GERMANY: CYCLE RACING - Team Telekom admits "doping still widespread" as T-mobile sporting director calls on Jan Ullrich to "come forward."

Record ID: 699690

  • Title: GERMANY: CYCLE RACING - Team Telekom admits "doping still widespread" as T-mobile sporting director calls on Jan Ullrich to "come forward."
  • Date: 25th May 2007
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (German) WOLFGANG SCHAEUBLE, GERMAN INTERIOR AND SPORTS MINISTER SAYING: "First of all, let me say how shocked I am, that lying and betraying occured so extensively. Obviously, this is turning into an epidemic. Days ago I ordered an in-depth investigation whether tax payers' money was abused in this directly or indirectly. We will install a task force in order to find out and we will prosecute and reclaim it with all possible legal means."
  • Embargoed: 9th June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA5ZUVOGAWLHEEZA2SUGKYLCKH7
  • Story Text: While Team Telekom admits that "doping is still widespread," T-mobile director Rolf Adag calls on Jan Ullrich to "tell it all" and Germany's sports minister announces a newly installed task force will look into the matter and reclaim any tax payers' money "abused" in the widening scandal.
    Team Telekom manager Bob Stapleton told reporters in Bonn on Thursday (May 24) that doping is still widespread.
    "It's still very difficult to detect and there are very uneven actions around eliminating doping from the sport. These gentlemen have come forward because they believe in clean and fair sport. That's a value that I personally share and it is important that this sport continue," said Stapleton.
    Erik Zabel and Rolf Aldag, who both admitted using the banned substance as a professional cyclist on the Telekom team in the mid-1990s, said doping had been part of every day life in professional cycling and testing was extremely patchy.
    As a six-times winner of the green jersey for best sprinter at the Tour de France, Zabel is one of the biggest names to come clean about doping.
    The winner of 12 Tour stages is the latest in a growing list of former riders from Team Telekom -- the predecessor to T-Mobile -- to confess their transgressions this week.
    Aldag, T-mobile sporting director, refused to speculate whether or not Jan Ullrich was guilty of doping.
    He said he did not know whether former rider and 1997 Tour champion Jan Ullrich had used banned substances.
    "This entire doping system is something very intimate and very person-related where you look each other in the eye to say: I'm in or I'm not in. 'Will you help me or will you not help me?' So in my mind Jan Ullrich doesn't play a role and I'm sure I'm not playing any role in his mind, whether he is doping or not. In other words, it would be pure speculation if I said that Jan Ullrich was doping. The same is true if I said that Jan Ullrich was not doping. The point is: now is a good time to come forward and tell it all. It helps all of us if you're interested in the sport," said Aldag.
    Ullrich has strongly denied any involvement in doping in the past and his lawyer said in a television interview earlier on Thursday that his client would not be commenting on the doping revelations for the time being.
    Also on Thursday, German poultry producer and cycling team sponsor Wiesenhof announced it will end its involvement with professional biking at the end of the year -- at which time the contract would have expired anyway.
    "The only effective substance in the 1990s was EPO (erythropoietin). But it slowly got less in the field. I'm not aware of anyone still taking it. This blood doping thing got more and more popular which I realised in 2003 when I finished my career. I decided I would not participate in that. I'm not aware of anyone in our team doing anything similar. They can't afford the necessary logistics with the salaries they receive. That's impossible," said Raphael Schweda, the manager of Team Wiesenhof and a former professional cyclist.
    In Munich, German Interior and Sports Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said he was shocked how much lying and betraying occured.
    "First of all, let me say how shocked I am that lying and betraying occured so extensively. Obviously, this is turning into an epidemic. Days ago I ordered an in-depth investigation whether tax payers' money was abused in this directly or indirectly. We will install a task force in order to find out and we will prosecute and reclaim it with all possible legal means," said Schaeuble.
    Deutsche Telekom said on Thursday it planned to remain involved in cycling as a sponsor but the entire doping issue had to be cleared up.
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