{"id":133060,"date":"2016-01-19T17:58:08","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T15:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/?p=133060"},"modified":"2016-01-19T17:58:08","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T15:58:08","slug":"bettini-on-doping-cycling-has-changed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2016\/01\/19\/bettini-on-doping-cycling-has-changed\/","title":{"rendered":"Bettini on Doping: Cycling Has Changed"},"content":{"rendered":"

He won an Olympic gold medal, two World Road Racing Championships, five Monument Classics, and he did it all between the years 1998 and 2008 \u2013 in the era of the biggest doping scandals in cycling history. Naturally, Paolo Bettini has a few opinions of his own on using performance-enhancing drugs.<\/strong>
\n<\/p>\n

The Italian hero was the guest speaker at the Tour Down <\/span>Under Legends<\/span> dinner last weekend and praised the sport for the courage to clean up after the biggest doping scandals including the <\/span>disgraceful <\/span>fall of <\/span>seven-time<\/span> Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

He <\/span>is<\/span> still cautious<\/span>,<\/span> though: <\/span>\u201c<\/span>It\u2019s impossible to say it\u2019s totally clean, but the sport has worked hard to change the mentality. Modern cycling had the courage to change, but other sports have not the courage for change. It\u2019s impossible to say that the doping problem is finished, it\u2019s important that the mentality has changed. All aspects of cycling have changed and they have a new approach to professional sport. I think cycling in this moment is the best sport. It\u2019s a very good sport.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Paolo<\/a><\/p>\n

Bettini admits he witnessed the effects of doping on the sport firsthand and even claims that everybody, even those who didn’t use EPO and other substances, took the blame.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had 12 years in the pro ranks, and I had seen many cases of doping. Many friends, many rivals, they were involved in cases. A doping positive was a problem for everyone. We all felt at fault. We saw so many cases,\u201d said the Italian.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Bettini moved on to become the Italian national coach after <\/span>he had ended <\/span>his active career as a rider but eventually quit to create Fernando Alonso’s WorldTour team. The whole project collapsed after a while <\/span>and understandably, <\/span>Paolo is <\/span>still upset<\/span>. He apparently approached Peter Sagan, Tony Martin<\/span>, <\/span>and other big stars to be part of the F1 driver’s team.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe <\/span>Alonso project was going to be big, with a Formula 1 driver, it would have been big for cycling. The Fernando project was not just for a professional team, but for the women\u2019s team, a young team, not only for cycling, but for other projects. That was the idea behind this project,<\/span>\u201d<\/span> admitted Paolo with obvious disappointment.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He won an Olympic gold medal, two World Road Racing Championships, five Monument Classics, and he did it all between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":133063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329,334],"tags":[],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-133060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","category-socialising-and-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nBettini on Doping: Cycling Has Changed - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"He won an Olympic gold medal and two World road racing championships in the era of biggest doping scandals in cycling history.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2016\/01\/19\/bettini-on-doping-cycling-has-changed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bettini on Doping: Cycling Has Changed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"He won an Olympic gold medal and two World road racing championships in the era of biggest doping scandals in cycling history.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2016\/01\/19\/bettini-on-doping-cycling-has-changed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-19T15:58:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/01\/8889.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"525\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"350\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Martin Mrazek\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2016\/01\/19\/bettini-on-doping-cycling-has-changed\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2016\/01\/19\/bettini-on-doping-cycling-has-changed\/\",\"name\":\"Bettini on Doping: Cycling Has Changed - 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