Jérôme Chiotti - French TV report.

TimB34
TimB34 Posts: 316
edited July 2013 in Pro race
Last week, France2 showed a programme called "Ils ont brisé l'Omerta" (They broke the Omerta) featuring, amongst others, Jérôme Chiotti.

Those of us like me who have only been following cycling for a couple of years may not know the name.

Jérôme Chiotti was born in Millau, France in 1972.
He went pro in 1994 with Festina, racing MTB (and cyclocross).
In 1996 he won the MTB XC Worlds.
In 2000 he confessed (without having tested positive) to systematic doping, using testosterone, corticoids and EPO, and the 1996 world title was awarded to Thomas Frischknecht.

The programme can currently be seen here (in French) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 6TI&t=1469

He tells the whole story - a few things that stand out for me:
He doesn't consider that doping was even a choice for him, it was just a given, and because of this he doesn't regret having doped (although he takes no pride in his achievements from those years).
He claims to have stopped doping in 1998, but had a very good season in 1999 due to the residual effects. After that he never performed the same (interesting parallel with current pros who come back from suspension and don't dominate as before, and an interesting counter to the argument for life bans due to residual gains from doping)
His wife describes some of the side effects of doping - periods of memory loss :shock:
He is proud of his 2001 French Nationals win, as that was clean.
When he was riding, he estimates that around 90% of the pro peloton was on the juice. Now he thinks it's more like 10 to 15% (although he's doubtful about Sky and Froome!).

Comments

  • raymondo60
    raymondo60 Posts: 735
    Just confirms to me the need for some form of 'Amnesty' - i.e. anything before this date, forget it - after this date, if you're caught, a ban for life, end of. In know that's a simplistic outlook, and that there are millions of other issues involved (like a complete overhaul of the UCI to start with) but its very difficult to rationalize the punishment of individuals (and yes I include LA here) when virtually everyone involved in the sport was 'cheating' at some level. Let's look forwards - we can't change the past - having seven years of 'no winner' of the TdF doesn't mean anything and doesn't solve anything. Draw a line, make a fresh start, if you still cheat and are caught, your career is finished.....
    Raymondo

    "Let's just all be really careful out there folks!"