Cycling: International Cycling Union president Pat McQuaid believes the current doping crisis that is ruining the Tour de France could help to form a generation of clean competitors if dealt with correctly.
The Tour is in dire straits after the Cofidis team became the latest to withdraw from the event following a positive test for Italian rider Christian Moreni.
In addition, race leader Michael Rasmussen was sacked by his team Rabobank last night after they deemed him guilty of "a flagrant violation of UCI regulations" by lying about his whereabouts in the training period prior to the competition.
And while McQuaid, who is from Ireland, concedes that it is a desperate situation, he believes there is hope for a drug-free competition, perhaps as early as next year.
"There's a completely new testing system this year with more testing within the race," he told BBC Radio Five Live. "We already test to the maximum, with blood tests in the morning and normal anti doping in the afternoon."
McQuaid has called on both individual riders and teams to take their own share of responsibility for staying clean.
"(The teams) are the ones who need to control the riders, they're the ones who need to clean out the ones who are iffy, they need to guarantee the riders are clean and riding fairly. But at the end of the day, the riders take the decision to put something in our bodies.
"The rider is the one who makes the decisions."
McQuaid praised Rabobank for acting decisively to sack Rasmussen and also laid out his hopes for a new breed of cyclists to emerge from the scandals of recent years.
"Rasmussen was thrown out by his team because they received evidence he had lied to them. He told them he was in Mexico but he was seen in Italy at the same time.
"It was a straightforward lie and they threw him out which was a very responsible decision. Aspersions will be cast on him and they weren't prepared to accept that."
He added: "We're going to have to come out of this with the highest ethical standards and the highest standards of any sport.
"It's people like Bradley Wiggins (who lost his place on the Tour yesterday when team-mate Moreni tested positive) and David Millar who are speaking out.
"They have got to come into a system that is completely ethical. It's the older riders who have been beating the system but there's new testing all the time.
"We need to weed out the bad apples of the sport. I would hope next year we'll have a Tour de France with no positive tests. We've had two bad years and we can't afford another." PA