• Sporting director Johan Bruyneel pays price for his involvement
• Belgian 'turned young professionals into veteran drug users'
• Belgian 'turned young professionals into veteran drug users'
Lance Armstrong with his US Postal sporting director, Johan Bruyneel, during the 2003 Tour de France. Photograph: EPA
The Lance Armstrong scandal claimed another high-profile scalp on Friday as Johan Bruyneel was relieved of his position as directeur sportif
at RadioShack Nissan Trek following his implication in the web of
blood-doping and deceit that developed around Armstrong following the
American's comeback from cancer in 1998. Bruyneel was lead directeur sportif
at US Postal Service from 1999 to 2004, and had won a total of nine
Tours in the past 14 years with Armstrong – although the Texan is likely
to be stripped of those titles – and Alberto Contador.
Bruyneel, renowned as one of the most thorough and ruthless operators in the cycling world, was charged with doping offences by the US Anti-Doping Agency along with Armstrong and other associates in June. The dossier released by Usada on Wednesday indicated that he had been implicated in assisting Armstrong with blood doping and with persuading younger riders in the team to use the blood booster erythropoietin to improve their performances.
"The reasoned decision published by the Usada included a number of testimonies as a result of their investigation," RadioShack Nissan Trek said in a statement. "In light of these testimonies, both parties feel it is necessary to make this decision since Johan Bruyneel can no longer direct the team in an efficient and comfortable way. His departure is desirable to ensure the serenity and cohesiveness within the team.
"The Usada investigation does not concern the activities of Mr Bruyneel while managing the RadioShack Nissan Trek team. Johan Bruyneel contests the validity of the procedure as well as the charges against him."
Seven pages of the Usada report detail Bruyneel's involvement. "The overwhelming evidence in this case is that Johan Bruyneel was intimately involved in all significant details of the US Postal team's doping program," the agency stated in its "Reasoned Decision". "He alerted the team to the likely presence of testers. He communicated with [Armstrong's trainer] Dr [Michele] Ferrari about his stars' doping programmes. He was on top of the details for organizing blood transfusion programs before the major Tours, and he knew when athletes needed to take EPO to regenerate their blood supply after extracting blood. He was present when blood transfusions were given. He even personally provided drugs to the riders on occasion.
"Most perniciously, Johan Bruyneel learned how to introduce young men to performance enhancing drugs, becoming adept at leading them down the path from newly minted professional rider to veteran drug user." For example, the report states: "… in early 2000 young pro Christian Vande Velde was nervous about embarking on the doping program that [team doctor Luis García] del Moral recommended and brought his concerns to Bruyneel. Bruyneel told Vande Velde, 'not to worry if I felt bad at first that I would feel good at the end'."
It is also claimed in the report that Bruyneel introduced Armstrong's team-mate Tyler Hamilton to blood doping and accompanied him when he used the practice for the first time. The evidence of another team-mate, Levi Leipheimer, indicates that Bruyneel asked him to move on to the team's doping programme run by Ferrari when he informed the manager that he was using EPO on his own initiative.
Leipheimer's evidence states: "Johan's concern and Dr del Moral's concern was not necessarily that I had used EPO but that because they had not been told of my use, and I might not be doing it safely, that I could have had a positive test which could have led to problems for the team."
Whereas Armstrong had opted not to contest the charges laid against him by Usada, Bruyneel was due to face a panel of arbitration next month. Earlier, his leading star in the RadioShack Nissan Trek team, the Swiss time trial specialist Fabian Cancellara, called for Bruyneel to go. "I don't know if I can still work with him," Cancellara told the Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws. "Bruyneel's name is listed 129 times in that 200-page document.
"Lance was apparently a systematic doping sinner. He doped on a scale that cycling has never seen before. He has really destroyed a lot. Now, I understand how a team like US Postal could put all eight or nine riders at the front in a mountain stage. In the golden years of doping it was all very simple: 'train and load.' 'Loading' the word riders would use for doping … It has changed [now]."
Bruyneel, winner of the fastest ever road race stage of the Tour de France in 1993, was appointed directeur sportif at US Postal Service midway through the 1998 season after Armstrong felt that the previous incumbent, the Dane Johnny Weltz, was not up to his standards.
