no shit... of course they did... go read that shit in cyclingnews... i can say to you that this is the time that i was in france... and i was in the team of jean-rene bernadau and i know that his philosophy was definetly NO NEEDLES... this was just afer festina affair mind you...it was put to us that the french directors had come to an agreement that there would be no needles administered by the teams of any kind to avoid anything looking crazy... this is when it became common for journalists to go through garbage and all this... it was a bad time to have to explain needles... trust me... it was everywhere in the press everything that teams might be doing.. and guys were getting pulled over by the "flying" customs agents... our team got pulled over more than 5 times and was searched... so i can say that it is not odd to hear that CA had no needles...
the year before i came it was apparently common for needles to be all over... and even in my team there were needles they tell me... not neccessarily doping products, but vitamins and hydration IVs and things like this... it was called being "cared for"... a guy who was in the team said to me once... "yeah, even in this team there was a time that we were cared for.. but not now, things have changed"... so the french made a decision that the teams would not be involved in any kind of sytematic thing like festina had done... and i know at least JRB really believed in that and that times would have to change and so they all went in on the no needles bit... obviously, years later we see that cells of guys went out on theur own and did their thing... but the teams were no longer being a part... and this is also the time when JC Robin was making a lot of noise about "cycling at 2 speeds"... so it seems that the french were serious about not continuing with business as usual becasue it was dangerous for the sport... and most importantly dangerous for their business interests.. dont forget that the teams this big are money making ventures like any sports organization at the highest level...
why do i say all of this?... because some people no doubt will think that JV is full of crap about CA... i dont know what went on there... but i know that this is consistent with what i KNOW the philosophy of the period was in french teams... and according to saul there still are no needles in the bags of CA staff members that are used under specific top down directives as a part of the teams' modus operandus...
as for the implications on lance and flandis.. i dont care too much... because as far as i am concerned none of those guys ever bought me any beers... but neither too has JV or frankie... so screw those guys as well...
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