Team Sky's anti-doping declaration won't work, insists Jonathan Vaughters

Garmin-Sharp manager Jonathan Vaughters, one of the former US Postal Service riders who gave evidence against Lance Armstrong, has said that Dave Brailsford and Team Sky’s decision to have staff and riders sign a pledge to say they have no connection to doping won’t work.

Vaughters, aged 39, is among those who have called for a process of ‘truth and reconciliation’ to be put in motion as cycling continues to come to terms with the fallout from the US Postal scandal, but believes that Sky’s insistence on having those on its payroll sign a declaration will encourage people to lie.

“It’s just not the correct course for them to try and change history,” he told the Telegraph. “They would be better served by realising that people of that generation do have a lot to commit and contribute.

“Dave [Brailsford] has stepped into a sport that has 100 years of history and those 100 years sadly include some generations when the testing was not on a par with the doping and that the rules were unable to be enforced properly, because the science didn’t exist to do that. The drugs were so effective that the whole dynamic of the peloton was being manipulated.

“It’s just so difficult to ever figure out if a person signing the paper is telling the truth or not and it runs the risk of forcing people into a situation where they have to lie.

“You are given a piece of paper and told to sign and if we find out you were lying, then you are sacked. But if you don’t sign it you are sacked as well. You are pushing people towards dishonesty. I appreciate the idealism but it just feels like it is twisting a little bit more towards forcing people to be dishonest.”

As Bradley Wiggins, fourth in the Tour de France in 2009 under Vaughters, headed towards overall victory in the race this summer, Sky came under severe criticism because of its decision to employ former Rabobank doctor Geert Leinders on a freelance basis.

Sky revealed earlier this month that following an internal investigation, it will not be using his services again, although it was certain he had done nothing untoward during his time with the team.

While the team was founded on a strict zero tolerance attitude towards doping, one that still applies to its riders, Brailsford has in the past said that he realised that it was in effect to staff a professional cycling team with support personnel free from the taint of doping.

Michael Barry, now retired and the only Sky rider to have provided evidence to the United States Anti Doping Agency (USADA) in the Armstrong case, admitted to doping in his affidavit to the agency.

As our article earlier this week regarding the team’s requirement to have riders and staff sign that pledge outlines, sports director Sean Yates, race coach Bobby Julich and rider Mick Rogers are the men at Sky upon whom most suspicion falls in the aftermath of USADA’s Reasoned Decision in the Armstrong case.

Besides Vaughters, Garmin-Sharp riders Tom Danielson, Christian Vande Velde and David Zabriskie all gave testimony in the Armstrong case and have received six-month bans. While the team adopts a strict doping-free approach, that does not preclude those with a doping history from riding for it provided they have pledged to have put that behind them, the prime example being David Millar.

“Sky have a great organisation,” continued Vaughters, “they have great people in that organisation that are committed to clean racing, but do some of those people potentially have a history? Of course, but that is the history of the sport. It isn’t unique to the people Sky have hired.

“You cannot change history but you can change the direction forward and you can use the people who have encountered that history and probably didn’t really like that history.

"By just throwing some of them to the side, you are eliminating the knowledge base of how to prevent doping, you are completely pushing it to the side, eliminating all of that experience and the emotion of people who had to live through a doping era.

“I am not comfortable with my own past conduct, I am very regretful for it and it hasn’t been a fun thing to explain to my family, but I can’t change it,” he added.

“I can’t do anything about it but I can have a very large and meaningful impact on the lives of riders who never had to dope.

“I can bring guys like our young rider Andrew Talansky into an environment when they are never going to have the decision placed in front of them – and one of the biggest reasons for that is that they have got people like myself and David Millar who lived through a nasty time and are telling them and showing them the correct way, mentoring them.

"No rider should ever have to go through that, it is just horrible.”

“Management has to do everything they possibly can to prevent that from occurring. That is their responsibility. I just don’t see that team management’s responsibility is to chase ghosts from the past.”