Present on the occasion of a sports forum in Copenhagen (Denmark), the winner of the 1996 Tour de France came to his coronation gleaned using doping products. In all transparency, the Danish does not abandon any questions and admits does not “regret”.
He persists and signs. His name still appears on the record of the Tour de France and yet Bjarne Riis is not in his first revelations. In 2007, the Danish, winner of the Grande Boucle 1996, had already confess by confessing being doped. At first, he was withdrawn his title but a few months later, the quadruple stage winner on the Tour de France, had resumed his place among the winners, the facts being prescribed, had judged the UCI.
Eighteen years later, Riis returned to these dark years of the bicycle and its coronation on the 1996 Tour de France during a sports forum in Copenhagen (Denmark). And the least we can say is that “Mr. 60 %” – reference to his high hematocrit level thanks to the recourse of the EPO – does not seem to be blame. “I was completely doped. I knew what I was doing. I do not regret it, because it was part of this era and a system that we all accepted in silence, “added the Scandinavian, whose words are relayed by the Sport.es site.
The embodiment of a dark era for cycling
Withdrawn from the platoons since 2020 after a long career as team manager, the one who crushed competition in an attack in Hautacam in the summer of 1996 and the only runner from his country to have won the Tour de France, does not cause its history, its dark hours. Bjarne Riis therefore won a tour of France by cheating, probably like others in these lead years, when the EPO wreaked havoc and defeated the winners of world cycling. An era punctuated in particular by the Festina affair in 1998.
A new outing that is not likely to reassure the followers of a sport bruised by its history and on which the shadow of doping always hovers.