UAE's head coach and Pogacar's guide believes current peloton is mostly clear - "The problem is that you can never prove a negative"

Doping is a topic that is never going to be escaping the sport of cycling do to it's very bad past, and occasional cases that continue to be discovered on the yearly. UAE Team Emirates - XRG has it's own suspicions due to it's massive results and the performances of Tadej Pogacar; but his coach Jeroen Swart is confident that the grand majority of the peloton is riding clean and the improvement is part of a massive overhaul in training, nutrition and scientific approaches to racing.

When asked if there has been a general wipeout of forbidden practices at the top of the cycling the world, the coach has responded: "Absolutely. The problem is that you can never prove a negative. But being embedded with the riders and the staff, there’s a complete change in the whole ethos," Swart expressed in words to Bicycling. "I haven’t seen anything that has given me pause in the seven years I’ve been on the World Tour."

At the head of UAE Team Emirates - XRG, Swart's role in professional cycling is currently one of big importance. Certainly, the team's past (mostly as the former Lampre team) and current presence of DS Mauro Gianetti as well as other staff that have in the past been involved in doping scandals certainly make it a difficult topic to navigate for the Emirati team.

But Swart is decisive in his answers: "I wouldn’t risk my reputation just to win races. My reputation is everything to me – I wouldn’t have joined the team if I didn’t think the culture had changed completely".

"I can’t speak for other teams, though, and I’m sure there must be cheating. It’s human nature that if you want to succeed and there’s a big payoff, there will always be cheating. But from a cultural perspective, there’s been a massive change". In the interview Swart has talked extensively about what has allowed pro riders in the current peloton to ride at a level as high as it does - not applying to specific riders, but the World Tour as a whole.

Pressed on the subject, Swart says that he and the team do not really look back into cycling's darkest years: "We ignore that era. Most of them don’t really talk about it. Occasionally, there’s the odd joke about it, but it’s not something we actively discuss. We just accept that the culture has changed, and that it’s a new era of racing".