lost a lot of weight. I had always raced at Barloworld at about 70 / 71 (kg) and I think I got down to about 69 in my first year at Sky.........I have always been aware of the weight issue, but I had always taken it for granted then when I pushed my weight I could get it to about 69 (kg) and that was a good place to be. I don't think I necessarily thought that I could go much lower than that, and apparently I have. I've gone a good three kilos lower which is huge."
So at Sky, at certain races (I'm guessing the Tour), Froome has raced at least 11 pounds lower than the weight he was at when he first joined the team! That's huge weight loss for a guy who has always appeared stick-thin!!
...And there is no way you can argue Wiggins has consistently ridden at his 2012 weight during his career!
I didn't say they hadn't changed weight, I said they where consistently "towards the stick-insect end of body shapes". Froome dropped ~4% body weight at certain points in his career with Sky - good for him, happens all the time in training. Wiggo ? No, he's not kept his weight constant either - he's changed quite a chunk when transitioning from track to road and during his road career especially whilst training for particular events (up and down)... but I didn't say he hadn't.
I'm talking about a physical type that you seemed to have issues with, saying you couldn't understand how they could put out power in the time-trials and yet be so light to make a good climber - or at least, couldn't understand how that happened without recourse to doping.
I was trying to point out (badly perhaps) that some riders who have slight builds are both good at (certain types of) time-trails and good at climbing due to the way they can put out power and their weight - and that would make it more difficult to use gross physical measures to flag up potential drug abuse. If you're a lanky streak of piss to begin with, then taking something that drops your weight and gives you a potentially higher blood flow is going to be a tad harder to spot - if Cancellara turned up at the TdF looking like Aru then that's going to turn heads, Froome drops a kilo then it's not so obvious (perhaps paradoxically).
I'm not saying any particular one of them are doping or not doping - I just thought your comment that skinny builds were a 'clear signal' of doping was massively over simplistic.
I said "ultra-skinny". I'm talking about the unhealthy emaciated weight we've seen in recent years. Rasmussen was the first time I was really shocked at how a rider looked during the Tour - Froome is closest I've seen to that more recently, due to his 7% drop in competing weight since joining Sky! That's a huge drop for a guy who was at very low body fat levels to begin with. I'm just questioning how this is being done....and linking back to my original point about the omerta - now Armstrong has fallen, who is asking the difficult questions when what we see is verging on the ridiculous?
Ok so we're perhaps descending into semantics - are you saying it's basically only Froome currently or that you don't actually have to look like he does to be on something like AICAR ? These are 'recent trends' we're talking about remember ?
According to the quote from Froome he went from 'about' 70/71kg to 'about' 69kg during his first year at Sky - so maybe somewhere between 1.5% and 3% difference and that sounds like his average racing weight. At times he then dips another ~4% - not a permanent racing ('competing') weight change although you seem to be suggesting that and there's some ambiguity about whether he says he can get to 69kg in Barloworld but not less.
So an occasional weight reduction of between 4% and 7% going from a second string team to the house of marginal gains competing at different levels of expectation.... is that really a "clear signal of modern doping" ? If it is then given the amount of testing he's had in that time, and the amount of historical trend data they must have from his passport, the fact that his performances have not been questioned officially is surprising whichever way to look at it.. bodes well for the sale of shiny aluminium millinery.
Froome's weight, coupled with his 2012 & 13 performance, is highly suspicious in my book. My belief is that a large part of the pro peloton is doping to some extent either during training, racing, or both - and I think the recent positives are proof of that. Now, if that's my starting point, you can't expect me to believe that the winners of Grand Tours are clean, can you?
Froome said his racing weight at Barlo was 70 / 71, and suggested that he has gotten down to at least 66 at Sky (I have to assume that this would be at the Tour, given that he was using these answers to justify his huge improvements since moving to Sky). Look at pics of Froome racing at Barlo and you'll realise that 5kg is a big loss. He even said himself that he thought 69 was the lowest he could go!
Regarding 'marginal gains' - don't make me laugh!
Care to elaborate ?
No - I can't expect that, especially if any of them happen to race for Sky....
Ah.... glad to see you completely ignored what I wrote...
It was in the context of Barloworld vs Sky regarding weight expectations due to differing training regimes and budgets. I find Sky dull as fuck most of the time but, as i've mentioned to you before, that doesn't make them the devil incarnate ...or unicorns.
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