Nicolas Roche went in to bat for his father Stephen on Prime Time last night.
RTE’s flagship current affairs television programme, ‘Prime Time’ last night ran an extended piece on the Lance Armstrong case, which included an interview with Irish professional rider Nicolas Roche.
At the top of the doping segment a news report branded “Punctured Dreams” was shown, setting out some of the doping issues in cycling over the years.
It outlined how Stephen Roche was included in an Italian report published in 2004 which suggested Roche had been administered EPO in 1993.
Though the drug was not banned at the time, Stephen Roche has always strongly refuted those claims and never tested positive during his career.
The Prime Time report also outlined two incidents involving Sean Kelly.
In 1984 when he tested positive he claimed the drug test centre was so chaotic a mistake could have been made and he received a suspended two-month ban.
Advertisement
And on another occasion in 1988 he was found to have codeine in his system, which he attributed to a cough medicine, and no ban was imposed.
The item also detailed how the Festina drugs affair erupted in 1998 when a team official driving to catch the car ferry to travel to Ireland for the start of the Tour de France here was caught with a car full of performance enhancing drugs.
The team worker Willy Voet would later write a book in which he suggested Sean Kelly’s 1984 positive test arose after he had taken medicine to treat bronchitis.
Voet suggested the team was concerned the medicine may show up in a dope test and so Kelly supplied urine from a team mechanic at the dope control.
However, the mechanic had ingested a stimulant substance, which showed up in the urine Kelly is said to have supplied at the doping control.
The issues surrounding Lance Armstrong and his US Postal/Discovery team, as set out by the USADA reasoned decision sent to the UCI this week, were also summarised in the news report.
The show then cut to Prime Time presenter Claire Byrne in the studio and her interview with Nicolas Roche via a Skype link.
Here’s the full transcript of that interview:
Claire Byrne: Irish professional cyclist Nicolas Roche and son of Tour de France winner Stephen Roche joins us now via Skype.
Nicolas, today the sport that you love and that you train so hard for, its reputation lies on tatters. What’s your reaction to that report?
Nicolas Roche: First of all, obviously it’s anger. But then, you know, the situation is we’re paying for something that happened seven or eight years ago.
So I honestly don’t think… like, it’s a big blast for the sport but hopefully people will understand that this situation and this story is on the way to be closed now. It’s about something that happened 10 years ago.
Claire Byrne: It’s not so far back in our history because Alberto Contador, the man whose team you have signed to ride with, was stripped of his very recent Tour de France victory.
Nicolas Roche: Obviously Contador has had his troubles and he paid the price for what he did over the last two years. Obviously, there’s probably going to be some more stories to come in the future.
Related News
What I’m saying is that this big one, this big chapter, is now closed. People have the answer to the questions they were asking.
And now let’s move on to 2013 and hopefully continue as much as possible the anti-doping fight that’s in place now with the UCI.
Claire Byrne: You mentioned the UCI, the governing body of cycling headed by an Irishman Pat McQuaid.
Now, both Pat and his predecessor (Hein Verbruggen) who’s now the honorary president of that organisation robustly defended Lance Armstrong in the past.
In order to turn the page on all of this, do you think that they need to leave the UCI.
Nicolas Roche: Well, I don’t know all the details of the story. There’s just so much going on in a professional career that if you start looking into every detail on every fight there is around, I would never be able to concentrate fully on my own career.
So I just follow what I read in the newspapers. So, you know, obviously what happened was pre Pat McQuaid. I think Verbruggen now is out of the picture, Verbruggen is out of the picture….
Claire Byrne: Well, he’s still honorary president. But I want to ask you about your own career in this sport Nicolas, because we heard from those witness statements in this report over the last 24 hours that people felt pressurised, in order to perform with the big boys, to become involved in using EPO and other products. Is your sport a clean one now?
Nicolas Roche: I’m not saying it’s a clean one, I’m saying it’s a much cleaner one, which is a big difference. But there’s always going to be someone that’s going to try and cheat or (actually) cheat.
Claire Byrne: Have you seen that in the course of your career?
Nicolas Roche: No, you just know it. Like, I mean everybody cheats at some stage, in every single other aspect of life. They fake ID, they cheat at their Leaving Cert exams, they cheat on soccer pitches.
Cycling is getting much better. We know, with the (need for riders to inform the UCI of their) whereabouts, we’re the most restricted sportsmen.
We just give away our privacy. I wouldn’t even mind having a GPS watch on me (to track position in the world at all times) if that can help the sport go on.
Claire Byrne: And Nicolas, because we have heard all about this and how long it went on over the past 30 years and even longer indeed, all of those heroes, the people that we held up and admired over the years including, and we heard mention of your own father in the report that we just heard; there will be a shadow over their careers now. Do you think that’s fair?
Nicolas Roche: Well, for the riders who have been caught and proven to have doped it’s fair. You just mentioned my dad. I don’t think my dad has been caught or positive at any stage.
It was only some people that had just put a doubt on him. There was no proof on it, they’ve only written saying that maybe there is something.
But today there is still nothing on dad so I don’t want to implicate dad in that story. But for those riders who have been caught, I completely agree and I would be the first one casting a shadow on them.
I’m the first one today disappointed (about) what’s going on, especially reading about those riders who actually admitted that they took drugs.
I think for them, it’s too easy to say ‘ah, I took drugs because I was asked to take drugs and we all did it’. No, it’s not fair.
Claire Byrne: Does this make you question your own commitment to cycling?
Nicolas Roche: No, I do things my way. I might never win the Tour de France or whatever. I’m not cheating on my possibilities.
I train as hard as I can, I do my diet right; I do everything to make me perform as best as possible with my own natural capabilities.
The pre-recorded interview then ended.
Topics
