ROME, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Cyclists criticized the chief prosecutor for the Italian Olympic Committee on Wednesday for saying drug use is ineradicable in their sport.
Ettore Torri also met with the committee's president and secretary-general, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. They released a statement after the meeting saying many athletes "may feel unjustly implicated" by his comments.
Torri told an interviewer this week that "everyone dopes" and that the use of performance-enhancing drugs can never be eradicated because new substances continually become available. He said only the health risks of using drugs keep him from supporting legalizing them.
The bicycle-racing community did not embrace his comments.
"It's as if the chief Mafia prosecutor said all Sicilians were Mafiosi and the Mafia could be legal if it were not bad for society," La Gazzetta dello Sport said in an editorial published Wednesday.
Cycling has been embroiled in more doping scandals than most other sports. Last week, Alberto Contador, a three-time winner of La Tour de France, tested positive, a result he blamed on eating contaminated food.
