Tour de France winner admits doping

Bjarne Riis, the winner of the 1996 Tour de France, speaks at a press conference in Copenhagen on Friday. Riis confessed systematic abuse of drugs while employed on the T-Mobile cycling team in the wake of team-mates' revelations earlier this week. PHOTO: AP

Dane Bjarne Riis on Friday became the first rider to admit having used performance enhancing drugs while winning the Tour de France.

Riis, who won the race in 1996, said he used drugs between 1993 and 1998.

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

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

Riis, the 43-year-old current manager of Team CSC, said he took erythropoietin (EPO) from 1993 until 1998, including the 1996 season when he put an end to Miguel Indurain's five-year reign on the Tour de France.

Asked a journalist 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 said to be rife in the professional peloton during the 1990s, when there was still no test able to detect its use by riders.

EPO the production of red blood cells, increasing oxygen-carrying capacity and therefore improving endurance.

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

Since the fall-out 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 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 Boelts.

Riis 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," he added.

Riis, stone-faced and at times with tears swelling up in his eyes, said he had always regretted using performance-enhancing drugs.

"It's possible that I'm not a hero any more," he said. "I'm sorry if I've disappointed people. And for those for whom I was a hero, I'm sorry. They'll have to find new heroes now."

While 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.

Pat McQuaid, president of the International Cycling Union (UCI), the sport's governing body, said Riis would not be stripped of his Tour de France title.

"The eight-year statute of limitations has expired," McQuaid told German sports news agency SID. "We're not going to rewrite the history now."

Nevertheless, the UCI called on Riis to give back the yellow jersey he was awarded as Tour winner in 1996.

"Despite the time limits for sanctions established by the World Anti-Doping Code having elapsed, the UCI urges the former rider to return his yellow jersey, the symbol of his victory," it said in a statement.