Former Tour de France Winner Admits to Doping

Fans shocked, shocked...
From The New York Times: By IAN AUSTEN

Topping off a week of doping confessions, Bjarne Riis of Denmark became the first Tour de France winner to admit to the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Speaking at a televised news conference, Riis said Friday that he used the blood boosting hormone erythropoietin, or EPO, from 1993 to 1998, including the period when he rode to victory in the 1996 Tour de France. He said he also used cortisone and human growth hormone.Riis, who now manages the elite cycling team CSC, offered to give up his Tour title, an unprecedented event in the history of the 104-year-old race....

However, given Riis’s offer, McQuaid said that the race records may be altered to show that the 1996 Tour had no winner.

That may be just as well. The second-place finisher that year was Riis’s teammate, Jan Ullrich of Germany, who is now the subject of a doping investigation. Third place went to Richard Virenque, who was the leader of a team that became of the focus of a series of antidoping raids by police in 1998.