Richard Virenque quotes:

I symbolized doping... My phone rarely rings. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of riders who call me.

Bike riding requires permanent sacrifice. It means training 11 months out of 12 and 110 days of racing, whatever the weather conditions. Early in life, I realised I did not have intellectual potential, so I dedicated myself to cycling.

In the second part of my life, away from cycling, I hope I will be able to benefit fully from my family and children in the same way that cycling gave me such joy.

He's dangerous, he's beautiful, and he loves the heat, like me - that's why I had a scorpion tattooed on my leg in 1999 after my fifth jersey.

The more the years go by, the more difficult it gets. I'm getting old.

I want to be remembered going off the front, not the other way. After winning my seventh king-of-the-mountains title and winning a stage on Bastille Day, I asked myself, 'What more can I do in cycling?' I want to go out at the top.

It was important to score points today and I went for them with my guts.

I was a hero, and a second afterwards it was all over. Casartelli was dead so what I had achieved was worth nothing.

You can say that climbers suffer the same as the other riders, but they suffer in a different way. You feel the pain, but you're glad to be there.