Oscar Onley says cycling is cleaner but 'not completely clean' as Tour ambitions grow

In an interview on BBC Radio Scotland’s The Saturday Show, Onley reflected on a breakthrough year capped by fourth overall at the Tour de France. He arrived targeting stage wins, with the general classification only a secondary idea, but the race quickly changed the scale of his ambitions.

“That assessment changed rapidly,” he said. “It really feels like it came quite quickly in the last few months before the Tour. Everything started to click into place and so I was starting to gain a lot more confidence in myself as well.”

As the race unfolded, Onley moved into contention for the podium and eventually finished fourth, just over a minute behind third placed Florian Lipowitz. Jonas Vingegaard took second, with Tadej Pogačar winning comfortably.

Looking ahead to the new season, Onley remains measured. “I still feel very far away,” he said. “To the front two [Pogačar and Vingegaard], there is a big gap from the rest of us, but I definitely feel that, in the next couple of years, a podium finish is definitely possible if things go the right way for me.” 

The Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España were also races he highlighted as potentially offering more open opportunities. “Sometimes the competition’s slightly less deep. If it goes the right way, then why can’t I try to win one of those?”

Onley also addressed cycling’s long running battle with performance enhancing drugs. “I know how much we get tested and how much I personally get tested as well throughout the year and throughout the Tour,” he said. 

While he believes the sport has improved significantly, he stopped short of declaring it clean. “I also don’t believe it’s completely clean. I think it’s quite naive to think it’s clean throughout the whole world.”

With this, he echoes the views of Marcel Kittel and Ben Healy, both of whom recently said they do not believe the sport can ever be clean.

Despite that, Onley said trust in the system is essential. “You have just got to focus on yourself and trust that everyone else is playing by the rule book,” he said. “With the guidelines we have, I think it is very hard to cheat nowadays.”