Too many similarities to Armstrong, Irish journalist says
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Paul Kimmage(Image credit: Gerry McManus/www.splitsecondimages.co.uk)
Paul Kimmage (Image credit: AFP)
Panel members Greg LeMond and Paul Kimmage at the Change Cyclng Now press conference in London.(Image credit: Gerry McManus/www.splitsecondimages.co.uk)
Paul Kimmage has spoken of his doubts regarding Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky's dominance at the Tour de France. “I don't know anyone who could say that this was a fully convincing Tour win,” he told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine. The Irish journalist said that he saw many similarities with Lance Armstrong, who has recently been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.
Kimmage was often asked this summer as to whether there was doping in the Tour. “I don't know,” he told the FAZ.net. “If you apply the same standards to Tour winner Bradley Wiggins as to Lance Armstrong, concerning inquiries and logic, then there are similarities which are alarming.” Kimmage pointed in particular to the presence of Dr. Geert Leinders on Sky's medical staff in 2011 and 2012. Leinders was previously a doctor at Rabobank during a period when doping is alleged to have been tolerated on the team.
The dominance of their respective teams has also given Kimmage food for thought. "You look at how dominant their teams were: Postal for Armstrong, Sky for Wiggins. They had a core of four, five riders, who rode strongly for those three weeks without one single weak day. You think: is that logical?
“You look at what happened after the Tour. Sky threw out the team doctor and three others. Michael Rogers left, he was one of the strongest riders. I don't know anyone who could say that this was a fully convincing Tour win.”
