Former cyclist Matt White has quit as team director of Australian professional cycling team Orica-GreenEdge after admitting his involvement in doping while riding with Lance Armstrong’s US Postal Service team.
White also resigned his roles as Cycling Australia’s professional men’s road coordinator and team selector after releasing a statement in which he admitted and apologized for his doping activities.
His admission followed revelations by Australia’s Fairfax Media that White was the anonymous “Rider 9” mentioned in a US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) affidavit from former Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis regarding performance-enhancing drug use.
GreenEdge expressed its support for White, but he later released a statement saying: “I am sad to say that I was part of a team where doping formed part of the team’s strategy and I too was involved in that strategy.”
“My involvement is something I am not proud of and I sincerely apologize to my fans, media, family and friends who trusted me, and also to other athletes in my era that consciously chose not to dope,” he said. “I am sorry for the people I have let down because of the personal choice I made at that time, but I have endeavored to educate and guide the current stars, and to ensure that future generations never have to deal with the pressures that existed in the past.”
As well as being manager of GreenEdge in its first year on the World Tour, White also managed the Australia men’s road cycling team at the London Olympics.
He said his acknowledgment of his role in doping left him no choice but to relinquish all of his current roles.
“Given my admissions above, I have been in contact with my employees and will be voluntarily standing down from my positions while inquiries into my case are conducted, and the Board of Cycling Australia and GreenEdge make a determination regarding my future with each organization,” he said. “In my roles with Slipstream Sports, Cycling Australia and now at Orica-GreenEdge, I have always acted within the ethos of clean sport and I am very proud to have worked with the new generation of clean superstars.”
In an affidavit supplied to USADA, Landis said: “[In 2003,] I spent a good deal of time training with Matthew White and Michael Barry, and shared the testosterone and EPO that we had and discussed the use thereof while training.”
Landis, White and Barry were all members of Armstrong’s US Postal Service team at the time.
Former Canadian rider Barry, retired from cycling, has admitted to doping and was banned by USADA on Wednesday for six months and stripped of his results from May 13, 2003, to July 31, 2006.
Landis was previously stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title for doping and finally admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs in 2010.
Cycling Australia president Klaus Mueller said in a statement on Friday that it would take some time to go through the evidence contained in the USADA report to determine whether Australians were implicated.
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