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Team Telekom's dope doctors highlight just how sick cycling is

When it comes to doping it seems that cycling, like the wheels that propel the bikes, is going round in never-ending circles.

by Robin Parisotto on 05 June 2007

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German doctors from the University of Freiburg, Lothar Heinrich and Andreas Schmid, have now admitted to doping cyclists of Team Telekom in the past.

This is a hugely disappointing admission but may hopefully provide the impetus to burst the festering pustule that is international cycling. With Operation Puerto and the Floyd Landis affair hanging like bleak clouds over the sport, the UCI needed the admissions like the proverbial hole in the head. How much more can the sport withstand before it implodes?

The doctors' admissions, though, go further than implicating Team Telekom. In particular, Dr Schmid’s impressive research portfolio must now be called into question. A large part of his research has dealt with blood manipulation, therefore his admissions have obvious implications.

Cycling is sick, perhaps sicker than we think or know, and needs its own treatment; not by doctors, though, because it seems some of them are part of the doping problem. The admissions are damning any way you look at it, especially when you think that doctors are supposed to only give prescribed drugs to people who are sick, not healthy. While there may be calls to throw the book at them, I can’t believe that they did this without the tacit support by team managers and sponsors. The whole team should go down!

Comments (4)

by Rant on May 25, 2007

"I have just as much disdain for sloppy laboratory processes because in my game, Medical Science, sloppy lab procedures could end up killing patients. The standards should be no different in anti-doping labs." Well said. The standards should be the same, whether the lab is an anti-doping lab, or a medical lab.

by prolepticlife on May 25, 2007

It just keeps getting worse. The only good thing is it seems the avalanche has started and all the dopers and enablers are falling like dominoes. Maybe it can get cleaned up and cycling can get back to where it ought to be.

by klaus on May 26, 2007

cycling has always been riddled by doping....from the first tour onwards riders have taken drugs, be it strychnine, cocaine ( before it baceme illegal) etc etc....tthe telekom saga is only the tip of the ice berg... i seriously dowubt whether anybody has ever wonthe tour legally ...but i will still watch it...

by Robin Parisotto on May 30, 2007

After checking and confirming sources it appears that Dr Schmid's research investigating blood parameters for the purposes of detecting blood manipulations has been performed without WADA support. The statement that "Dr Schmid is a recipient of a grant to investigate a method to detect blood manipulation", should therefore be regarded as incorrect. Robin Parisotto German Cycling Federation doctor, Georg Huber, who also works at the University of Freiburg along with doctors Schmid and Heinrich is now under suspension pending investigations. Its not been the best few weeks for German Cycling but hopefully this is the start of a new era for the sport. Why is everyone else mute though?

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