Riis - 1996 TDF Winner - Doped
Well the long anticipated announcement that Bjarne Riis (the only Danish cyclist to ever win the TDF and the owner / team manager of Team CSC) admitted that he doped while he was racing just came out. Stories here, here, and here. Riis said he did not feel worth to be a winner of the biggest cycling race in the world with this lie sitting on his shoulders. This story follows by one day the admission by Eric Zabel and Rolf Aldag that they doped (Swap Blog post here and Peleton Jim’s post here). Both were support / fellow riders on the Telecom team that guided Riis to his 1996 win and Jan Ullrich to his 1997 win.
To me, and I think most others that follow cycling, this announcement by Riis is really not a surprise, even though Riis denied it until now. I say this because Riis’s nickname within the peloton was Mr. 60%. That nickname referenced his then supposed hematocrit (red blood cell) level - which is naturally in the low 40’s - due to team Festina having roughly 50% hematocrit counts. The Festina riders said if their levels were 50% then Riis’s had to be 60% to ride like he was riding at the time. It has been rumored that Riis tested at 56% once at a race.
This is must one more high profile cyclist down. Honestly at this point there will be no pro cyclist that has ever won a big race left by the end of the year.
