Australian Olympic Athletes' Commission request O'Grady's resignation
AOC President disappointed by EPO admission
Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) President John Coates has called for Stuart O'Grady to resign from his position on the Athletes' Commission.
O'Grady, along with track gold medallist Anna Meares, were elected by their peers at the London Olympic Games last August for a four-year term. The elected athletes act in an advisory capacity to the AOC Executive.
"Members of our London Olympic Team who elected Stuart to the Athletes' Commission are entitled to be angry knowing they had supported an athlete who had cheated" AOC President John Coates said in a media release.
"Athletes' Commission members are chosen for their qualities of integrity and leadership and by his admission Stuart does not deserve to be a member of that group."
Thirty-nine-year-old O'Grady admitted to using EPO before the 1998 Tour de France overnight following the release of the French Senate report which alleged that the Paris-Roubaix winner had returned a suspicious sample for EPO. O'Grady represented Australia at six Olympic Games both on the track and on the road. He won a gold medal with Graeme Brown in the madison at the Athens Games
AOC Secretary-General, Craig Phillips, has contacted O'Grady by email asking for his immediate resignation.
Coates was supporting of the report, which covered other sports as well as cycling.
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"This was a shameful period for the sport of cycling which has been well documented, that is no excuse for the decision taken by Stuart O'Grady, and one can only hope that cycling and especially the Tour de France is cleaner as a result of today's revelations and the Lance Armstrong saga."