Pressure is also mounting on cycling's governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI), after the sport's leading anti-doping campaigner, David Millar, left, called for the body's honorary president, Hein Verbruggen, to resign in the wake of the Armstrong revelations. Verbruggen was president of the UCI during most of the Armstrong years – quitting his post at the end of 2004 – and as recently as last year insisted that the seven-times Tour de France winner had "never, never, never" engaged in doping. The 71-year-old Dutchman is also a member of the UCI's management committee.
Verbruggen's time at the UCI includes two critical moments. The first was in 2002 when it accepted two donations totalling more than $100,000 from Armstrong, one of which was used to purchase a machine for analysing blood samples. The second was in 2005 when the Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman was appointed to investigate allegations from the newspaper L'Equipe that EPO had been detected in five urine samples taken from Armstrong during the 1999 Tour when the samples were tested retroactively for scientific purposes.
The Vrijman inquiry was castigated by the World Anti-Doping Agency as "ill-informed and incorrect", showing "a lack of professionalism and a distinct lack of impartiality", containing "factual and process deficiency", being "fallacious in many aspects and misleading", and was summed up as a "flawed and partial document".
Millar said: "The UCI have to accept they have to carry some responsibility for this because it was obvious what was going on. The UCI had all the blood data, the medical reports, it was part of the culture of the sport and in the big races the majority of riders were doing it on drugs. There was only a tiny minority getting good results without drugs and they really were the outsiders. The first step for the UCI is that Verbruggen has to be removed.
"There is no doubt about that – [the current president] Pat McQuaid has to distance himself because it was under Verbruggen's presidency that it was at its worst, and yet there were all these denials coming from the UCI. He was at the head of an organisation with the biggest doping problem in the history of sport. He's still there. He doesn't have to commit hari-kari, he should just admit that mistakes were made, and we have all made mistakes. But the UCI is not a commercial company so there is no one to answer to."
The UCI has said it will examine the Usada report and evidence within the next three weeks but will not delay a response "any longer than necessary". Millar said the strength and depth of the report – no fewer than 11 riders gave evidence against Armstrong – had been vital to ensure there were no lingering doubts. "A lot of people thought he was going to get away with it but now we are dealing with it."
Millar said that cycling had "climbed out of the abyss" but he feared a whole new generation of riders would be tarnished by the past. "That's what is so sad. A whole generation are now going to have clean careers and results that should never be doubted," he said. "Cycling went into an abyss but we have climbed out and changed the sport, yet there is still all this baggage we are carrying around."
Bruyneel, renowned as one of the most thorough and ruthless operators in the cycling world, was charged with doping offences by the US Anti-Doping Agency along with Armstrong and other associates in June. The dossier released by Usada on Wednesday indicated that he had been implicated in assisting Armstrong with blood doping and with persuading younger riders in the team to use the blood booster erythropoietin to improve their performances.
"The reasoned decision published by the Usada included a number of testimonies as a result of their investigation," RadioShack Nissan Trek said in a statement. "In light of these testimonies, both parties feel it is necessary to make this decision since Johan Bruyneel can no longer direct the team in an efficient and comfortable way. His departure is desirable to ensure the serenity and cohesiveness within the team.
"The Usada investigation does not concern the activities of Mr Bruyneel while managing the RadioShack Nissan Trek team. Johan Bruyneel contests the validity of the procedure as well as the charges against him."
Seven pages of the Usada report detail Bruyneel's involvement. "The overwhelming evidence in this case is that Johan Bruyneel was intimately involved in all significant details of the US Postal team's doping program," the agency stated in its "Reasoned Decision". "He alerted the team to the likely presence of testers. He communicated with [Armstrong's trainer] Dr [Michele] Ferrari about his stars' doping programmes. He was on top of the details for organizing blood transfusion programs before the major Tours, and he knew when athletes needed to take EPO to regenerate their blood supply after extracting blood. He was present when blood transfusions were given. He even personally provided drugs to the riders on occasion.
"Most perniciously, Johan Bruyneel learned how to introduce young men to performance enhancing drugs, becoming adept at leading them down the path from newly minted professional rider to veteran drug user." For example, the report states: "… in early 2000 young pro Christian Vande Velde was nervous about embarking on the doping program that [team doctor Luis García] del Moral recommended and brought his concerns to Bruyneel. Bruyneel told Vande Velde, 'not to worry if I felt bad at first that I would feel good at the end'."
