Robbie McEwen shares a laugh with Lance Armstrong at the Tour Down Under(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Stuart O'Grady (Orica GreenEdge) said that doping was never an option thoughout his lengthy career(Image credit: Cycling News)
Robbie McEwen had driving duties for Orica GreenEdge(Image credit: Mark Gunter)
Former Lance Armstrong teammate Robbie McEwen has said that he's confident that current anti-doping measures leave him confident that violations the likes of which the American got away with could never be repeated.
Orica GreenEdge convened a press conference in Adelaide on Friday in the wake of the Armstrong interview with Oprah Winfrey with McEwen, Stuart O'Grady and Simon Gerrans fronting the media.
McEwen was on the front line with Armstrong as a teammate for what would be his final race of his career, the Tour Down Under in 2011.
"I think it's changed everyone's opinion of him," the now Orica GreenEdge sprint coach explained. "Everybody wanted to believe the fairytale, the hero, the whole story so I don't think there's a person in the world that even remotely follows cycling that hasn't changed their opinion of what we thought Lance was."
O'Grady meanwhile like McEwen rode multiple Tours de France throughout the Armstrong era and said that the overwhelming sense following today's confession was that of relief.
"In a way I'm glad he's come out and confessed," said O'Grady. "It's been an on-going saga and as much as it's been a shock to the cycling world, it's cycling that's suffered... we can look to the future and hopefully something good can come out of this.
"There was so much mounting evidence. You can't hide for that long. He had to come out of his closet and confess and as strange as it is to hear it, it's relieving in the way that he's finally done it."
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Asked if he believed that there were more riders that were doping throughout the 90s and early 2000s, O'Grady was reluctant to open up on any suspicions that he may have.
"Obviously all the people that were in his team at the time weren't doing too bad either," he explained. "I think he used, abused and manipulated all the people around him but I can't answer those questions."
