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Rodriguez hits back at doping innuendo

Pat Malach
May 31, 2013, 13:36 BST,
May 31, 2013, 14:36 BST
Second Edition Cycling News, Friday, May 31, 2013
Philly Cycling Classic


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US national champion calls for a clean rider union






"My wins have always been really hard-fought," Rodriguez said Thursday. "It's not easy for me to win. I knew that the odds were against me a lot of the time, but if I focused and did everything I could, I could pull off an amazing thing. And those are beautiful to me. And so with all that has happened it's sad. It's hurtful what's gone on in our sport, and it's made me doubt everything that I've done, because I've wondered what would have happened if everything was real, and what is real?

"It's something that I'm always going to have in the back of my mind, because it's not fair," Rodriguez added. "But at the same time, how some of these people got into some of these situations is also not fair. What made them make these decisions? I made my decisions because of who I was and how I lived my life and what I believe in. And I feel lucky that I was able to still participate at a high level."

Rodriguez called on riders to form a union so that they could stand together against competitors who are willing to "take it to the next level" to achieve success.

"Because I believe that the majority of us, when we start off, we want to be the best but we don't want to be bad people," he said. "We talk about bullying or peer pressure, but if the peer pressure is more about standing together and saying, 'That guy is not playing fair.' We're all going to stand together and say, 'No that's not right.' That's where we lack. We need a union to help have a stronger voice for the athletes, because the majority of us don't want that."

The current US pro champion said cycling needs to focus on the bigger picture rather than singling out individual riders for persecution. Rodriguez said riders who are remorseful have a role to play in the sports' rehabilitation.

"I have a hard time with all the people that say we need to go from you to you to you," Rodriguez said. "We need to look at this as a whole and figure out how do we make this better, and then take these individuals who have done things that have been incorrect and figure out are they really remorseful and do they really want to help. How can we use them to help the change? And how can we use the other side to teach the young people?"

Rodriguez used his own foundation as an example of one of the pathways in which athletes can participate on the road to clean sport.

"Our goal as athletes is to teach people there is a better way of doing things," he said. "I have a foundation called the Fast Freddie Foundation, and one of the things I do is to use what I've learned from cycling to try and inspire young people to do better. And part of the message that I talk about is that it's not just about winning. It's about how you win."

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