Everyone deserves a second chance. Luckily for Lance Armstrong, Tejay van Garderen is willing to give him one. The BMC rider defended his links to Armstrong, claiming it's unfair to have double standards when it comes to the former Tour de France champion.
"If you want to take away every single person who's ever done anything in the past, you're basically getting rid of everyone," van Garderen said (via Cycling News). "Vinokourov has a team. Lots of the sports directors out there [have doped]. George Hincapie has a Gran Fondo and a development team. Jonathan Vaughters runs a team. To have that double standard isn't very fair, so I didn't think anything of training with Lance."
"Just because Lance was the most successful cyclist it doesn't make what he did any more wrong than what those other guys did."
Preparing for the Tour de France, van Garderen was forced to defend his relationship with Armstrong. The two, living in a small town in Austin, often cross paths, forcing him to avoid awkward situations.
"I've not really done any motorpacing with Lance since [November]," he added. "Not because of any worries about what people might think, but he has kids who go to school in Texas, so most of the year he's in Austin."
"As far as what I was doing with him: we are both top level cyclists, former and current, living in a very small town. It's hard to avoid each other, so to avoid an awkward situation we'd chat and go for a ride every now and then."
The 2015 Tour de France is scheduled to start in Utrecht, Netherlands on July 4.
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