There are, by now, so many sides to the story of doping in cycling over the past two decades that it’s gone perfectly and madly round. And round again. Lance Armstrong will always be at the centre of it, and so too will the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI, the governing body of world cycling).

In 2005, Irishman Pat McQuaid was elected UCI president, succeeding Dutchman Hein Verbruggen, who had held the position since 1991. Despite campaigning for a third term in 2013, McQuaid was beaten by Britain’s Brian Cookson, losing out by 24 votes to 18.

One of Cookson’s first decisions was to establish the Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) “to conduct a wide-ranging independent investigation into the causes of the pattern of doping that developed within cycling and allegations which implicate the UCI”.

Published last month, the report (228 pages, 13 months in the making, and at a cost of €3 million) cleared the UCI of any corruption: it did, however, point at a tacit exchange of favours between the UCI and Armstrong, certain preferential treatment given to the American and other riders, and general lapses of proper anti-doping procedures.

Yet McQuaid has come out both defiant and proudly defending his term as UCI president – still rejecting any criticism of his part in this story of doping in cycling.

Ian O’Riordan: Do you accept there were mistakes made during your term as UCI president as claimed in the CIRC report?

Pat McQuaid: “Well that last point – ‘during my term as UCI president’ – is very critical in these questions. I only took over as president in September 2005. And a lot of the things you’re going to refer to in this interview happened before my term. So they’re really the responsibility of my predecessor.

“Having said that, the CIRC report has come out and, personally, I am a little bit disappointed with it. I think it could have done more, given more to cycling, to help it move forward. I was disappointed with the number of current cyclists that didn’t go in front of CIRC. I think you have to look, in particular, at its terms of reference, which were as a result of a lot of rumours which had been put out there over the past 10 or 15 years by people like Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton, that the UCI had hidden positive tests of riders, and in particular of Lance Armstrong.

“So [CIRC]was set up with the intention of looking into that period, and seeing was there any corruption in the UCI, in relation to that. And they found there was absolutely no corruption, no hidden tests.”

IO’R: Corruption may be a strong word, yet there are some glaring examples of preferential treatment. Armstrong’s comeback in 2009 starting with the Tour Down Under (where Armstrong was paid $1 million to ride): it was a small window (13 days less than the required six months in the out-of-competition testing pool) but surely that was preferential treatment during your reign?

PMcQ: “The comeback to ride the Tour Down Under in Australia was under my reign. That I will accept. But I wouldn’t call it preferential treatment. First of all, he was the first rider ever to come under that rule. The rule was there for many years, and he was the first rider to come back from retirement and ask for a derogation to that rule.

“And indeed we sat down and discussed all aspects of it. We then had the biological passport in place. He was tested something like 13 times from the period when he announced he was coming back until he rode the Tour Down Under. His passport was perfect, in line with all of the others.

“So there was a discussion internally between the legal department, the anti-doping department, and myself. And in the end we agreed he could get the derogation. Now, I’m not trying to justify the derogation as such, but I don’t see any real difference in the decision that has been taken in recent weeks, whereby Bradley Wiggins was given a derogation by the UCI to change teams at the end of April, from his Sky team, which he’s currently with, to his new team, which he’s setting up. And he was given that derogation. Normally the rule is the transfer between one team and another can only be done between June 1st and June 25th every year. Bradley Wiggins has been allowed to change by the UCI, at the end of April because there’s a new race, the Tour of Yorkshire, and he wants to ride that with his new team. So, in principle, I don’t see any difference.”

Mounting evidence

IO’R: Did you not have any concerns about the potential damage Armstrong might do if he was brought back into the sport in 2009 under your reign?

PMcQ: “He decided to come back. We had no option but to allow him. And he did say his main reason was to promote his cancer charity. We had doubts. Of course we had doubts. But we have doubts about many riders, and act on those doubts. If we have a doubt about a rider we target test them, and so forth. And that’s the only real armoury an international sporting federation has, is the testing system.

