Former Australian cyclist Baden Cooke has recalled the years when doping was rife in the Tour de France.
Cooke, a six-time Tour de France rider and 2003 Green Jersey winner, raced for Francaise des Jeux and Saxo Bank – two of the world’s biggest teams – during the ‘EPO era’ of the sport.
“Everyone knew it was going on,” Cooke told SEN’s This Is Your Journey – thanks to Tobin Brothers.
“Even before I turned pro, I’d heard all the stories. No one that was close to the sport was naïve enough to think it wasn’t happening.
“I was very fortunate in the 1999 Festina Affair the team I ended up signing for was actually embroiled in that behaviour and they got caught doing it, that’s before I joined the team.
“Their sponsor basically said them ‘if this sort of behaviour ever happens again, we’ll pull the plug. If it doesn’t happen, we’ll sponsor this team indefinitely’.
“That team still exists today.
“Basically, half the teams went fully anti-doping and clean and the other half just got sneakier.
“The team that I signed for at the time, as far as when I was in the team, were 100 per cent anti-doping.
“Probably six teams at the time that I believe were not just doping, they were systematically doping, and history has proven that to be the case.
“All I can say is the teams that I rode for, just by chance and by luck, were completely anti-doping.”
Subscribe to the SEN YouTube channel for the latest videos!
Cooke revealed an inside his joke his team shared about disgraced former cyclist Lance Armstrong.
In 2012, Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France wins and received a lifeline ban from professional cycling due to doping violations.
“We used to make a joke in our team … Lance Armstrong’s doctor was called doctor Ferrari,” Cooke said.
“We used to joke that our doctor was called doctor Fiat Panda.
“A Fiat Panda is the tiniest little four-cylinder hunk of junk of car that you could find in Europe.”
Cooke announced his retirement from cycling at the end of 2013.