Letter From Gary Foord following the news that Charly Wegelius
had been withdrawn from the Tour of Lombardy
Many readers will already have heard that British Road professional
Charly Wegelius (De Nardi-Colpack) was withdrawn from last Saturday's
Giro di Lombardia after a pre-race blood test revealed an unusually
high haematocrit reading.
Blood testing of this type (often referred to as a "health check")
is normally recognised to be a check to prevent the use of EPO and other
blood doping products. Whilst a blood test result of this type is widely
percieved to be a positive test for blood doping, it does not actually
indicate any use of illegal substances, merely that an athlete has a
high haematocrit level.
World governing body rules mean that an athlete faces a 2 week suspension
following such a result.
Former GB Mountain Bike Coach Gary Foord wrote to us following the
news of Charly's withdrawal:
"In 1999 I had the pleasure of working with Charly during the
Manx International. He was aware that I had reached a reasonable level
in professional cycling and would have been asked awkward questions
about preparing un-ethically for competition. He wanted to know my opinion.
The basic conclusion was that I decided to retire from elite competiton
rather than further my career with morals that I did not believe in.
I knew then that Charly had been challenging himself with similar scenarios.
I also knew that he had decided that he was good enough not to cheat.
I do have a capability to doubt a lot of very successful athletes. However,
Charly is not one of them. At the time of our conversation I was employed
by British Cycling. He was brave to ask me the questions he did. However,
I no longer work with British Cycling. I have no reason to defend one
of their elite athletes. However, I simply like accuracy. I also dislike
conclusions being drawn by people who have not had access to important
detail about a particular character. Charly is an athlete with as much
talent as the best. It might be a good exercise for people to ask themselves
why he has not reached the very front of the big races. My informed
'bet' would simply be that he is a genuine athlete."
Gary Foord BSc (Hons)
Link: For details of the news story about Charly's withdrawal
see http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/?id=2003/oct03/oct19news
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