Always looking forward, not back

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Johan Bruyneel(Image credit: Jon Devich)

An interview with Johan Bruyneel, February 3, 2008

Astana's new general manager Johan Bruyneel clearly faces an uphill battle in trying to restore faith in his new Astana team. It is not just because Astana had three doping positives in 2007 - Matthias Kessler (testosterone), Alexander Vinokourov and Andrey Kashechkin (blood transfusion) as well as the implication of Eddy Mazzoleni in the 'Oil for Drugs' scandal - but also because he himself became damaged by the constant doping allegations against Lance Armstrong.

It is unlikely that the year 2007 will ever be forgotten, not just because of Astana's problems, but because of the rest of the turmoil in the sport, which culminated in the yellow jersey being fired while he was on the verge of winning the Tour. At the same time, it was the year which some teams finally took responsibility for their own future, starting with Team CSC hiring Dr. Rasmus Damsgaard to start the anti-doping program which Astana has also adopted under Bruyneel.

"This is what we have to put in place if we're going to have a chance. I said it from the beginning - we're spending 460,000 euros on antidoping policies - Damsgaard and the biological passports. The ProTour teams pay 120,000 euros each for the passports - which is basically exactly the same as what we have for Damsgaard. We're doing double, but that's the way it is. On top of that, we spent 40,000 euros on a sophisticated whereabouts system."

Bruyneel has faith that the new paradigm of testing will change the sport, and the riders attitudes as well. After the team's first camp in Spain, Damsgaard starting the random testing process, and Bruyneel was quickly impressed. "He found riders everywhere: there were guys in South Africa, Mallorca, America - all of a sudden I got a bunch of messages saying 'I had a visitor'." The UCI even showed up the morning after Damsgaard's visit to camp, and while the riders may end up looking like human pincushions this year, Bruyneel thinks it's a necessary process. "It's not fun, but that's what they have to deal with unfortunately. It's difficult."

The system contrasts Bruyneel's former team, which never had a formal testing program in place, but he hinted that they had their ways of knowing when a rider was up to no good. "We had our own internal rules, and I've never been vocal about it, but I can say now that we made certain decisions based on our own internal system; not selecting a rider, firing a rider, not renewing a rider... a rider who was selected for a certain race and we thought something was wrong, we sent him back home."

The fact that one can never be sure has certainly come back to haunt Bruyneel when he signed Ivan Basso to the Discovery team after he'd been implicated in Operación Puerto and then cleared, only to have the rider ultimately confess to the charges and leave the team. The Spanish investigation is still far from over, and the reportedly 6,000 page long dossier could hold further problems for Bruyneel and his star Contador.

The case has threatened the reputation of many riders, and while some, like Basso, Jörg Jaksche and Michele Scarponi, have admitted to involvement, there are dozens others who were named but continue to assert their innocence. Five others were initially named, but then were removed from the case, among them Alberto Contador, Allan Davis and Sergio Paulinho, all of whom were part of the Discovery Channel team in 2007.

"A lot has been written about Contador being named, and he's made certain declarations about it," Bruyneel explained. "He was a young rider along with other riders, for instance Allan Davis, who happened to join a team [Liberty Seguros, under Manolo Saiz] where we discovered certain things have happened. But I'm sure Contador has never been involved in Operación Puerto. If his name has come up for some reason, it would be up to the UCI to give their arguments, but a week after [it came out in 2006] his name was taken off, and there has to be a reason for that."

"If there's any other questions from whomever, he offered after the [2007] Tour de France to answer any questions, to give his DNA, whatever he needs to do prove he was not involved," Bruyneel explained. But it is clear that the case is a constant source of frustration and confusion, especially now that the Italian Olympic Committee [CONI] prosecutor Ettore Torri has said he will question non-Italian riders and even seek disciplinary proceedings against them.

"I was surprised to see the CONI statement," Bruyneel said. "I don't really understand what the Italian Olympic Committee has to do with something that happened in Spain with riders from other countries. But Contador has said, if somebody calls to ask him questions and has the authority to do that - this prosecutor Torri - if he has the authority to do that, Contador has no problems going to talk to him and tell him whatever he wants to know."

Bruyneel is anxious to get the posturing out of the way and just sit down and straighten things out once and for all. "I would rather than reading it in the press and then nothing happens, and then one month later reading it again, say 'OK, this is it, come here I want to talk to you, let's get it over with!" When asked if he would like to just schedule a meeting, Bruyneel said, "If it will end it!"

Contador's chances of defending his Tour title may well fall victim to the sport's other major problem, the battle between what Bruyneel calls "the alphabet soup": The ASO [Tour de France organiser Amaury Sport Organisation], UCI, AIGCP, ICPT, CUPT, MPCC - the list of acronyms goes on and on, and not one can impart any sense of unity into the sport's governance. The Grand Tour organisers are adamant that they will control who gets invited to their events, and do not wish to be told what to do by the UCI.

After the recent proposal to create a new calendar for the Grand Tours and 'monuments' as a way to solve the ProTour/Grand Tours battle, Bruyneel was approached by Levi Leipheimer who was confused about what that would mean for the riders. "I was saying the other day to Levi," Bruyneel recalled, "honestly I don't understand it anymore. I cannot follow it anymore. For those of us inside, we're supposed to know how things work - we're supposed to understand who has the authority, what are the rules - we don't understand it anymore."

Bruyneel listed off the organisations involved, and found none of them with the power or the ability to push the sport into the right direction and have peace between all the various groups. "The AIGCP, or Association International des Groupes Cyclistes Professionels, that's all the professional teams. It's supposed to be a union - but it's nothing like a union, it's just the opposite, it's people trying to kill each other."

For this reason, the teams and riders take the fallout from the decisions of the UCI and of the race organisers without any power to influence them. Staging a boycott of a race would be out of the question. "You can't just tell an organizer we're not going to show up because then if you don't participate, your sponsor will be angry and then he'll go away. In other sports like tennis, or soccer, they can stop and people will have to at least listen to us. In cycling, you cannot think about that."

As a general manager, Bruyneel may well find himself at the center of some of these battles, but he knows that he cannot make any progress by himself. "I'm in a different position now. As long as there is no unity among the teams I cannot help change anything alone. First there needs to be the teams sitting together and demand that, for instance, 'hey, ASO and UCI you're going to sit down in this room with us and you're not going anywhere until something gets done, otherwise we all stay for one month at home'."

Bruyneel seemed a bit hopeful about the concessions by the UCI recently, but said that it will take much more to fix the situation. "There are so many things that have happened and so many things that have been said - so much damage has been done. It's going to take a lot. The Grand Tours and the UCI have to be flexible and open to dialogue. They don't have to be friends, they don't even need to be business partners, but there has to be concessions on both sides."