Victoria Pendleton said her 'heart sank' when she read the Parliamentary report latest revelations about goings on at Team Sky . I understand exactly how she feels. I am an enthusiastic cyclist myself and a huge fan of the sport, and have been for more than 30 years now. I think professional cyclists are the hardiest bunch of sports people out there, especially the Tour riders and the Classics specialists. Their bravery is only matched by their incredible resilience and I have the utmost respect for them all. The grand tours are spectacles unlike anything else in world sport and I still desperately want to believe in what I'm seeing.
The thing about most sports fans is that we can put up with an awful lot and my love for cycling will carry on undiminished; of that I have no doubt, and that is because I have to, I must believe that the majority of the peleton is not living in the grey, murky areas frequented by those that would destroy the sport. I need to continue to believe in the dignity of cycling, that there is still honour in the peleton because without that belief it all comes crashing down.
That said, it is precisely that respect I have for these amazing men and women, that makes this whole episode hurt so much. I am a Brit and the past decade of cycling excellence on both the roads and the track have filled me with pride. When I'm out on my bike, suffering on a mountain or being blown to a standstill in the face of a biting head wind, my thoughts invariably turn to my heroes for inspiration and if those heroes happen to be Brits then it is oh! so much better! With renewed energy and vigor, my cleats straining as I depress my pedals, inspired by thoughts of 'if they can do it, then so can I,' I fight on, work through the pain and it feels good. It feels right.
However, in dark times like these my thoughts and feelings return to the halcyon days of Lance Armstrong, a previous hero of mine; a majorly flawed hero as it turned out, and I remember how I defended him, almost unto the last; 'it cannot be true! This is Lance Armstrong!' And then I recall how I felt, as if I'd been kicked in the nuts when the house of cards Lance built came tumbling down. I can only describe it as 'mourning.' I was in mourning for the loss of someone who had been with me through so much, even though I'd never met the man, he'd been with me, egging me on, telling me to fight and persist on so many occasions that when it all fell apart I felt as if I'd lost a training partner. I was sad, for myself, for all the others who felt like me, sad for the sport, and sad for him that he felt the need to lie and cheat above that of telling the truth and winning (or losing) with honour.
Then came our Brad, a man who I have written about on my blog here, describing him as, in my opinion, the greatest British sportsman ever. His achievements are unparalleled across so many disciplines in cycling that I felt we should never see his like again. So many of his later successes gained, in part, through the guidance and leadership of Dave Brailsford, the cycling guru who revived British cycling, breathing new life into it's comatose form. And these successes, under the flag of Team Sky's sponsorship, were achieved in the wake of the Armstrong debacle and after much fanfare about the teams high minded ethics and clean, drug free competition that it championed, were a revelation. My heroes were reborn, this time under a cloud free sky, and what was more, they were British.
As Brad's time ended, the Froome era began. A period of unrivalled success in the Tour and then last year in the Vuelta. I was on cloud 9. Then came the adverse test results, the samples taken as it happens, two days after Froome and the Vuelta had passed through the village in Spain where I live! I still had my Team Sky, 'Come on Froomey' banner flying in my garden when it all came to light!
And now, after the jiffy bag scandal, comes the latest bad news about Wiggins, Brailsford and Team Sky.
I was watching Paris-Nice yesterday and it felt like I was once again watching a funeral cortege pass me by. I was numb. There was no enjoyment to be had.
Okay, I understand that the cases against Froome, Wiggins, Team Sky and Brailsford are , as yet, unproven, but really, is that the point? The sense of being let-down by my cycling heroes, yet again, is palpable. Right or wrong, for me the point is that they have risked so much. Their reputations. The reputations of their team mates, their friends, their families. The reputation of British cycling and British sport as a whole. It wouldn't feel so bad if they hadn't held held themselves up as paragons of drug-free virtue. But they did! And because of that they should have made sure that, in a sport as tainted as cycling is by its history, they were spotless all the way down the line. Did they really think that just because they said they were clean that the doping agencies would go look elsewhere? No, their high idealistic stance invited close scrutiny and they should have been cleaner than clean as a consequence.
It seems they were not.
Regardless of how things turn out now, I can never feel the same about any of them. In my head, as in everyone else's I'm sure, there will always be the questions if they go onto further success. Once again I'm burying my heroes down deep and my ride today will be all the lonelier for that. And I'm sad it has come this. I know how you feel Vickie Pendleton. I understand completely.
My Vuelta banner has now been cremated and another happy memory has become ash.
PS. The UCI must, I believe share a portion of the blame. As to how much...it is not for me to say. They need to set and enforce a much stricter set of rules, such as, basic medical standards and record keeping for all team riders. These should be, within reason, made available to us, the fans, who can then scrutinise and pick apart the way cyclists do the amazing things they do. Transparency is surely the only way to go. Cut out the grey areas, tighten the rules, cut off the rough edges and let's take cycling forward in a clean, honest and moral way. If that mens that standards suffer for a perios, then so be it, it is a price worth paying.
Cycling must change if it is to survive as an international sport. Every sport is nothing without the fans and the fans will be leaving cycling in droves if the negative revelations continue.
