PD: ... The great change in cycling or in doping between my time and now is that then there were as I have said, a few gurus, who didn't really have any knowledge of the cause and effect of what they dealt out. Now you have professional medical people who give some advice on these things. Professional advice as to what happens when you take something. Before, if you took amphetamines, for example, you knew that one tablet had an effect. If you took two, you presumed the effect would double, and if you took three, triple.... it was barbarous.

Now the medico can advise you that you only need a certain level and beyond that you are not gaining any advantage, and possibly a disadvantage. Like if I drink, I don't feel better, the effect is not better, the more I drink - it doesn't help me to drink too much. Now that the dosages are under medical supervision only the minimum is provided, whatever it is, vitamins or whatever.

VN: I agree that we have always had doping, from the earliest times, Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome have their stories of how sports people prepared for competition, what they took, the ethics that attached to it and from whom they gained advice.

PD: Yes, and the problem is that cyclists have not stood up and said enough is enough. The problem is that the cyclists are not united enough to stand up and demand a more reasonable and realistic situation. So everything just goes from bad to worse, all of the time.

For example some people try to justify their position by saying that a blood transfusion is dangerous. But in hospitals they do blood transfusions every day and nobody dies of that. So why can't a medical professional do a blood transfusion? Because it is prohibited! But this is a different thing! If done properly, a blood transfusion is not going to put your life in danger. But now these finer areas are covered over with too many rules.

Doping should be regarded as a problem at the point in which a rider's health and life is put in danger. Doping should commence at this point, with the question - is the sports person's life being placed in danger? But at the moment this is not the case - all we have is just rules, rules and more rules. With rules, for example with the speed limit on the roads, these things are set by laws and they change, if you get into trouble it is because you have broken a rule - not because you have put someone at risk. It is because of this hombre blanco that we have made all these rules and it is this same hombre blanco that now comes back and threatens us.