After Armstrong's disgrace, it would be poetic justice for America's other Tour winner to head up cycling's governing body
The aftershocks of the Usada report on systematic doping by Lance Armstrong and associates are still shaking the cycling world. Just last week, the sport's governing body, the UCI, which has come under severe scrutiny over allegations contained in Usada's Reasoned Decision that it helped cover up suspect laboratory test results for Armstrong, announced the three-member panel which is to conduct a Leveson-like investigation into the ethical record of the UCI.
And this week, following a conference in London of a new reform movement, three-time Tour winner – and America's only Tour de France champion now that Armstrong has had his titles stripped – Greg LeMond has confirmed in an interview with, appropriately enough, Le Monde that he has agreed to run for the presidency of the UCI. This would involve challenging and unseating its current president, Pat McQuaid, who has made himself a staunch ally of his predecessor, Hein Verbruggen, the Dutch official and IOC member who presided over the period of Armstrong's Tour dominance (up until his first retirement, in 2005).
For many cycling fans, who wish to see an end to the culture of doping and silence in pro racing, Greg LeMond is a figurehead and hero – regarded by some as possibly the last unimpeachably "clean" rider to win the Tour, which he did three times (1986, 1989 and 1990). With Armstrong discredited by the Usada report, set in motion by the revelations of former team-mates Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton, the reformers see an epochal opportunity to usher in a new era of transparency, of credible anti-doping controls, and of stability in the sport that constantly risks the loss of vital sponsors through the drip-drip of the past decade and a half's dope-cheating scandals – from the Festina affair in 1998, through the Operation Puerto investigation, the Team Telekom/T-Mobile confessions, right up to this year's dramatic events. As LeMond said:
"It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case, another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term."
LeMond himself floats the name of Richard Pound, former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, as a possible candidate. A Canadian lawyer, Pound really established Wada as an effective enforcer against doping in sport in its first decade of existence (from its foundation in 1999). He has been outspoken critic, in particular, of the UCI's approach to anti-doping – clashing with Verbruggen and McQuaid, who attempted to sue Pound for defamation in 2007, though that seemed to have had little effect. LeMond is right: Pound would be a leading candidate – with both the ethical record and the leadership qualities to change the governance of cycle sport for good.
So, the question then is, does cycling need a stalking horse to challenge McQuaid – regardless of the outcome of the Otton Commission? And is LeMond the right guy for the role of caretaker president or interim leader?
The fact that the reformers are pushing ahead with this scheme suggests a lack of confidence in the commission to be truly independent and have teeth – despite its seemingly broad remit and good access. Given the apparent behind-the-scenes power that Verbruggen wields, able to rely on McQuaid's fealty despite having formally retired over seven years ago, such scepticism that the UCI will not somehow control or manipulate the outcome of the commission is not surprising. Among cycling's sans culottes, there is a fundamental lack of trust in the capacity of the ancien regime to reform itself. The politics of the situation is that the reform movement senses that the UCI's leadership has never been more isolated or vulnerable in its Swiss eyrie – and chooses to press now for the defenestration of McQuaid and Verbruggen.
LeMond has standing. He has long been an outspoken critic of Lance Armstrong, clashing with his compatriot publicly as early as 2001 after Armstrong's association with Italian doctor Michele Ferrari (also now banned from the sport by Usada). My personal sense of that is that LeMond's attitude to Armstrong was, at the time, also mixed with a certain amount of envy: LeMond's own remarkable story of being the first American to win the Tour de France, then being nearly killed in a hunting accident, only to come back and win two more Tours (including the thrilling seven-second win in the French republic's bicentennial year), was supplanted by Armstrong's cancer survival narrative – and then by the accumulating wins that surpassed LeMond's record.
Does that personal animus matter now? LeMond pointed the finger at Armstrong and accused him of cheating at a time when few dared to do so (the Sunday Times journalist David Walsh being a notable exception), and he lost by it – Trek Bikes, who sponsored Armstrong, eventually dumped LeMond's brand of racing bikes. And LeMond made himself a voice in the wilderness: without hard evidence, his accusations were easily made to appear petty, mean-spirited and self-serving. He was often called a loose cannon, or dismissed as a stuck record … But he was right. And in that vindication, any tincture of taint in the original motivation behind his complaints seems increasingly irrelevant.
Though no other names have been floated, other than Pound's, there are other figures in cycling who have been comparably stalwart in the anti-doping cause. Jonathan Vaughters, former pro rider, director of the Garmin-Sharp team and outgoing president of the International Association of Professional Cycling Groups (AIGCP), is a possible candidate. Against that, of course, is that he is still a player in the sport; also, that despite long being an advocate for clean racing, his own personal doping mea culpa was relatively recent in appearing. Betsy Andreu, wife of former Armstrong team-mate Frankie, is another possible figurehead, who has won a following for her long record of whistleblowing on Armstrong. But without a career either as an athlete or as a sports administrator behind her, she'd be unlikely to win wide backing.
What about Australian Anne Gripper, who was chief of UCI's anti-doping in the brief spell when the organization seemed to make real headway: the biological passport, which is generally accepted as the gold standard in all sports, was introduced on her watch. She has also been critical of the current UCI regime. But she was McQuaid's appointee, and that association might count against her with the reform wing.
More credible as a candidate, perhaps, might be Patrice Clerc, former head of the Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO), which owns and runs the Tour de France. Under his leadership, the ASO took a notably tougher line on doping than the UCI – disinviting teams, for instance, with key riders who had been associated with the Operacion Puerto doping ring investigation in Spain. He was eventually eased out of ASO, which led to an unfortunate rapprochement with the UCI; and he has recently called for a "revolution" in the sport's governance. He could be the character to administer "un grand coup de balai".
But in the European-dominated world of pro cycling, the nationality of the UCI presidency is itself a political issue. An American would be an outsider but in a constructive way – symbolising a clean sweep. It's also worth remembering that Armstrong was so damaging to the sport partly because he brought a degree of professionalism and ruthless efficiency to his teams' doping programmes: this was, in a sense, an American problem – the systemic cheating's technical expertise and "get it done" attitude. There is a just symmetry in selecting an American to begin the process of letting in the daylight on the previous decades' darkness.
The Otton Commission will deliver its verdict: it is conceivable that a critical enough report would make McQuaid's (and Verbruggen's) position untenable; but it is by no means certain. In that case, who would you rather see act on Otton's recommendations: McQuaid or LeMond?
Assuming that LeMond, who, whatever his foibles, commands much affection and respect, makes good on his promise to give way soon to a more professionally qualified administrator, that seems a pretty easy question to answer.
• Disclosure notice: the author was briefly engaged by Greg LeMond in 2005 as a potential ghostwriter for his autobiography; the project never came to fruition
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