This Tour de France had its share of questions about the winner’s performances, Tadej Pogacar…
It has existed since the dawn of time. When Merckx won, we had the same debates. As soon as someone wins very strongly, suspicions are coming. But there is not a sport as controlled as the bicycle. Pogacar has up to three checks per day. We are the most controlled sport and we still put 10 million euros (in the anti -doping, delegate at ITA). It’s still huge. Not another sport worldwide is the same. And the Pogacar bike, like others, was dismantled entirely. Nothing was found. So, I have no doubt to have knowledge in the current state.
You have increased the 2.5 million doping control budget in 3 years, why?
We still wanted to strengthen our system with more investigation possibilities, more storage possibilities. For example, we store 15,000 samples per year, or 150,000 over 10 years. It allows us to reject samples. Storage costs money. It is all this long -term policy that costs money. The message is to tell runners that their samples can be reserved in 2 years, 5 years or 10 years.
Did you realize that you were not doing enough?
We can always say that it is not enough. We are by far the first international federation in terms of anti -doping. Some spend 50,000 euros per year, we 10 million. At one point, there are still limits. There, we also developed female cycling and we must strengthen controls.
Some runners say that there will always be a new product in the gray area. Is it inherent in cycling?
I wouldn’t say cycling. The cheat is inherent in man. There are people who cheat on taxes, others in the tail of the university restaurant. What we want is that the one who cheats is sure that he will be pinched. And we put the means for that. When I was elected, I announced that we were going to ban the tramadol. We did it. Since then, the World Anti -Doping Agency (AMA) has done so. I said that I really wanted to be very active on corticosteroids so that the AMA ban it. It was done. Carbon monoxide has been prohibited. I bet that the AMA will follow. We are often upstream, even official anti -doping regulation instances. We are not afraid to fight. Others do not have the same force. At the time, we heard about the EPO, but there was no detection method. There, I do not hear specially speak of other products than those on which we worked on.
If there are advantages (with ketones), we are ready to make any decision. We never trembled.
You advised the ketones. It has become a common practice in the peloton. What weight do you have?
We were on recommendations on ketones. In September will be published the result of our scientific research which has been done for two years and which will conclude the subject. To know if there is an advantage or not. I have the results but I must first present them to all the actors of professional cycling at the Board of Professional Cycling in September.
If there is an advantage, would you be ready to ban them?
If there are advantages, we are ready to make any decision. We never trembled. It is still necessary that things are proven.
We saw a very big domination of AUE this year …
Historically, we have always had domination of teams. Return to Claire life in 1986, they had the first, the second, the fourth, the eighth and the tenth of the general. It has always existed. When you have more means, you have more good runners. There are very good runners, notably Tadej Pogacar, but also Adam Yates, who has already made a podium on the Tour. When you have team members capable of being on the Tour podium, you have a stronger team.
Shouldn’t it be homogenize budgets?
Clearly, yes. We had worked a lot on a CAP budget. We had rather advanced badly to make proposals. But it was not necessarily the wish of the teams, and more particularly the smallest. I still can’t understand logic. If the little ones want to continue to get Hara-Kiri, they continue like this. I remain convinced that it is a major file. Equality of forces or at least harmonization is always interesting in sport. If you avoid having all the best runners in the same team, it’s more interesting.
All the people who tell me that you have to change the model, I would like them to say to me with what it is necessary to replace it. And they don’t walk so badly. However, we have teams that can be in trouble. It’s not today. But even with other models such as that of TV rights, that does not prevent football clubs from flowing: Bordeaux was liquidated, Lyon was relegated to Ligue 2.. We see it with Ligue 1, we may base budgets on other recipes, if they decrease, it can also be a difficulty. There is no perfect model.
All teams with a head office in the same country to avoid tax differences, is it possible?
No, because you can’t do it. You cannot prevent a team from a country from being able to rise. Overall, French teams have 40 % more load than other teams. It’s disabling.
And problematic?
There may be a competition problem. But we are not a national championship, we are internationally, we cannot force this or that model either. And the level of charges depends on the states.
