Five years ago this month, Michael Rasmussen faced the press with an admission to make.
The Danish former cyclist, who had won stages of the Tour de France and was a noted mountain specialist admitted that he used performance enhancing drugs as well as blood transfusions between 1998 and 2010.
You can listen to the full interview on the podcast player:
Tonight, he joined Joe for an interview about his career with the cycling fraternity during a particularly controversial era for the sport.
He gave an insight into his mindset in regards to making the decision to dope.
"It was a really, really easy decision for me," he said.
"When the festina scandal happened in France, there was not a single team or a single rider that did not take part in the sit-down strike on the pavement on the 10th stage in Aix en Provence.
The Danish cyclist Michael Rasmussen is pictured at the start of the sixth stage of the Germany Tour in Laengenfeld, Austria in 2007. A3397 Gero Breloer/DPA/PA Images
"Everybody participated. There was not one single clean rider or clean team in that race and that just showed me that it was not a festina scandal. It was something that involved the entire cycling world - at least the professional part of it.
"So for me, it was not about a single team. It was an entire culture. I could choose to join the culture or I could accept that was going to be the end of the progression."
As time went on, he became accustomed to it, taking vitamins and iron injections initially before using EPO: "At the end of the day, it was something that I knew was necessary to do and I just grew accustomed to it and it became as normal as brushing my teeth."
Of the substances and methods that had the biggest performance effect in his experience, EPO, blood doping and cortisone were the ones he cited.
Rasmussen added that it would have been "completely impossible" to have won the Tour de France stages that he did without resorting to doping.
And on whether he would dope if he had to do it all again, he takes a pragmatic approach: "I think if I had to compete at the highest level, I would do it according to the circumstances at that given time in order to be competitive."
He does have one major regret however: "I deeply regret that I did involve other people and that was certainly something that I should not have done."
The period in which the Dane competed is of course synonymous with the era in which Lance Armstrong was involved in the sport.
"I can say that I never felt cheated by Lance in any way," said Rasmussen.
"And I'm very, very sure that very few of his nearest competitors can say that honestly at least. And for me, he was the best qualified winner of the Tour de France in those years."
You can listen to the full interview on the podcast player in which he also gave his views about cycling today in the post-Lance era.
