Vinokourov and Riis urged to appear before panel on cycling’s doping history

The UCI president

Brian Cookson has called upon Alexandr Vinokourov and Bjarne Riis, the heads of the two most prominent teams in this year's Tour de France, to testify before the independent commission on cycling's doping history as a way of helping the sport move on from its past.

Vinokourov, who is in charge of the Tour de France winner’s Astana squad, tested positive for blood doping in 2007. Riis, who is boss of Tinkoff-Saxo, winners of three mountain stages and the King of the Mountains prize, confessed to having used erythropoietin to win the 1996 Tour; he was initially expunged from the record but subsequently reinstated.

“I would like both of them to come to the commission,” said Cookson at the Tour de France finish in Paris. “The commission doesn’t have powers of subpoena, but there is a court of public opinion here which is really important; those two people and others as well need to bear that in mind if they want to continue to operate in our world, opinion in the world of cycling would be much more favourable towards them if they came forward.”

Contentious issue

The question of whether former riders with a doping past should be allowed to work within the sport has been a bone of contention for years; the UCI president believes that the independent commission, founded earlier this year to take testimony on past doping offences, could help in the process of rebuilding within the sport.

“We’ve got a rule that says if you’ve got a major anti-doping violation you can’t be involved with a team, but our advice is that it’s difficult to employ that retroactively. So what I want to try to do is find ways in which we can reassure people that the people who are involved in the sport who may have had a history have renounced that and given a commitment to work with us in a way that respects the rules, and is clean.

“What I want to do is say, ‘such and such a guy may have done wrong things but he was penalised for that, served his sanction and he’s also spoken to the commission and told them about what happened’. You have to have some possibility for redemption in any judicial system. It’s unrealistic to say we have to wipe out those people for ever and ever. There are teams that have tried that – my friends at Sky – and they have tied themselves in knots. Other teams have tried other ways and found other complications.”

Appeal to appear

Cookson does not favour compelling former dopers who want to work within cycling to testify to the commission, but said: “I would rather it was by consent . . . I expect you to come forward to the commission, to tell what happened . . . and why.”

Cookson added that he is "delighted" Lance Armstrong has testified before the commission, something of which he was unaware until recent press reports. "I haven't seen what he's said but . . . that should encourage others to step forward because what we want to do is learn some lessons, take some action and address this situation of people who've been involved in doping being involved with teams."

The UCI has recently come under flak for not broadcasting the news that the former Giro and Vuelta winner Denis Menchov had been banned for two years for biological passport violations. "I don't think we're going to make a song and dance every time we have an anti-doping case concluded but we need to do a little bit more than update the schedule without telling anyone. We can do more than that." Guardian Service