Second Captains

“And Lance Armstrong was caught by the FBI, not by Usada [the US Anti-Doping Agency], or Wada, or the UCI. In every western society, the police know who the major criminals are. Gangland killers, drug crimes, and all that. The police know who they are, and yet these criminals are walking the street despite all the facilities the police have to catch them. We can only work with the facilities we have.”

IO’R: Do you believe Armstrong’s claim that he was clean when he came back in 2009?

PMcQ: “I do think he was riding clean. If you look back at what he said. When he came back into peloton, after he had cancer, he realised everyone was on EPO, and the only way he could beat them was to join them. I reckon he was clean when he came in 2009, because he knew the peloton had changed a lot, and I think he wanted to prove to himself that he could do it clean.”

IO’R: The CIRC report also states there was a “temporal link” between Armstrong being allowed back into the sport at the start of 2009 and him riding the Tour of Ireland later that year. Was it purely coincidence?

PMcQ: “The two things happened at the same time, yes. But my brother Darach knew Lance a lot better than I did. As soon as Lance announced his comeback, he make it known he’d love to have Lance come to Ireland. And Darach also convinced him to come here with his cancer conference. So all this went on parallel, yes. But no way was there a link between the two, or any deal done.”

IO’R: There was also the matter of Armstrong handing over two cheques to the UCI to support doping tests ($25,000 in 2002, and $100,000 in 2005). Did that not raise some eyebrows; a cyclist donating to the very cause that is supposed to guard against him?

PMcQ: “Yes, and I think my predecessor Hein Verbruggen has accepted it was a mistake to accept those cheques. But once again, CIRC examined all the circumstances around those two cheques, when they came in, and have ascertained that there were no suspicious circumstances, and that the money was used for the purposes of which it was said it was used – for anti-doping – and that there was no link between those payments and any anti-doping situation after that.”

Image of the sport

IO’R: It’s during your time people like Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton, Greg LeMond, former Wada president Dick Pound and journalists Paul Kimmage and David Walsh all questioned the credibility of the UCI. You call some of them (Landis and Hamilton) “scumbags”, and you sue most of the others.

PMcQ: “Yes, I did call them scumbags. It was at the end of a very long, emotional day, when we had actually announced that Lance Armstrong was out of the sport of cycling. And I did say afterwards that I regret using that word.

“In relation to Paul Kimmage and Greg LeMond, well the only time I went to court was to defend the interest of the UCI. If somebody comes out and states the UCI is corrupt, that’s not just the president they’re talking about, it’s all the staff of UCI, the sport of cycling. I felt obligated to defend that, that’s why I would end up in court. I never wanted to go to court. But as president of the UCI, I’m elected to look after the interest of the sport, and if someone attacks that organisation, you’ve got no option but to defend it.”

Usada report Then, in October 2012, Usada published its “Reasoned Decision” report, finally revealing Armstrong and his US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team ran “the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen”.

IO’R. Only then did you admit “Lance Armstrong had no place in cycling”, and still to some it sounded like UCI were actually disappointed he’d been caught, having held out as long as possible?

PMcQ: “Not at all. Under my watch, Floyd Landis, Alberto Contador, also a winner of the Tour de France, were caught. Marco Pantani was thrown out of the Giro on the final day, in the leader’s jersey, because of his hematocrit level. So, the catching a star, it’s not something you’d want to do, but if circumstances presented themselves, it was just the same as a small rider.

IO’R: Yet, until the very end, you still argued with Usada over the jurisdiction of the Lance Armstrong case, that it was none of their business?

PMcQ: “We did argue that at the time. And I would still say to this day, under the rules pertaining at the time, that the UCI had jurisdiction. Because the rules state that the anti-doping organisation which was first informed of the particular offence has jurisdiction on that offence.

