After comments made last week about Lance Armstrong, Bernard Hinault has received criticism from peers, who have labelled his comments as “inappropriate”.

Cyclingnews contacted Robert Millar for his opinion on the comments the five time Tour de France winner made about Armstrong, who is serving a life ban for doping.

“I fear the blinkers of old age have appeared on the pony pulling Hinault's cart,” Millar said to Cyclingnews.

“Let’s just work back from the 1999 Tour and the beginning of the American's domination, shall we. There's the whole Italian team renaissance fuelled by growth hormone and EPO with the help from the Eastern Bloc doctors, not that the Spanish were left behind either. Then you can look at Ariostea, Gewiss, and Festina as examples, and Hinault believes it's Armstrong who is to blame?”

Former UCI president Pat McQuaid agreed with the meaning of Hinault’s quotes but said that it was wrong of the Frenchman to single out Armstrong when doping existed in the sport long before Armstrong did.

"I completely agree with Hinault in that cycling is no more rotten than other sports but he is very much aware that doping in cycling was widespread long before Lance Armstrong came into the sport, so to single him out as he does is unfair,” McQuaid told Cyclingnews.

Jorg Jaksche, who rode in the Armstrong era, agreed with McQuaids comments, saying that it was “hypocritical” of Hinault to say what he said and that “it’s a little unfair to insinuate that his time was clean and my time, the Armstrong time, was dirty.”

"What I’m trying to say is that you can’t be a sponsor, a body like ASO or even Hinault and see all these atomic bombs drop around you and then pretend like you didn’t know that Lance and others weren’t doping. It was crystal clear.”

Hinault has always maintained that all of his cycling successes were clean.

“I think Hinault doesn’t want to talk about the cycling he was involved with and just remember that he won five Tours,” Jaksche told Cyclingnews. “He’s standing there on the podium for the ASO and he wants to glorify himself, and that’s human behaviour, whether he’s a sinner or not.”

Jaksche doped for long periods during his career and maintains that, despite not having raced in the 70s or 80s, he has spoken to a fellow pro who did, and he believes that there was a doping culture in the sport before Armstrong.

“My perception might be wrong but I don’t think bad people just arrived in cycling in the 1990s with EPO in their hands. I’ve spoken to an ex-German pro who was really successful in the 70s and 80s and he’s told me that their generation were taking cortisone and things like that but he said they never did EPO. Well, I’m sure but that’s because EPO wasn’t around back then and if you took other drugs, well I’m sorry, it’s still doping. That’s nothing personal to Hinault because I don’t know his story but his comments were inappropriate. What he said helps no one.”

“And as for McQuaid I think he’s right. I’ve had problems with him in the past over my own case but I think that as soon as people are out of the sport they start to have another view. Pat, step by step is probably changing his views.”