Geraint Thomas has given his reaction to some of the findings in the Cycling Independent Reform Commission’s report into doping in professional cycling, saying that he finds it ‘insulting’ that some people consider that cycling is ‘still really filthy’. Thomas made it clear that he thinks his Tour de France-winning Sky team-mates Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins ride clean.
A section of the CIRC report relating to doping in cycling today included a statement from an unnamed current professional rider, who felt that “90% of the peloton was doping, although he thought that there was little orchestrated team doping in the manner that teams had previously employed”.
Talking to the BBC during Paris-Nice, where he currently sits in ninth place overall, the 28-year-old Sky rider said: “I think it’s a hell of a lot cleaner. I didn’t race back then, but all the stories you hear and stuff, it’s certainly not like that now. Whole teams were doing it back then.
“I can only comment on me and this team and I know we do – and I know I do it – 100 per cent [clean]. It’s quite insulting when people say it’s still really filthy, because that’s saying that I’m doing something wrong.”
“I dedicate everything to this. You do everything you can you sleep well, you try not to eat to get skinny. It’s hard bloody work, you know. It’s insulting… when they say something like that.”
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Thomas himself feels distanced from the previous era of cycling, and thinks that it is the older generation of riders whose cynicism about not being able to perform without doping is still holding cycling back.
“You look at older riders who have done it in the past, they are the most cynical about it all because they don’t know any other way, they think you can’t do it. But you certainly can,” said Thomas. “You look at Brad, you look at Froomey. I’d put all the money I had that they are clean. Obviously I can’t say 100 per cent, but 99.999.”
Froome was the only current professional rider willing to be named in the CIRC report as someone who testified to them, although Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) has subsequently said that he also spoke to the Commission.
