A tired and broken Stuart O'Grady knew the end of line was near before admitting to doping at the 1998 Tour de France

STUART O'Grady had the look of a tired, beaten warrior.

STUART O'Grady had the look of a tired, beaten warrior.

Sitting under an oak tree in forecourt of a Valaurie villa last week, O'Grady confided he was exhausted - and the Tour de France still had six stages, among the toughest in the centenary edition, to come.

"Sorry if I'm a bit slow, mate," he said. "I've got that after-lunch creep happening."

I doped for the TDF, says O'Grady

The South Australian then spent the next 10 minutes chatting away amiably, albeit with telling flashes of animation on three subjects.

One of them was the stage-winning performances of Orica-GreenEDGE, another was a defence of the same team's inability to win a stage last year and, finally, doubts over Chris Froome's to drug-free racing.

Then came the question that he answered by not giving one.

Asked "Are you definitely coming back next year to break the Tour record of 18 starts?", O'Grady let out a loud sigh.
"Oh, you know, I'm pretty stuffed at the moment, so it's probably not the best time to ask," he replied.

The cyclists who returned positive tests

"Look, we've had a fantastic time and, you know, I had a really good day on the team's time trial, with everybody really putting in and it's days like that you've got to remember and that you keep going for.

"As for next year...ask me in Paris."

Given the unfolding events of the past 24 hours, when O'Grady admitted to using EPO after News Limited reported he returned a suspicious sample to the performance booster, O'Grady obviously knew long before race end he would be retiring.

He sat on the team bus, still in his Orica-GreenEDGE jersey, before attending the post-Tour party at the Hyatt Regency, down the hill from the Arc d'Triomphe.

As the drinks flowed, his mind was on the conversation he would have the next day with his parents.

He told them he had cheated on the 1998 Tour de France. He needed to tell them before they heard it from the French senate findings.

Before and after he injected EPO in 1997, O'Grady insists he raced clean.

The man long regarded as Australia's finest all-around cyclist - an Olympic track gold medallist yet good enough to wear Tour de France yellow and win the Paris-Roubaix - was no longer what we always thought he was.

Suddenly, the indestructible freckle-faced kid from Adelaide had feet of clay.

Like a lot of cyclists, he was caught in a trap back in the late 1990s.

As team spin doctors told the world their brand was different to their shady, untrustworthy neighbours in the next bus, internal themes resonated louder among the riders.

The message was: "You have to be competitive and, if you're not, we'll find somebody else who is prepared to do whatever it takes to win."

There was no arcane code in an era where team officials knew exactly what was needed to succeed - synthetic blood-boosters were the only way.

O'Grady recalls tackling one of the first climbs on the 1997 Tour and being dropped after only 5km.

When he returned for the '98 edition, he was prepared - and not only won a stage but wore the maillot jaune for three days.

Not long after, the Tour of Dopage, an obscenity driven by syringes and greed, exploded into global awareness.
Ever since, people have wondered aloud about the who, where and when.

In O'Grady's case, now we know.

O'Grady first came across this desk in 1992 at the Barcelona Olympics where, as an 18-year-old, he won silver on the track.

Since then, he has established a place atop Australian cycling's tallest plinth and has been professional and accessible every step of the way. He has been a joy to deal with.

Revised history is now required. The results of the '98 Tour must be erased.

For all of its terrible disfigurement, the yellow jersey remains the ultimate sign of cycling supremacy.

Chances are that O'Grady would do anything to forget how it was he came to don it in Cholet in western France on July 15, 1997.

His reputation will never be the same simply because people will not accept his claim of temporary weakness.
O'Grady deserves better than to be condemned as a cheat, but that is what he is. Or was.

With his fall from grace, another piece of the public's trust is fractured.

The greatest shame is that O'Grady was one of the sport's most credible figures.

In the end, he proved to more human than the rest of us.

Truth is, he was not compelled to admit anything, but did so for his own reasons. For his conscience,
For that, and for all but two weeks of stunning 19-year pro career, O'Grady is to be lauded.

He was a champion, yet fallible. Now, he is tired and broken. We all deserve better - and so, mostly, does Stuart O'Grady.