Bogota (AFP)
Cradle of "beetles", the nickname of its climbers, Colombian cycling, worn to the skies with Egan Bernal, first Latin American to win the Tour de France, struggles with the reality of doping.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) ranks Colombia 2nd among the countries with the most runners suspended or sanctioned for doping (20 is only one less than Costa Rica).
AFP collected testimonials from a doctor, who worked with these athletes, as well as a retired runner, a physical trainer and a journalist who investigated the subject. All agree on the fact that doping is ubiquitous, and almost inevitable to be competitive at the local level.
The scandal undermined Manzana Postobon this year, the only professional Colombian team (Continental Pro), dissolved by its owner in May.
The shockwave spread as Bernal climbed the top step of the podium and the "beetles" (Quintana, Lopez, Uran, Chaves ...) have high hopes on the roads of the Tour of Spain which rushes Saturday.
- Coded language -
There is a well-known word of the Colombian platoon, but taboo: "the pichicata", which in popular language means a narcotic substance.
Cyclists thus refer to doping, under the cover of anonymity a former rider in professional teams on the road.
During the competitions, he says, he often saw on the ground packaging of doping substances: "It was frustrating because I felt that the race had not even begun, but that I had already lost". Disgusted, he retired after two years in 2010.
AFP verified the existence of a web page that, via social networks, sells banned substances by the UCI and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), but considered legal in Colombia.
According to the former cyclist, "nobody will treat the other cheater (...) all know that it can happen to them at any time".
- Concealment -
A doctor, who worked with a Colombian team between the late 1980s and the mid-1990s, is adamant: "The + doping + has always existed in Colombian cycling" and the national federation has "concealed it" ".
This specialist, who requires anonymity because she still cares for athletes, said she faced coaches and athletes. She warned them: "When you retire, you will suffer the consequences of your doping that can cause cancer, testicular atrophy, sterility".
The practice persists, according to a physical trainer of professional runners. "There are many cases of doped cyclists who have not been made public by the Federation," he said, also demanding that his identity not be revealed.
According to him, the Colombian cycling Federation, instead of taking sanctions, alerted teams in secret when one of their riders was tested positive. "They do this not to scare the sponsors," he says.
In 2017, the UCI dispatched a delegation to take samples during the Tour of Colombia and had them analyzed in the United States. The Bogota laboratory had lost its WADA accreditation.
Eight riders were tested positive, the highest figure in the history of the Colombian Vuelta.
In 2018, the competition was excluded from the UCI calendar and the Federation resumed doping control. She did not report any positive cases during the last edition and only one rider was sanctioned in 2019.
The president of the Federation, Ovidio Gonzalez, categorically denies that doping is widespread and defends the transparency of the organization he has led since 2017.
"Absolutely all the positive cases that we meet are announced on our web page and sanctioned," he says.
- Career at stake -
Although Colombia remains an exporter of talent like 22-year-old Egan Bernal, the champion hunters are isolating them from the local scene in order to prevent them from "contaminating themselves," according to journalist Gustavo Duncan, who denounced the phenomenon of doping. .
"The foreign teams do not even consider riders over the age of 23 because they know that, outside the juvenile categories, it is almost impossible to run in Colombia without doping," he says.
The trainer Luis Fernando Saldarriaga, who discovered Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott), confirms this: "These are talents that are prepared at an early age to take them abroad. we do not participate in a Tour of Colombia because their capacity would be questioned ".
Earlier this year, Saldarriaga was surprised that his team's foals, Wilmar Paredes and Juan José Amador, were positive.
The physical trainer, who is being consulted on condition of anonymity, adds: "If two boys, who work as professionals with coaches who have explained to them the importance of not getting doped, can turn into cheaters, then any youngster can become so.
© 2019 AFP