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  Ryckaert speaks up Festina's team doctor talks to L'Equipe
Posted: Friday July 17, 1998 12:39 PM
Special from L'Equipe, the French sports daily PARIS (L'Equipe) -- The riders were a good 15 miles away from the finish line Wednesday afternoon, and the Festina team's hotel was still quiet. A mechanic, a trainer and team doctor Erik Ryckaert were waiting for the riders. Ryckaert, who was worried about the possible consequences of the arrest of one of the trainers, Willy Voet, at the French-Belgian border a week ago, denied the use of performance-enhancing drugs. In what state have you been? "I'm broken. My wife tries to cheer me on the phone from Belgium, from where she's also following what's going on. She told me that in Belgian newspapers, they only publish pictures in which I'm seen next to Willy. Obviously, the connection between the team's doctor and one of his trainers is made quickly. My wife knows me and she knows that everything that's said about me is a pack of serious lies."
Yet your position as the doctor of a team that's being pointed fingers at in a doping affair, is not comfortable. "I've always explained my position on that topic, and I repeated it to Belgian journalists recently. I'm against doping. I think that is clear. On the other hand, what many don't want to understand is the questions one can ask oneself about the definition of doping. To me, as a doctor, I want to know where a medical treatment ends and doping starts. I would have liked sports medical experts to meet at last to discuss this essential theme and to find solutions." But that personal vision of the problem could be used against you. "No way. Since when does asking oneself the real questions implicates or mixes you up in doping? I've never said I was for doping because I've never thought it, for one second. You have to be clear, from an ethical viewpoint, and explain when it actually becomes dangerous. This reflection should go beyond simple observations allowing us to say that doping may be a good thing or that EPO is a foul." But this winter, you were already bothered by a problem similar to that which has just happened to one of your trainers. "It's been nine months since the police came to my office to search my computer, they weren't looking for drugs, like everybody said. It all started when a Belgian druggist said I'd bought big quantities of EPO. If it had been the case, I don't think they would have let me free until now." That's also when they talked about your past with the PDM team, which is famous for having dropped out of the Tour de France in 1991 after all of its riders got poisoned after taking forbidden and out-of-date products. "People will really say anything! If it suits certain people to identify me with PDM, the truth should also be known. This affair happened in July of 1991, and I was with the Tulip team back then. Jan Gisbers called me in May of 1992. I finished their last season with them. These are simple facts, but very far from the lies that are told. Ask Erik Breukink or Sean Kelly if I was the PDM team's doctor in 1991, they'll tell you. During that Tour de France, it was doctor Sanders, whom I've never met, who was the team's official doctor, and after the affair he was replaced by doctor Martens, whom I replaced in May the following year. I had simple orders with PDM, to finish the contract with the sponsor without a problem. Everything had to be as clean as possible even if it meant we wouldn't win any more races." But you still feel targeted by this trainer's arrest. "I don't have anything to do with this, I repeat it, I'm completely foreign to everything that's going on." But Christophe Moreau's positive testing to the use of anabolic steroids must also have put you in the hot seat. "I've never, and I swear by all that holds me dearest, injected anabolic steroids to anybody. I don't see the use of it, considering it stays in someone's blood for months. In our team there was a positive case, but it doesn't have anything to do with an injection, specialists will tell you that. You know, anyone can get these products without seeing a doctor." In this affair, could somebody have pulled a fast one on you? "I don't know about that. The only thing I notice is that the coincidences are easy, because they've simply been provoked. Once you learn the team's offices have been searched, it has to be the former PDM doctor's fault without knowing I only worked for them after the 1991 affair. But nobody wants to hear that." Have you been told anything about the products the police found at the team's headquarters? "Coach Bruno Roussel showed me the list when he got it, and I immediately reassured him. There was nothing on that list that could have provoked a positive testing. But the quantities that were found in the Festina car could not have been used just by the Festina team, if the drugs ever were destined to it. It's impossible, it was enough for five or six teams." Hasn't your role as a doctor been baffled? "My role is mostly to preserve my riders' health, even if it is difficult, often. You also need to know that my role is not restricted to giving them pills, it's a tiny part of my job." Some team doctors, in cycling among others, are paid according to their riders' results. How could that not be tempting? "Once they start getting a percentage on the results, they're not doctors anymore." Does the fact that you could be questioned by the police during the Tour de France worry you? "I'm not scared because I've done nothing. Maybe they'll put me in jail, like they did our trainer, but I'm strong enough to resist." Copyright (c) 1998 L'Equipe
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