Jonathan Vaughters has apologized to the riders and personnel of the EF Education-EasyPost team, accepting responsibility for recruiting Andrea Piccolo, who was accused of smuggling human growth hormone (hGH) as he returned to Italy from Colombia.
When the claims were substantiated, EF Education-EasyPost fired Piccolo and publicly announced their decision. The announcement stunned the cycling world after years of few drug scandals, and it sent shockwaves through the American-registered WorldTour team, which takes pride in its anti-doping stance. The EF Education-EasyPost team sponsors appear to have remained supportive of the team, but Vaughters wanted to take responsibility for employing Piccolo in 2022 and giving him another chance this spring when he was detected using the illegal sleeping medicine clonazepam.
I am the person who gave him the chance, who brought him into the team, and I apologise to you for that because you are now going to get asked questions about him and it’s something you’ve got to deal with,” David Walsh of the Times reported Vaughters as saying to his riders on the eve of the Tour de France Grand Depart.
Vaughters told his riders and staff to share their thoughts on Piccolo and the impact of his actions on the team. There was anger rather than sympathy for Piccolo after he decided to try to bring growth hormones from Colombia into Italy with no regard for the team’s credibility and integrity.
“When Piccolo came to the team, I befriended him because he was Italian like me and tried to help him. Now I see him as a dickhead,” the Times reported Alberto Bettiol as saying of his fellow Italian.