“And Travis Tygart [USADA CEO]didn’t follow the rules in giving us the ‘Reasoned Decision’. We saw on the Usada website the same as everyone else. And it reads like a novel. Speak to any lawyer and they will tell you that’s not a reasoned decision. It’s a novel. It was designed for public consumption, and a PR stunt. And I think Usada still think there is something there between Lance and UCI. But CIRC couldn’t find it, and they had access to everything.”

IO’R: Armstrong also claims he’s being made a scapegoat, and his lifetime ban from sport is considerably harsher than other cyclists of that era?

PMcQ: “I think there is a certain validity to that. Because there are guys who did the same thing as him still competing and racing today and earning money from the sport. He can feel, in a certain sense, aggrieved, albeit he was the leader of it, so to speak, and probably earned the most out of doping during his career. He certainly won’t come back into competition, and I think it would be best if he stayed out of cycling.”

IO’R: When your term ended in 2013, and despite all the criticism of the UCI, you were determined to run for another term. Yet you lost the backing of Cycling Ireland, despite all the good work you claimed to have done. How disappointing was that?

PMcQ: “Yes, it was disappointing. I’d be telling a lie to say otherwise. But I was unfortunate because all the allegations about corruption and the UCI hiding positive tests, and all of that, influenced the guys who voted and were active in my own federation at the time. Even Brian Cookson was influenced by that. I don’t think he would have run if he didn’t think there was some merit in the fact the UCI may have been corrupt and so forth, which is why he then started the investigation in the immediate aftermath. So the investigation was political as much as practical. So I think I was damaged by all of that.”

IO’R: CIRC also states that doping still exists in cycling, and estimates it at either 20 per cent of the peloton, or 90 per cent. Which percentage do you think doping falls closer too, and can the peloton ever be considered clean?

PMcQ: “I think that’s one of the faults of the report, is that it makes a lot of bland statements, like one guy comes in and tells them doping in cycling is at 90 per cent. So that goes in the report, and of course the media pick up on a line like that, without any scientific background, on how they actually came to that. So it’s people’s opinion. My opinion, and the opinion of a lot of the people in the sport that I continue to deal with, and the cyclists themselves, is that the sport is in a lot better place now than it was 10 years ago, and that now you can compete clean.

“I think the best estimate now, with micro-dosing, which is mentioned in the report, there might be a 2-3 per cent gain. And with the fear of getting caught, I would reduce that to one per cent. So I think riders can race clean, and win clean, and that is the case with most riders today, people like Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins, and the young Europeans who are winning races. They all maintain that they don’t have to dope to succeed in the sport.”

IO’R: Yet, after all that, a lot of people will think of Pat McQuaid and his legacy and consider him part of the problem in doping rather than part of the solution.

PMcQ: “No, I wouldn’t agree at all, I’m part of the solution, because the changes which have happened in the last 10 years, which all of the riders and officials around the sport will tell you, are changes that were made under my administration, with rules and regulations and new initiatives brought forward, in anti-doping, which I brought forward.”

IO’R: The CIRC report also suggests all governing bodies of sport can learn some of the lessons from cycling and the UCI, would you agree?

PMcQ: “There is a danger there, in other sports. I do look at rugby now, it could very easily happen. Guys who want to play, be on the field, doctors will give them whatever they want. Cycling comes from a different place, anyway. But there is big money in rugby now, and that changes everything. I look at rugby players now, and the size of them. But I don’t think that’s because of doping. They’re professional players, spending a lot of time in the gym. But all high-performance sport now is heavily medicalised and it does depend on how much you allow those doctors to intervene in the process. That’s why I brought in the no-needle policy, unless it’s for a medical prescription. That goes back to ethics.”

IO’R: What about regrets, because you said in the immediate aftermath of the CIRC report, that you would have done some things differently. Such as?

PMcQ: “Yes, there were many times it was frustrating, because you knew what you were trying to do, trying to achieve, and then you get kicked in the face over whatever it might be, another positive test, or something like that.

“I think with the benefit of hindsight everybody would do things differently, and I think I may do, as the current administration has done, is hire a very good communications company, to better communicate what the UCI was doing, or something like that.”