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Chris Froome with Tour de France and Vuelta winner's jerseys.jpgDavid Walsh says he has lost trust in Chris Froome due to Salbutamol case
David Walsh, the Irish journalist whose investigation of Lance Armstrong helped pave the way for the Texan’s lifetime ban from cycling, has said he has lost trust in Chris Froome as a result of the Team Sky rider’s adverse analytical finding for twice the permitted level of the anti-asthma drug, Salbutamol.
Walsh, author of the book Inside Team Sky, was embedded with the UCI WorldTour team for much of the 2013 season, a year in which the rider won the first of his four overall victories in the Tour de France.
In September, Froome added the Vuelta title, but Wednesday’s revelation that urine samples taken on Stage 18 of the Spanish race showed double the legal amount of Salbutamol has left him fighting to save that title and escape a ban.
Writing in today’s edition of The Sunday Times, Walsh, who has in the past defended Froome’s reputation, revealed that he had a “fraught, difficult” phone call with the rider on Friday.
He said that the affair “leaves him [Froome] with a question that will take some answering.”
> Chris Froome: "I haven't broken any rules"
Walsh wrote: “There is a threshold level and Froome exceeded that by 100 per cent.
“He has to explain how that amount of Salbutamol got into his body.
“If the authorities are not satisfied, he will be banned and stripped of his Vuelta a Espana title.
“The greater punishment will be to his reputation,” Walsh went on. “He will be seriously damaged. Four Tour de France victories diminished in one asterisk.”
He added: “The hardest thing about our conversation on Friday evening was telling him that I no longer trusted him in the way that I once did.”
> Bradley Wiggins' wife calls Chris Froome a 'slithering reptile'
On 20 September – the same day that Froome was notified of the adverse analytical finding – Walsh defended him on an Irish radio show.
He told the Irish broadcaster RTE: “I believe he's clean and I don't see any reason for not believing.
https://www.rte.ie/sport/cycling/2017/0920/906364-david-walsh-i-believe-...
"The case against Chris Froome is powerful in so many ways, all it lacks is evidence.
"Make up your own mind. I'm making up mind and exercising my right to call this as I see it,” Walsh added.
Meanwhile, his former colleague at The Sunday Times, Irish ex-pro cyclist Paul Kimmage, highly critical in the past over Walsh’s defence of Froome and Team Sky, has written a scathing piece about the rider in today’s Sunday Independent.
AG2R-La Mondiale rider Romain Bardet, who finished this year’s Tour de France third overall behind Froome and Cannondale-Drapac’s Rigoberto Uran, has also been speaking about the controversy.
He told AFP: “This is not good news for cycling. Pretty much everyone gets hit by something like this, cycling's credibility first and foremost.
"We really could have done without it. It's not something anyone can rejoice about.
“Let's hope that a swift and objective probe can clarify the facts and leave no doubts about what happened," Bardet added.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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41 comments
Indeed, Mo and athletics have had no controversy whatsoever...
And there was no controversy over para athletes being incorrectly categorised either.
Mo and his salbutamol-abuse-encouraging coach.
Mo and his unfortunate knack of having dopers take selfies with him, people he claims he didn't know at all (but often trained with)
Mo and his decision to start training far away from testers after missing two tests because of a "shit doorbell"
Mo and his incredible, superhuman transformation in his late twenties.
B O L L O C K S
Between him and Radcliffe the problem is really clear for cycling - it's PR.
But throw in transfusions and motors and I'd still put cycling ahead by a wheel in the Cheating Stakes. I'm sure we can all be proud of the innovation on display.
If you don't think athletics has a blood doping problem (Radcliffe and her incredible blood values) I've got a bridge to sell you.
If motors ever get proven the sports done for though.
If that's all we're going on at the mo, I might just buy the bridge. It isn't a van full of blood bags or Tyler's third party blood... Yet...
There is motor doping - I think the highest level it's been found so far has been van den Driessche? I doubt it goes higher than that, but when semi-pros racing for a few hundred euro are using them, it sticks another boot into cycling's credibility, which is already in the gutter.
I'm not saying athletics is cleaner*, but it hasn't been proven to have covered the spectrum of PED, blood and technological doping so spectacularly as cycling.
*I agree that PR has something to do with it. I'm not sure why we can have evidence of systemic dodginess (Russian/Eastern bloc 70s/80s, US leading up to '84 Olympics, Balco, Chinese athletes in Beijing, recent Kenyan/Jamaican/Russian programmes) and loads of individual cases of dodginess, including Ben Johnson, and there being any credibility left. I think maybe it's that the pinnacle of road cycling is seen as more uniform - it's the pro tour, comprising of teams: of one rider is at it, the team is, and then all teams are... As opposed to athletics, with all its different competitions, and being seen as an individual sport.
So you have no problem with his association with Salazar?
Personally, I prefer to take all of the Slytherins as I find them.
There is so much more to cycling than pro teams!
The sooner people stop putting pro riders on a pedestal and making out they are some kind of heroes / demigods the better. Yes they can pedal a bike faster than you and me but it doesn't make them better people. They are human, just like the rest of us. Elite sport seems to be corrupt, from the administrators through to the riders, coaches and teams. Not good role models. Grassroots is where it's at, people who do it for the love of it, not for money or prestige.
Absolutely this sentiment, but I think I'm a lot more cynical than you about grassroots. There seems to be a worrying number of positive results returned from nothing races (I could just be remembering the headlines as an unfair representation).
Certainly the sport that I'm probably closest to, rugby (having played and coached league, and now my boys play union), PED (mainly steroids) use is widespread - and it's estimated at 1-2 million across the wider population.
Samples aren't usually taken at club cycling events so I'm not sure how anyone could draw conclusion about doping/cheating at grassroots level in cycling. There have been a number of positive tests at time trials but again these are national events, not local club or open TTs. I also meant to say that there is also far more to cycling than racing.
Looking at the way rugby union (and the shape & size of the players) has changed in the last 20 or so years I wouldn't be surprised if substances like steroids & HGH were found to be widespread.
He has good very reason to find it suspicious and, while his first-hand experience may be some time ago he knows better than most that certain things haven't really changed. I'm not saying he's always right but he has been there more than once - he was one of Armstrong's most vocal doubters despite the brickbats thrown at him - and most of us haven't. And I think he applies the very sound principle of "if it sounds too good to be true..."
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