The 1996 season was important for Museeuw's career. Before winning the World Championships in Lugano in 1996, the Belgian was going through a confidence crisis. He was thinking of retirement, but then it happened. He won the World Championships, the golden dreams of any rider and specially for a Classics specialist. This gave him encouragement and he decided to continue. That's how his most fruitful period began. But now, why does he want to continue after five months off the bike?
Museeuw explains: "I would have wanted to wait a little more before signing for two years, but time ran out. The team lineups had to be turned in to the Italian Federation. That's why I have reached a special agreement with Mr. Squinzi, owner of Mapei. The day I feel I can't go on any more, I will be honest. That will be the time to leave. I want to have fun riding. To train, be with my colleagues on the road; that's what drives me. I have spent 10 years in the elite. I'm not going to spend one or two more year an throw away everything that I have accomplished. I continue because I like to ride and because I want to win again".
Maybe the thorn that he has in him which he wants to release is to demonstrate that he can still beat the young riders that are pushing from behind: "What I would really like to do is to compete against Frank Vandenbroucke at my old level. Would I be able to beat him? I don't know, but it would be pretty". Johan Museeuw will never forget the Paris-Roubaix of April 12th, 1998. "We came into the forest at some 55 KPH. I was second behind Stuart O´Grady. I had never reached there before in such a good position. But I knew that we were going too strongly. There was a lot of mud. I saw how O´Grady lost his equilibrium, the fall was inevitable. It was useless to brake, I tried to slow down, but I didn't work. In an instant I hit myself with the ground and my left knee hit the cobblestone".
Now the race organizer, Jean Marie Leblanc, has proposed to enter the Wallers forest in the opposite direction. This way the riders would come in with a slight ascent and at less speed.
After this came a long and complicated hospitalization, 'a coma', 'close to death'... And everything pointed to suspicions of doping. Museeuw denied it and continues to deny it: "Very few people know what happened to me. It wasn't doping what had my life in danger but a bacteria called clostridium that entered my body since the hospital in Kortrijk didn't clean my injuries correctly".
Johan has had a lot of time to think about the doping affair: "People won't stop talking about this subject and that is boring. At the World Championships, for example, there were three Italians on the podium and I heard a commentator ask himself if he should think about EPO. That is what's really sad. Haven't those three cyclists ridden a sensational race?"
The riders don't talk about it: "The riders don't talk about doping, amongst ourselves. And who's doing something to change it? Zulle, Virenque, Dufaux? Openness would be beneficial. If I could contribute something, I would do it. But not by myself. Nobody can do it alone".
According to Museeuw, it's not only the fault of the cyclists: At the Tour, there were searches in the waste baskets. There they found sacks of the product to regulate sugar. Products which are completely legal. But since they were in the garbage and next to them were the hypodermic with which they were injected it was enough to form a scandal. As everybody know, during the major tours you need different means of recuperating from efforts. Nobody dares to enter France again. A little nothing pill in your luggage is enough to send you to jail".
Even though he has been inactive, he was also affected by the Tour affair. "I was going through tough times. My recuperation has been tough, every day they had to bend my knee, which is incredibly painful. That's around the time when the Tour started. The first five days they talked about Festina. Then TVM. And all of a sudden... my name. I had taken PFC, a product which I had never heard about until then. The next day a trainer from the Federation told me that I had ridden the Tour of Flanders with banned products. I asked myself why to continue, I don't needed to do it to live. Luckily I didn't allow those thoughts to take over me".
"Two years ago I went as a rider representative to Hein Verbruggen. Something needs to be done, not only with the Pros, but with the young. When I hear that the young ones use banned products I see that as very wrong. But it seems like nothing is happening anywhere. The problem is that in the midst of some very good trainers and directors, there are some sloppy ones. There were there when I was an amateur and they continue to be. And if nothing happens, they will still be there 20 years from now. They have to go".
When asked if the cyclist can say 'enough', Musseuw has it clear: "before I use to have all options in front of me, but my father always protected me from those things. For the last eight years I have been with Dr. Vanmol. I have trusted completely in him and he has done the same with me. They day I leave him, I will be a healthy person. Dr. Vanmol won't have done anything bad with my body. A rider can't forget that it is their body, even when they are 22 or 23. One must have a tough character. Regrettably, many youngsters think that without any 'help' one can't do anything. It is still possible to function with your own body. Teams have to take charge in this matter. Isn't it incredible that a team like Lotto doesn't have a doctor? Take two or three riders less and contract a doctor. What scares the most is the young riders which are starting their careers now. They see the Tour. They see their idols and then Plof! This happens. They think: My God! Nothing can be done without doping. Then the parents get scared that something may happen to their kids, while cycling is one of the most beautiful sports, tough and sincere that exists".