It is also claimed in the report that Bruyneel introduced Armstrong's team-mate Tyler Hamilton to blood doping and accompanied him when he used the practice for the first time. The evidence of another team-mate, Levi Leipheimer, indicates that Bruyneel asked him to move on to the team's doping programme run by Ferrari when he informed the manager that he was using EPO on his own initiative.
Leipheimer's evidence states: "Johan's concern and Dr del Moral's concern was not necessarily that I had used EPO but that because they had not been told of my use, and I might not be doing it safely, that I could have had a positive test which could have led to problems for the team."
Whereas Armstrong had opted not to contest the charges laid against him by Usada, Bruyneel was due to face a panel of arbitration next month. Earlier, his leading star in the RadioShack Nissan Trek team, the Swiss time trial specialist Fabian Cancellara, called for Bruyneel to go. "I don't know if I can still work with him," Cancellara told the Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws. "Bruyneel's name is listed 129 times in that 200-page document.
"Lance was apparently a systematic doping sinner. He doped on a scale that cycling has never seen before. He has really destroyed a lot. Now, I understand how a team like US Postal could put all eight or nine riders at the front in a mountain stage. In the golden years of doping it was all very simple: 'train and load.' 'Loading' the word riders would use for doping … It has changed [now]."
Bruyneel, winner of the fastest ever road race stage of the Tour de France in 1993, was appointed directeur sportif at US Postal Service midway through the 1998 season after Armstrong felt that the previous incumbent, the Dane Johnny Weltz, was not up to his standards.
Pressure is also mounting on cycling's governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI), after the sport's leading anti-doping campaigner, David Millar, left, called for the body's honorary president, Hein Verbruggen, to resign in the wake of the Armstrong revelations. Verbruggen was president of the UCI during most of the Armstrong years – quitting his post at the end of 2004 – and as recently as last year insisted that the seven-times Tour de France winner had "never, never, never" engaged in doping. The 71-year-old Dutchman is also a member of the UCI's management committee.
Verbruggen's time at the UCI includes two critical moments. The first was in 2002 when it accepted two donations totalling more than $100,000 from Armstrong, one of which was used to purchase a machine for analysing blood samples. The second was in 2005 when the Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman was appointed to investigate allegations from the newspaper L'Equipe that EPO had been detected in five urine samples taken from Armstrong during the 1999 Tour when the samples were tested retroactively for scientific purposes.
The Vrijman inquiry was castigated by the World Anti-Doping Agency as "ill-informed and incorrect", showing "a lack of professionalism and a distinct lack of impartiality", containing "factual and process deficiency", being "fallacious in many aspects and misleading", and was summed up as a "flawed and partial document".
Millar said: "The UCI have to accept they have to carry some responsibility for this because it was obvious what was going on. The UCI had all the blood data, the medical reports, it was part of the culture of the sport and in the big races the majority of riders were doing it on drugs. There was only a tiny minority getting good results without drugs and they really were the outsiders. The first step for the UCI is that Verbruggen has to be removed.
"There is no doubt about that – [the current president] Pat McQuaid has to distance himself because it was under Verbruggen's presidency that it was at its worst, and yet there were all these denials coming from the UCI. He was at the head of an organisation with the biggest doping problem in the history of sport. He's still there. He doesn't have to commit hari-kari, he should just admit that mistakes were made, and we have all made mistakes. But the UCI is not a commercial company so there is no one to answer to."
The UCI has said it will examine the Usada report and evidence within the next three weeks but will not delay a response "any longer than necessary". Millar said the strength and depth of the report – no fewer than 11 riders gave evidence against Armstrong – had been vital to ensure there were no lingering doubts. "A lot of people thought he was going to get away with it but now we are dealing with it."
Millar said that cycling had "climbed out of the abyss" but he feared a whole new generation of riders would be tarnished by the past. "That's what is so sad. A whole generation are now going to have clean careers and results that should never be doubted," he said. "Cycling went into an abyss but we have climbed out and changed the sport, yet there is still all this baggage we are carrying around."
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