... The answer is not to teach young athletes that giving up lifelong dreams is better than giving in to cheating. The answer is to never give them the option. The only way to eliminate this choice is to put our greatest efforts into antidoping enforcement. The choice to kiss your childhood dream goodbye or live with a dishonest heart is horrid and tearing. I’ve been there, and I know. I chose to lie over killing my dream. I chose to dope. I am sorry for that decision, and I deeply regret it. The guilt I felt led me to retire from racing and start a professional cycling team where that choice was taken out of the equation through rigorous testing and a cultural shift that emphasized racing clean above winning. The choice for my athletes was eliminated. [...]
I made the wrong decision, but I know that making that right decision for future generations must begin by making the right choice realistic. They want to make the right choice. This is the lesson I have learned from young athletes and why I have made it my life’s work to help make the right choice real. They must know, without doubt, that they will have a fair chance by racing clean. And for them to do that, the rules must be enforced, and the painful effort to make that happen must be unending and ruthless. [...]
So, let’s give our young athletes a level playing field, without doping. Let’s put our effort and resources into making sport fair, so that no athlete faces this decision ever again. We put so much emotion into marketing and idolizing athletes, let’s put that same zeal into giving them what they really want: the ability to live their dreams without compromising their morals.
