During a conference in Copenhagen, the former Vaineur du Tour de France 1996 engaged in his years of doping in the bicycle. In all transparency.
The name of Bjarne Riis is still on the record of the Tour de France while that of Lance Armstrong was definitively erased from the tablets. The two men nevertheless admitted to having doped but the Danish escaped the final erasure despite confessions in 2007. His confessions had also pushed the big loop to take his title at first but a few months later, he had resumed his place among the winners, the facts being prescribed, had judged the UCI.
“Doped to the neck”
Present on the occasion of a sports forum in Copenhagen, Riis returned to these dark years of the bicycle and its coronation on the 1996 Tour de France to take over from Miguel Indurain. “I was doped to the neck when I won the Tour”explained the man who had acquired the nickname of «Mr. 60%» In the peloton, in reference to its high hematocrit level thanks to the recourse of the EPO.
Pass advertising
“We all accepted in silence”
“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 Danish, who still holds in front of Tadej Pogacar the record of the climb in Hautacam, ascent during which he had knocked out Miguel Indurain and the Tour de France, remained in cycling long years after having put his bike in 1999. Patron of the CSC team, Saxo-Bank, Saxo-Trinkoff, Tinkoff-Saxo then Ntt Pro Cycling until 2020, the 61 -year -old man, winner of four stages on the Tour de France, had been questioned in his functions as managers in a report by the Danish Antidopage Agency in 2015.
Also implicated during his career as a leader
The document accused him in particular of having encouraged Tyler Hamilton of contacting the Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, involved in the scandal of the Puerto affair which had updated the existence of a blood doping network in cycling and football. The American runner had confirmed this information in his book The Secret Raceindicating that his manager had greatly encouraged runners to use prohibited products.