Cycling fans and friends in shock as full impact of Stuart O'Grady's doping admission emerges
RIDERS, friends and cycling officials are in shock after Stuart O'Grady admitted to doping, as the full impact of his confession began to emerge.
RIDERS, friends and cycling officials are in shock after Stuart O'Grady admitted to doping, as the full impact of his confession began to emerge.
Hours after O'Grady's explosive admission to The Advertiser he took performance-enhancing EPO in the two weeks before the 1998 Tour de France, Olympic and government officials were among those picking up the pieces.
The Australian Olympic Committee has demanded that O'Grady resign from the athletes' commission and corporate partner the Motor Accident Commission has removed promotional material featuring the Olympic gold medallist.
The commission is seeking legal advice while the State Government is considering demanding O'Grady return the $44,000 it paid him to promote SA as an ambassador. The confession is also expected to cost O'Grady huge future earnings.
O'Grady's emotional confession on Wednesday night followed a French Senate inquiry listing one of his doping control samples from the 1998 Tour - in which he won a stage and wore the yellow jersey - as "suspicious".
Six months later, he won the inaugural Tour Down Under in Adelaide in 1999 but race director Mike Turtur said the victory was not in question because drug tests were all-clear. He did not believe that O'Grady's confession would tarnish SA's biggest annual event.
His admissions received a mixed reaction from fans, officials and riders, including Anna Meares, who called it "a great shame" for the sport.
O'Grady said he turned to EPO in 1998 because he was a vulnerable 24-year-old desperate to keep pace with the peloton during a dirty era for the sport.
He said telling his parents in Paris on Monday was "the worst moment of my life" and although he rode the remainder of his career clean, it would tarnish him forever.
"That's the hardest thing to swallow out of all this - it was such a long time ago and one very bad judgment is going to taint a lot of things and people will have a lot of questions," O'Grady said.
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"I want to close this chapter of my life and have a fresh start. I realise there are going to be consequences but I don't want to stand in front of people any more and lie.
"I was lucky enough to win a lot of things, they can test my samples from Paris-Roubaix and my Olympic medals for the next thousand years, they're not going to find anything. There is nothing more to hide."
State Sports Minister Leon Bignell said the Government would not rule out trying to recoup the money it paid O'Grady to promote the state in Europe as an ambassador between 2008 and 2010 - the same way it asked Lance Armstrong following his doping confession.
"They're all questions - this has broken overnight and we're working through a range of issues," Mr Bignell said. "He (O'Grady) was engaged as an ambassador for South Australia.
"Stuart O'Grady wasn't paid to race in the Tour Down Under whereas Lance was, and we have written to Lance asking that if he doesn't want to pay that money back, would he pay it to a charity."
Last year, O'Grady told The Advertiser that doping for him had "never been a thought, never been an option". Then in January, when Armstrong finally confessed after years of denial, O'Grady was asked by reporters whether he would ever share a beer with the Texan again.
"No way," he replied.
Turtur - O'Grady's first coach at the SA Sports Institute in the 1980s - said he was "disappointed and shocked", but he still trusted him and considered him a friend.
"My personal involvement with Stuart goes back a fair while so he was the last guy I thought would be involved," Turtur said. "I fully believed in him so there was never any question in my mind about his integrity."
Bignell, who spent time with O'Grady at the 1999 Tour de France when he was a journalist, said he had "absolutely no idea" of his doping secret.
"I stayed with Stuey before the 1999 Tour de France, drove the car while he was motorpacing, we did lengthy interviews ... and sitting down at the kitchen table, we talked about drugs in cycling," Bignell said.
"We went right through the issue and he said like so many people in 1999, they were looking for a clean start after the disgraceful race of 1998.
"I think he's let down his family and his mates, but then everyone is human. If it's a once-off thing, that's a long time to live with a mistake.
"Here's a guy who rode six Olympic Games, he's won Olympic gold, Paris-Roubaix, he's been the most respected cyclist in the peloton for the past decade.
"People from all around the world admired O'Grady and he's done himself the greatest damage he possibly could and that's a really regrettable thing but he's going to have to live with that."
FACT FILE
STUART O'GRADY
Age: 39
From: Ingle Farm, South Australia
Lives: Luxembourg/Adelaide
Teams: GAN/Credit Agricole, Cofidis, CSC/Saxo-Bank, Leopard, Orica-GreenEDGE
6 Olympic Games
1 Olympic Gold Medal
1 Olympic Silver Medal
2 Olympic Bronze Medals
1 Paris-Roubaix Title
4 Commonwealth Gold Medals
17 Tours de France
4 Tour de France stage wins
2 Tour Down Under titles
CAREER TIMELINE
1992: Makes Olympic debut at the age of 18 in Barcelona and wins a silver medal in the team pursuit
1993: Wins team pursuit world title
1995: Turns professional with French team GAN, later known as Credit Agricole
1996: Wins two bronze medals at the Atlanta Olympics
1997: Makes his Tour de France debut
1998: Rides the Tour de France for the first time, wins Stage 14 and wears yellow jersey for two days
1999: Wins inaugural Tour Down Under
2001: Wears yellow jersey at the Tour de France for five days
2003: Wins national road race title
2004: Wins Olympic gold in Athens with Graeme Brown in the madison
2007: First Australian to win one-day Classic, Paris-Roubaix
2010: Guides Andy Schleck to overall victory at the Tour de France
2012: Joins Australia's first WorldTour team, Orica-GreenEDGE and competes in his sixth Olympics in London
2013: Rides a record-breaking 17th Tour de France as Orica-GreenEDGE wins the team time trial. Announces his immediate retirement after the Tour and admits to taking EPO before the 1998 Tour de France