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Riis confesses to having doped in winning Tour

By Agence France Presse
Published: May. 25, 2007

Bjarne Riis, winner of the 1996 Tour de France, admitted Friday that he had taken the banned blood-boosting drug EPO while competing for the German team Telekom.

"I have taken banned substances, I have taken EPO. I bought it and took it myself," he said, Riis said at a press conference, adding that team doctors bore no responsibility for his actions.

"It is ultimately the cyclists themselves who must take responsibility," he said.

Riis said he took EPO from 1993 until 1998, including the 1996 season when he won the Tour de France.

Asked if he was a worthy Tour de France winner, Riis replied: "No, I am not."

However, he added that he was "a rider at a time when those were the conditions." EPO was said to be rife in the professional peloton during the 1990s, when there was still no test able to detect its use by riders.

"My jersey is at home in a cardboard box," he said. "They are welcome to come and get it. I have my memories for myself."

The Telekom team was a major force in 1996, and in 1997 when Jan Ullrich won the Tour de France yellow jersey.

Since the fallout of a recent doping affair surrounding Ullrich, who is now retired, the team, which is now known as T-Mobile, has undergone a thorough clean-out of staff and riders connected with those 'doping years.'

Several of Riis's former Telekom teammates this week confessed to using banned substances, including one of the top cyclists of the past 15 years, Erik Zabel of Germany, as well as Rolf Aldag, Bert Dietz, Christian Henn and Udo Bölts.

Riis said he didn't want to speculate if any other riders from his period had used banned substances.

"No idea, it was possible," he said.

He added that his experience of using EPO left him believing that it did not work as a miracle tonic to riders with no talent.

"You can take as much as you want but if you don't have talent you can't win anything. I had some talent," he insisted. "There's a tendency in cycling today to confess the mistakes of the past. I find that hard to understand. I have put my own past behind me."

While admitting his guilt, Riis said he remained proud of his cycling achievements.

"I am proud of my results as a rider and an owner," he said.

The Dane said he decided to admit publicly to the doping for the sake of his current team, CSC.

"I'm doing this for my team, my team backs me 100 percent. Speaking out was necessary as there was so much speculation and I was using so much time and energy on the matter and my team needs me," he said.

Bjarne Riis’s Prepared Statement
After the long run of confessions concerning the Telekom team in the 1990s, I have decided to give a statement about my involvement.I have decided this for two reasons.First of all, I'm doing this to keep the focus on the work we are doing today that keeps cycling in the right perspective. The massive steps we have taken to fight doping and the ways in which we have secured that the team rests on the right and proper foundations. I think if we are to talk about doping, we should talk about what to do now and not about the mistakes in the past. The recent developments in Germany have taken the balance out of this and therefore I want to set the record straight. And I want to do this, because the future of cycling needs the right focus.Second of all, I'm doing this to get rid of the endless discussions about things that are truly in the past and that I personally have put behind a long time ago. I don't want my personal past to overshadow that work and brilliant effort that Team CSC is doing today. We are the number one team in the world for the second year running and I want my riders and sponsors to be proud of that. They work, within the rules, with passion, professionalism and commitment and I want them to keep on doing that. When I was a rider in the 1990s, I worked extremely hard to get my results. I worked extremely hard, day in day out and I sacrificed a lot just even to be part of the best. In that time, the perspective on doping and preparation was wrong and misguided.That also means that I did things that I shouldn't have and I have regretted that ever since. Those were mistakes that I take the full responsibility for and I don't have anyone to blame but myself. We all make mistakes and I think my biggest mistake was to let my ambition get the better of me. That I have had to deal with a long time ago and I am glad to say that I am a lot wiser now. Both in my personal and in my professional life.I don't want the mistakes of my personal past to stand in the way of the work we are doing today. I did what it took to compete at the highest level back then, and it's a deep satisfaction for me that those days are long gone and the sport has moved in the right direction. If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't be here today.I have learned from my past – for better and for worse. The experience and wisdom I have gained informed my decision to come back to cycling and has energized me to create the best team in the world.