Lance Armstrong confessed to using banned performance-enhancing drugs, was stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles and banned from the sport of cycling for life...and it was all done unfairly according to former teammate Sean Yates.
"Lance was a big figure that they hunted down," Yates told the BBC. "Along with others obviously, but he was the center figure and took the brunt of the publicity, the brunt of the blame, unfairly in my opinion. Honestly, people will make up their own minds somewhere down the road, but that may be a few years to come."
Yates rode with Armstrong at Motorola and was reunited with him at Discovery in 2005. It was then that Armstrong won the last of his rescinded titles.
Now a sports director, Yates will return to the Tour de France in 2015 after joining Tinkoff-Saxo.
"It's a big team and one I know quite well. A lot of members of the team were in previous teams I've worked for, so I'm excited to go and challenge the best in the world at the races."
One of the members of the team that remains a priority for Yates is Alberto Contador, who will look to stop Chris Froome from recapturing the Tour de France in 2015.
"Last year they both fell off, which wasn't a good thing for the Tour de France and enabled [Vincenzo] Nibali to win," he said. "But I think they are a level above, and hopefully they'll come back this year and it'll be a good, clean fight."
"And may the best man win."
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