"Some riders have very low levels of hematocrit, from 40 to 41. The UCI imposes a limit of 50%. For those riders it is a 10 point margin, it's difficult to stay away from those products". The Belgian rider feels that a cyclist association to deal with this subject with the UCI would work: "Johan Bruyneel was working on that project until he received the offer from US Postal. Now I hope that this project is not buried. The riders should unite and when something is agreed one, everybody should know about it. The problem is the same as always, there isn't enough openness in the peloton. But it will be the same in other sports...".
In his opinion, cycling is too easy a target for the world critics about doping: "This year I had for the first time the chance to attend the Memorial Vandamme athletic competition. There I saw some athletes with supernatural muscles. I have been training for years and I don't get those muscles. Then I though: Is the plague only in cycling? Maybe doping will be associated with cycling, that is a shame, because that shouldn't bring down our sport. The World Championships at Valkenburg, for example, was a wonderful race. We could see men who fought for seven hours in the mud and offered a formidable spectacle. That's what people should be looking at".
He will continue his link with cycling, when he retires: "I will continue to be linked to cycling. I will work with young riders. In the last months they would come to visit in groups and I would go and train with them. We would come out every morning at 9AM Sometimes they were 10, sometimes more. I was surprised to see how many young riders have bad training programs. They all have heart rate monitors, but only four in ten know how to train with a heart rate monitor. I would like to establish in Belgium a high performance center like Mapei has in Milano. A center with a doctor that will place the honest people, where they deserve to be. There has to be someone that finds the correct position for a cyclist on their bicycle, somebody who watches over them, a gym... because not everyone can buy the sophisticated machines to train adequately. I want to create a place where the youngsters won't be lost. Some parents don't know anything about cycling and everything evolves fast. A person should advance with the times. The youngsters should have their chances".
Tonight at the Northcote velodrome is the Melbourne Cup on Wheels starting at 18.00. The three scratch markers, Stephen Pate, Troy Clarke and American Jaymee Carney will be hoping the rain holds off. Pate was quoted in the Herald-Sun on Thursday (10/12) as saying he hadn't trained seriously since abandoning the Herald-Sun Tour on Day 2. He said he was working full time as a carpenter at present. He also said that Carney was the only rider to cause him concern during his stay in Trexlertown PA recently.
Pate and Clarke are both former winners of the Austral Wheelrace. Pate was seen on Thursday night rolling with the Melbourne Elite Sports bunch on an easy two and a half hour ride, Black Rock-Albert Park-Black Rock. With the temperature at 35C then and was 40C Friday most riders paid attention to hydration and recovery before the big night tonight.
The allegations of contract breach follow the September Commonwealth Games where T-S attacked the Federation and Australian team officials alleging among other things that they had tampered with her drinks to make her sick and that they had sabotaged her pedals to stop her winning. After a public brawl T-S refused to apologise and was expelled from the Games and sent home to Australia. She continued her broadsides when she arrived home.
According the the application, T-S is alleged to have breached confidentiality conditions. In other words, riders sign away their rights to free speech. Asked about her reaction to the latest actions by the Federation, who seems intent on pursuing the World Pursuit Champion to the end, she said: "I am completely shocked by it, completely shocked again by the ACF, I thought all this was dealt with and finished in KL. I was told that I had already paid the ultimate price by leaving the team and leaving the Commonwealth games village. I can't imagine that two and a half months down the line I have to pay a price again. All I want to do is train and race on my bicycle."
Her manager argued that it was strange that the ACF was pursuing this matter with the CAS when their was an Australian Sport's Commission enquiry partially completed. He told the press: "The ACF is being gutless quite frankly in their attempts to have somebody else deal with this where in fact the onus is on them to resolve it. I think retribution is an understatement, I think there is a deliberate witch-hunt. Quite clearly there are some motives there that haven't yet surfaced. There are certainly aspects of this business that appear untoward, sinister."