Team Manager Jonathan Vaughters (Image credit: Gregor Brown)
Garmin-Chipotle's very existence relies on hard work. Its bosses, directors and riders epitomise an ethos focusing on grafting their place in a peloton fighting for credibility. Thanks to great performances in 2008, the team has become a model for a more credible sport where the words 'clean' and 'win' are mixed more easily, as Cyclingnews' Les Clarke discovers.
In this second part Cyclingnews finds out how the team's work is gradually counter-attacking the damage done by the scourge of doping. (Read part one for more.)
"Some of these guys just don't believe that they can perform at that level clean, and maybe they can't," said Garmin's Team Manager Jon Vaughters when asked how the team reacts to positive doping results such as those of Riccardo Riccò or Stefan Schumacher. For a squad which has immersed itself in the clean message so thoroughly, surely this is a slap in the face?
"I think that some of these guys believe that's what they need to perform; I don't think they believe the culture of anti-doping. They hear our team saying, 'we're clean, we're doing internal controls, etc' they say, 'Sure you are, whatever...' They just don't believe it, and they're just cynical about it," said Vaughters.
"They think everyone else is still doing it, and since they think everyone is still doing it they just do it themselves. I just think that it's false - I think those doing it are in the minority right now."
