Bicyclist: Do you think the sport of professional cycling has changed since you retired?
LeMond: Well, I have to laugh. There's a rider that was on the U.S. Postal Service, an American rider that had never raced in Europe, who told me how much cycling has changed in the three or four years since I retired, how much harder and faster it's gotten. As he's telling me this, I'm thinking, 'Is this guy trying to insult me?' [laughing] The best part about it was that he went and raced in Moline, Illinois and Jeff Bradley [a friend who competed on the amateur national team with LeMond, as well as professionally with 7-Eleven], who's been retired ten years, trained only 900 base miles before this race to get back into shape. No more. And then Jeff finished 8th or 9th, and this guy finished behind him. And the Postal rider is a pro! How do you judge that it's changed? There's no way. The talent hasn't changed at all. I do think, however, that the Italians have changed the sport in a really bad way. It has become much more medical. There's no doubt that riders are probably fitter now at the beginning of the season. But that started in the mid '80s.
Bicyclist: Medical?
LeMond: Yes, medical.
Bicyclist: Drugs?
LeMond: [hesitates] I don't know that it's drugs exactly...
Bicyclist: Then let me restate the question. Do you feel that drug use is prevalent in the pro peloton?
LeMond: Well, it's hard to say. I don't know if it's drugs, but there are substances. I don't know that I buy the excuse by people who say they didn't perform well in a one-day race because the winners were on drugs. In a one-day race, there's no reason you cannot perform as well as someone taking drugs. EPO (Erythropoeitin, a naturally-ocurring and synthesized hormone that increases red blood cell count) just increases your red blood cells. Here in America you can train at altitude any time you want and get the same benefit from altitude as from EPO. Steroids, on the other hand, accelerate recovery. I went steroid free throughout my whole career. There were always rumors of guys taking stuff, but more than steroids it was the cortisone, the catabolic, not the anabolic. Of course there were tests, and people have been caught with testosterone. The Italians, somewhere in the '80s, figured out how to take small amounts to be on the legal side of it, which does help recovery and would help tremendously in a three week race. I've heard two sides of the drug issue. First of all, you have to understand the doping mentality. I don't think there's a rider in the peloton that prefers to take drugs. It's simply what doing to keep up with competition, and if they think everyone's getting away with it, they feel like they need to use it, too. Half of these guys haven't finished high school, have a wife and three kids at home, and if they don't perform, they won't get paid. The problem with Americans is that our ethics are sometimes a bit nave-don't get me wrong, the American ethic is really good, I like the American attitude, but it doesn't really bite into the reality of situation. I know my old teammate, Eric Boyer, retired because he didn't want to touch the stuff, and I know many other people who made it through clean, such as Andy Hampsten and Steve Bauer. Every rider on La Vie Claire was clean, that was Paul Keochli's big deal to make sure he had a clean team. But I do know in the early '90s there was a huge movement in Italy. Riders that had been racing for six or seven years were suddenly riding really well. To me, that looks a little suspicious. The drug issue is something I often thought about during my career. Toward the end, I always wondered, 'Is everyone taking drugs, while I stay clean, causing me to perform so poorly?' But there wasn't a drug in the world that would've helped me. One thing I do know is that a teammate of mine went to an Italian team and he died of a heart attack a year later. It was a little disappointing. I do think the riders are trying to say, 'Hey, we're for control testing.' The riders are the ones who pushed for the haematocrit level tests, so people would stay within the limits.
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