The smallest issues can become the most important things in life and reality slips away.
The past is as important as the future, but we only live in the here and now.
What an idiot I’d been. What a spoilt brat. What a bloody fool.
This place has been my home. They liked me here. Not any more. Now they will look the other way. Now I don’t belong.
Nothing was being done to help the non-dopers, to encourage or support them. Even the clean riders like myself and Moncout knew how easy it was to cheat the tests.
I might have changed, but that did not mean the sport had.
I didn’t want to take it. I knew it was a powerful drug, but I also knew it was a catabolic drug that consumed the body.
If you’re not at the front, you’re not in the race.
I didn’t care about goals or expectations any more, I was just determined to race my heart out.
It was ridiculous really. I had just won a major race despite not being in top form, yet I was going to dope.
I was awarded ‘Most Aggressive Rider of the Day’, generally given to the most spectacular loser of the day.
One group of riders doped, the others alongside them racing clean. You can work out for yourselves which group was fastest.
I had grown used to getting a pat on the back and being told after a good result: ‘Well done, David – you should be happy, you’re the first clean rider.
People do make mistakes and I think they should be punished. But they should be forgiven and given the opportunity for a second chance. We are human beings.
The first time I rode a bike I was four or five. I crashed into the back of a car.
It seemed romantic but also tragic – people would be winning but then lose it all, or crash but fight on, break bones but get back on their bikes and try to finish. Just getting to the end was seen as an achievement in itself.