The revelations that Hesjedal may have used Performance Enhancing Drugs came by way of the latest disgraced former cyclist turned tell-all-athor, Machael Rasmussen, who claimed that he showed Hesjedal how to use EPO. He confirmed that he never saw Hesjedal use the drug and so it left the door open for Hesjedal to use that famous cyclist-caught-in the-headlights tactic and to deny, deny, deny. But full credit to the Canadian. He didn’t try hide from it, he didn’t threaten legal action against Rasmussen, but instead came out later the same day and held his hands up. He admitted that in 2003 he used EPO but has not used it since … certainly not during his run at winning the 2012 Giro d’Italia.
Hesjedal’s statement in full:
Cycling is my life and has been ever since I can remember. I have loved and lived this sport but more than a decade ago, I chose the wrong path. And even though those mistakes happened more than 10 years ago, and they were short-lived, it does not change the fact that I made them and I have lived with that and been sorry for it ever since. To everyone in my life, inside and outside the sport – to those that have supported me and my dreams – including my friends, my family, the media, fans, my peers, sponsors – to riders who didn’t make the same choices as me all those years ago, I sincerely apologize for my part in the dark past of the sport. I will always be sorry.
Although I stopped what I was doing many years before I joined Slipstream Sports, I was and am deeply grateful to be a part of an organization that makes racing clean its first priority and that supports athletes for telling the truth. I believe that being truthful will help the sport continue to move forward, and over a year ago when I was contacted by anti-doping authorities, I was open and honest about my past. I have seen the best and the worst of the sport and I believe that it is now in the best place it’s ever been. I look at young riders on our team and throughout the peloton, and I know the future of the sport has arrived. I’m glad that they didn’t have to make the same choices I did, and I will do everything I can to continue to help the sport that I love.
The question now is: Do you believe him?
The natural answer among many cycling fans will be, no way. No way did he simply try EPO in 2003, experience the benefits and then just leave it behind. And that is probably true. Hesjedal likely continued using it for a while, but still within what I like to define as ‘the era’ – that being the days when performance enhancing drug use was rampant in the sport. In 2008 Hesjedal joined the Slipstream team – now known as Garmin – and that has long since been known as a team that promotes clean riding within. Sure it has hired its fair share of former users of PEDs, but it offers them a fresh start if they do indeed ride clean and abide by their own internal testing program.
To me this story of a week ago changes little. It’s not something I didn’t know about cycling in 2003. What matters is whether Hesjedal has been racing clean in the present day and that’s something that you have to judge for yourself. I like to believe that in 2008 when Hesjedal signed up with Jonathan Vaughters’s outfit, that was the absolute latest point in which he would have stepped over that line.
The sport is trying to move forward and with that in mind I've little interest in looking way back into a dirty past.
