U.K. Athletics CEO Niels de Vos "has suffered a serious embarrassment" after a private speech in which he described the multi-million pound investments in hi-tech Olympic sports such as cycling, rowing and sailing as "technological doping" was posted on the YouTube website, according to Simon Hart of the London TELEGRAPH. De Vos, who has been in charge of the athletics governing body since '07, "was delivering what he clearly understood to be a private lecture." He was forced to own up to an "ill-chosen phrase" after "drawing a distinction between the technology-driven sports that delivered the bulk of Britain’s Gold Medals at the London Games and his own sport of track and field." De Vos "highlighted the influence of Peter Keen, who preceded David Brailsford as performance director of British Cycling." De Vos said, "Peter Keen came in and said, ‘Forget about cycling, it’s all about sprinting on the track because if you give me money I can make a difference and win medals.' They talk about aggregation of marginal gains. I personally don’t buy it. It’s actually technological doping, but none the less it works, and we’ve won a vast number of medals as a result of it." De Vos said that "his comments were in response to a question from the audience, and that he was not criticising other Olympic sports but merely pointing out the difference with athletics" (TELEGRAPH, 12/1).
