Westra admits using TUEs for performance enhancement

In a new book coming out next week, former pro Lieuwe Westra says he used cortisone regularly during his career and that he relied on Therapeutic Use Exemptions from the UCI to get past anti-doping tests. Coritsones are forbidden for use in competition without a TUE. 

In an article in the Leeuwarder Courant posted Saturday morning, Westra is quoted as saying in the book that he had used knee pain as an excuse to obtain TUEs that allowed him to target cortisone use during Important peak times in his season.

"The medical certificate I received often with a feigned injury, for example an inflammation in the knee," Westra says in the book. "It took years to recover an injury to the knee.

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"I shot it in my own body to cycle faster, to grab prizes, to receive compliments. In my first professional year it became clear to me that with only hard training no victories were achieved," Westra admits in the book. "If you wanted to join the big boys, you had to look up the limits of the permissible.''

Written by author Thomas Sijtsma, the book, The Beast, the cycling life of Lieuwe Westra, tells the story of Westra's time in the peloton, where he rode from 2006 through 2016 and then retired following three seasons with Astana. Westra chronicles his battles with alcohol and depression as well as his use of cortisone. In the book, Westra says he is lucky his pro career started after the EPO era had faded.

"I am happy today that my professional career started in 2009 [with Vacansoleil - ed.]," Westra says. "Had I made the switch from the amateurs before, the temptation would have been too strong for me. My hand would have grabbed to EPO or a variant of it.

You can read more at Cyclingnews.com