The horrors of the Lance Armstrong doping era must never be forgotten I have mixed emotions about the what we heard from the UCI on Monday. I was pleased with the pretty unequivocal endorsement of the US Anti-Doping Agency report, although to have done otherwise frankly would have been the death knell of professional cycling. I was worried they were going to be incredibly incompetent and challenge it. There had to be no prevarication and no caveats in the culpability of Lance Armstrong. Well, they got that right. I am pleased the UCI accepted the six-month bans for those riders who gave testimony although again it was unthinkable that the UCI shouldn't - such plea bargaining is catered for in the World Anti-Doping Agency code - and these people are strong witnesses of what happened and what should never happen again. They can now be strong forces for the good, their testimonies offer the greatest weapon in prevention. It was disappointing that former president, now honorary president, Hein Verbruggen's role in all of this was not really acknowledged. There is a UCI management committee meeting on Friday and it will be very interesting to see how they handle the past. I was also disappointed that McQuaid missed an open goal by not dropping his libel case against the journalist Paul Kimmage. In doing so, McQuaid is aligning himself with Verbruggen, they are standing together in this in a joint action against a man who had been trying to expose the doping culture. Just how bad does this look to the outside world questioning how cycling is dealing with doping? The president and honorary president of a big worldwide sporting body going to court at a time like this to, trying to protect their name in what everybody knows was a legitimate fight by the journalist involved to expose what actually happened. The rest was typical UCI - confident at times, baffled at others. Pat McQuaid was his usual self, sure of himself even when nobody else was. Unlike some I was not concerned in the slightest when he read out the long list of riders, some of them big names, who have been caught in the last six or seven years. I consider that confirmation of what I know to be true, that the sport is mending itself. Believe me, despite everything you have read in recent months, cycling is in a much better place. Let's acknowledge where the sport is today, there has been a fundamental clean-up but somehow that message never seems to come out properly from the UCI. Now you get caught unless you are absolutely on the cutting edge as a doper. It does not mean there is more and more doping, it proves the modern anti-doping system is working. It is why a young rider at the 2012 Tour de France could be sure that the race was pretty much free of doping. It is very hard to believe the UCI when it tries to get this across because it refuses to admit its culpability for the past. The day it acknowledge its part in the past is the day we can all begin to believe fully in the future.