Under the spotlight after his violent attacks against Thibault Pinot this weekend, Jonathan Vaughters had revealed that he had doped after the end of his career.
If the Tour of Italy is struggling to keep its promises, a consequence of the reluctance of the favorites, the tension rose a notch on Saturday. The fault of the spat between Thibault Pinot and the Ecuadorian Jefferson Cepeda, escaped together on the 13th stage and finally trapped by Einer Rubio. “I don’t understand how anyone can hope to win this way, it’s not my vision. He may have had instructions… But when his excuse is the general classification…”, he notably dropped, adding: “I didn’t want Cepeda to win, I would have put my guts not to let him go. »
These remarks were clearly not to the taste of the sports director of EF-Education. “Proud to see that Ben Healy congratulated the winner and didn’t come crying in front of the media to explain that life is sometimes unfair. Nice attitude. Nice person. Handsome runner, he wrote on Twitter in reference to the Frenchman’s lack of fair play, adding in another post: “Not sure that Thibaut Pinot manages to read this through his tears. »
I chose to dope myself
The American’s comments made even Lance Armstrong react, the Texan only seeing in him“a fucking clown”, “at least based on the 30 plus years that I have known him. » The one who has paraded seven times with the yellow jersey on the Champs-Élysées knows his compatriot all the better as he was his compatriot for two seasons. And Jonathan Vaughters remembered the good memories of the “Boss” after the end of his career by confessing to having doped throughout his career. And this while disciplinary proceedings had been opened against the former leader of the US Postal.
“I chose to lie rather than kill my dream”, he wrote in a column in the New York Times in the fall of 2012, adding: “I chose to dope myself. I am sorry for this choice and I deeply regret it. » Regrets that led him to end his career at just 30 years old.
“The guilt I felt led me to stop my career and start a pro team where that choice would be taken out of the equation through rigorous testing and a cultural change that puts running clean above of victory, he had explained. Doping can be the remaining 2%. This keeps the dream alive, at least in the eyes of those who are dear to you. But you have to lie. Lying to his mother, his friends, his supporters. Lie to the world. »
