AMIENS, France, 28 January 2004 — Disgraced French cyclist Philippe Gaumont claimed on Monday that 90 percent of the professional riders had been or were on performance enhancing drugs.
The 1992 Olympic bronze medalist has admitted to taking the banned blood booster EPO in the ongoing scandal involving the elite French team Cofidis but said it was not so much the riders he wanted to be penalized but the system itself.
“I have admitted to taking illegal substances,” said the 30-year-old, who is set to be charged by French judicial authorities for confessing to taking EPO.
“What cyclist could say anything to the contrary? However in no way do I want to blame the riders, because we are victims of a rotten system.
“It is this rotten system that I am going to take on in the coming weeks,” added Gaumont, who already served a drugs ban after failing a test in 1997.
Gaumont claimed that to be successful the riders came under pressure from the team sponsors to take drugs.
“We quit our schooling early, and embark on a sport where we can’t control anything that goes on. We are under enormous pressure from the sponsors, where we are compelled to get good results.”
Gaumont, whose Cofidis teammate and former wearer of the yellow jersey in the Tour de France Cedric Vasseur claimed at the weekend systematic doping was not prevalent in the peloton, said no matter what the sport’s authorities tried to combat dopetaking the riders had the answer to it.
“There is nothing to be done by them because we can easily get round the drugs tests. Last week it was revealed that some riders in last year’s centenary Tour de France resorted to blood doping, forcing the sport’s governing body to announce an Australian-pioneered test to detect blood transfusions will be used for the first time this season.
Vandenbroucke Faces Doping Trial
In Termonde, Belgium, former Belgian cycling champion Frank Vandenbroucke was sent to trial yesterday for possession of prohibited substances. Vandenbroucke’s lawyers said the rider would almost certainly appeal. Police seized quantities of the endurance booster EPO, the steroid Clenbuterol and morphine when they raided his house in 2002.
