The cycling world has always been suspicious of doping, and many people mistakenly believe that it all began with Lance Armstrong. Before the American star’s emergence, many greats in the world of cycling had tested positive, and in Spain’s case, one of the most notorious was Ángel Arroyo’s positive test in the 1982 Vuelta a España.

Arroyo recalls how a road victory was controversially stripped from him after testing positive on the penultimate stage, finishing in Navacerrada. Although it may seem incredible, the Ávila-born cyclist had to undergo a doping control, but the stage winner, a young Marino Lejarreta, did not, something that would be unthinkable in our time.

Arroyo recalls how a Vuelta a España race was stolen from him during a checkpoint riddled with irregularities, where he tested positive on Saturday and negative on Sunday.

“After the famous Navacerrada stage, I tested positive that day. I took the test again on Saturday and tested negative. But they kept Friday’s test. But the winner, Lejarreta, didn’t pass a single test,” says the former cyclist from the legendary Reynolds team.

Arroyo believes that everything that happened with the process of that control in which the positive result was very strange and goes so far as to call the person who performed the test and Marino Lejarreta himself, who was the one who benefited from it, a Judas.

“It was a very clear maneuver… I said it recently: the person who conducted my doping test at the 1982 Vuelta a España was a Judas, just like Marino Lejarreta. Our relationship was 100% defensible. And nothing was done,” says the Avila-born cyclist.

Arroyo recalls that a few weeks after the Valles Mineros race, the Reynolds riders asked for controls to be carried out, otherwise they would not be able to start, and many of the cyclists who had finished in the top positions of the Vuelta a España disappeared and did not show up at the start.

“I was 26, but I had the mentality of a 17 or 18-year-old, and I couldn’t get my head around it. I was a kid and didn’t know what I could do. I felt bad, but I forgot about it. Shortly after, in the Valles Mineros, we asked for checkpoints, because otherwise, Reynolds wouldn’t have made it out. And a few riders who had been at the top of the Vuelta disappeared… And on top of that, I defended them…” comments an indignant Ángel Arroyo.