Dan Martin has reacted to the USADA report; seen here in the climbers’ jersey at the Tour of Beijing yesterday
By Brian Canty
Dan Martin has backed the riders in his Garmin-SHARP team who were implicated in USADA’s damning report into the doping culture that existed at the US Postal Service team throughout the late 90’s and early noughties.
The Irishman, who is currently riding the Tour of Beijing, said he considers himself fortunate that he has always ridden for a team with a strong anti-doping ethos, irrespective of the history of some of those involved in the team.
Garmin-SHARP riders David Zabriskie, Christian Vande Velde, Tom Danielson and team manager Jonathan Vaughters were all part of the much-maligned Armstrong teams at some stage and all four provided testimony to USADA as it built a case against Armstrong.
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On Wednesday, USADA announced that all bar Vaughters would serve six month suspensions after they confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs but Martin said he’ll be standing by his team-mates.
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"Garmin-SHARP's philosophy is anti-doping and we're going to stand behind those guys. We have confidence in those guys and I'll be happy to have them back racing as soon as possible, and that's all I really want to say really.”
"It's hard to comment on it really because I haven't really looked into the case," Martin said after yesterday’s third stage of the Tour of Beijing.
Martin joined the then Slipstream Sports team in 2008, and has often spoken about the firm stance the team, led by Vaughters, takes against doping.
"I'm very fortunate to have been able to turn professional when I did and ride for a team like Slipstream Sports, and that's why I'm very happy to continue with the team – the very strict anti-doping policy and the philosophy of the team. That's very important for me and something that all of the riders believe in."
Despite the storm of controversy that has erupted in recent days within the sport, he said he’s not letting it affect him and stressed it’s still possible to win clean.
“We can't change what happened in the past. We've just got to move on and continue what we're doing. We haven't really let it affect us," he said.
"We're proving every day that it's possible to win clean – Ryder [Hesjedal] won the Giro clean and Christian's (Vande Velde) proven that he's stronger than ever since he came to this team. He's had his best results while racing clean at Garmin," Martin said.
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