BELGIUM: CYCLE RACING - Former German Telekom cycling team assistant Jeff D'Hont book launch, alleges some team members used performance enhancing drugs

Record ID: 784369

  • Title: BELGIUM: CYCLE RACING - Former German Telekom cycling team assistant Jeff D'Hont book launch, alleges some team members used performance enhancing drugs
  • Date: 1st May 2007
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (APRIL 30, 2007) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE)(Dutch) JEF D'HONT, FORMER GERMAN TELEKOM TEAM ASSISTANT, ASKED IF RACES LIKE 'TOUR DE FRANCE' ARE JUST TOO DIFFICULT, SAYING: "It has always been very difficult, it will not change and shouldn't change because that the nature of the sport. But if everybody keeps away from it, the best will stay the best."
  • Embargoed: 16th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: People,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVABALQIDPAUU6GM6YUXZTDK91XV
  • Story Text: In a book entitled 'Memories of a cyclist team masseur', former German Telekom cycling team assistant Jef d'Hont made striking revelations about doping.
    In the book, d'Hont said both Telekom Tour de France winners Bjarne Riis (1996) and Jan Ullrich (1997) used erythropoietin (EPO). He said the Telekom medical team encouraged Ullrich to use the banned blood booster EPO in 1996.
    German Telekom, currently operating under the name T-mobile team, said on Sunday (April 29) it would investigate allegations of systematic doping between 1992 and 1996 made by d'Hont, which was due to be be published in German magazine Der Spiegel on Monday (April 30).
    D'Hont said pressure for results led riders of the Telekom team to ask for drugs.
    "At the beginning, we decided we didn't want to do like the other teams, but after a while, because there was a lack of results, and because runners were asking for it, we started a system to somehow protect the runners, because if the runners started to experiment by themselves, it could prove to be dangerous. The System Telekom, yes... but I think Telekom was not the only one," D'Hont recalled.
    D'Hont claimed that Riis had a particularly high hematocrit, caused by the use of EPO. During the Tour de France 1996, which the Dane won, Riis had a hematocrit of 64.
    EPO raises the number of red blood cells in the body, which stimulates endurance. People normally have values between 42 and 47. As from 60, the blood becomes so thick that it is life-threatening.
    In the Belgian daily Het Laatste Nieuws, Bjarne Riis responded to the accusations saying: "I was never good friends with Mr d'Hont. I also notice that he is just talking without giving any evidence."
    In the newspaper interview, Bjarne Riis does not deny the allegations. "As far as I am concerned, it's all water under the bridge. I don't feel like explaining things every time someone comes up with a ten-year-old story."
    Bjarne Riis is now the team director of the ProTour team CSC. Last year, he left Ivan Basso home for the Tour de France after the Italian got implicated in the Spanish "Operación Puerto" on blood doping and the use of EPO.
    Referring to the Puerto affair and the Festina affair, which rocked the 1998 Tour de France when Festina team masseur was arrested in possession of four hundred bottles and capsules of doping products, d'Hont said less cycling athletes were taking drugs these days.
    "In the last two, three years, a lot has improved. It started to improve with the Festina affair, and it will probably improve further with what's happening now in Spain, because they get frightened. I hope and I am pretty sure, because that's how it happened in the past, that youngsters won't start," d'Hont said.
    But D'Hont added that performance enhancing drugs are becoming more dangerous.
    "It's not only with cycling, all sports are concerned. Drugs have been there all the time, and will continue to be, but the products used today are a little bit more dangerous than before," d'Hont said.
    D'Hont suggested that drugs have been in the sport for a long time but that they have changed. He said the problem with EPO is that its long term effect on the body was unknown.
    "Before we had amphetamines, then hormones, cortisones, and it became worse and worse. Amphetamines is a psychotropic and when you stop after taking it after a run, or when you stop your career, it doesn't do any harm anymore. But now, the possible consequences of EPO, nobody knows, it could prove at a later age, when they grow older... And the danger, nobody knows for sure, but it could be death, an earlier death," d'Hont said.
    Asked whether top cycling athletes can give top winning performances without the use of performance enhancing drugs d'Hont said the level of competition should not need changing.
    "It has always been very difficult, it will not change and shouldn't change because that's the nature of the sport. But if everybody keeps away from it, the best will stay the best," d'Hont said.
    T-Mobile general manager Bob Stapleton and sporting director Rolf Aldag said they will examine the charges made by former masseur Jef D'Hont
    "These are massive accusations," Aldag was quoted telling German sport news agency SID on Sunday.
    "We're going to closely examine the evidence. It's not a question of getting out of this situation. It's important to find out what happened. We're in a position to react in any possible direction."
    But Aldag, who was a member of the Telekom team in the 1990s, added: "It's inconceivable that there was systematic doping." Aldag said he never used any banned substances.
    On May 14, the 2006 Tour de France winner Floyd Landis is due to have a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) hearing on charges of doping.
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