Dan Martin has reacted to his teammate Ryder Hesjedal's recent doping admission, stating that the Canadian remains his friend despite the past misdemeanours. Martin reiterates the firm anti-doping stance of his Garmin-Sharp team and is glad that team manager Jonathan Vaughters has allowed him and his teammates to race clean at the highest level.

Last week Ryder Hesjedal had to admit to doping when Michael Rasmussen claimed to have taught the Canadian how to use doping. The allegations were published in Rasmussen's auto-biography which was released this week.

Hesjedal issued a statement, admitting to having been doped when riding as a mountain biker earlier in his career, but claimed to have stopped long before he joined his current Garmin-Sharp team in 2008. Long before the Rasmussen allegations were made, he given testimony to both the American and Canadian anti-doping authorities but wasn't sanctioned due to the 8-year statute of limitations.

His team manager Jonathan Vaughters has firmly supported the Canadian star, just like he supported Christian Vande Velde, David Zabriskie and Tom Danielson when the trio received shortened suspensions for their involvement in the Lance Armstrong affair. Now teammate Daniel Martin has expressed full confidence in the 2012 Giro champion.

Martin and Hesjedal have been teammates since 2008 and formed a strong alliance in this year's Liege-Bastogne-Liege when Hesjedal played an instrumental part in Martin's biggest win to date. In an interview with Velonation, Martin supports Hesjedal's decision to come clean and states that they remain friends.

“Obviously it doesn’t change my opinion of him,” he said. “I am proud with how the team has coped with it. He came to the team to have the opportunity to race clean, like we all did. That was the reason why Jonathan [Vaughters] started the team, to give guys like Ryder the opportunity to fulfil their potential clean. It is unfortunate the way it has come out, as all these situations are, but I think we are going to move on. 

“He is a friend and I definitely won’t be looking at him in any different light than before.”

Martin and Hesjedal will both tide for Garmin-Sharp in 2014.