Two more riders admit use of EPO

FRANKFURT, GERMANY — Eric Zabel and Rolf Aldag, former teammates of two Tour de France winners, admitted Thursday they took performance-enhancing drugs while riding in the 1990s.

Zabel and Aldag were support riders for the Telekom team when its top cyclists won the Tour de France -- Bjarne Riis in 1996 and Jan Ullrich in 1997.

Speaking at a nationally televised news conference, Zabel and Aldag said they took the blood-boosting drug EPO. Both said they were ashamed of their actions and apologized.

“It was very difficult for me to tell my son, my parents,” Zabel said. “I had lied to them.”

Aldag is now sporting director of the T-Mobile team, previously known as Telekom. Zabel now rides for Milram.

Zabel said he took it in the first week of the 1996 Tour and did not repeat because he had some side effects. He said he has been riding clean since.

“I started doping with EPO before the 1995 Tour de France,” Aldag said.

Earlier this week, three other former Telekom riders admitted doping. Zabel is the only one still competing. He said he didn’t know what the consequences of his revelation would be.

Former Telekom doctors Andreas Schmid and Lothar Heinrich on Wednesday confirmed their involvement with doping in the 1990s while they were working for Telekom. Both were fired by the University of Freiburg clinic Thursday. Ullrich, who has been implicated in a doping scandal but has denied wrongdoing, was fired by the T-Mobile team in July.