busted yet again… from T-mobiles own website…
30.06.2006/ In the course of the investigations into the Spanish doping network, new information has been presented to the Bonn-based T-Mobile Team, which strongly contradicts Jan Ullrich’s, Oscar Sevilla’s and Rudy Pevenage’s claims of innocence. The facts now point to contact between the implicated trio and the doctor at the centre of the probe, Eufemiano Fuentes. The sponsors of the cycling team, the mobile communications company T-Mobile, have demanded that the team management suspend, with immediate effect the two implicated athletes and the sporting director.
The team management has complied with this demand and none of the three will take part in the Tour de France. Lorenzo Bernucci (Italy) and Stephan Schreck (Germany) were initially called up as replacements for the two suspended riders in the T-Mobile roster. However, the A.S.O. has decided that there will be no replacements for the riders that have been pulled out. Therefore, the T-Mobile roster will be down to seven riders when the Tour rolls of the ramps in Strasbourg on Saturday.
„Our stance was always unequivocal“, emphasizes Christian Frommert, director of sports communication for T-Mobile International. „If we are presented with evidence, which leads us to doubt the credibility of one or other of our riders, then we act upon it immediately. That is the case now.“ The Bonn-based T-Mobile company believes in the concept of clean cycling, continues Frommert.
Team manager Olaf Ludwig was also deeply disappointed. “We talked to the riders several times and even have their declarations of innocence in written form”. Following the first reports emanating from Spain about the possible involvement of T-Mobile Team riders in the Madrid-based doping scandal, the team management instructed all its athletes to sign a written declaration certifying that they were not involved in the scandal, which everybody did.
“There are clear guidelines arranged with the riders, which leave no room for interpretation. This was also clear to Jan Ullrich, Oscar Sevilla and Rudy Pevenage,” says Ludwig. Against this background, the sponsor as well as the team management repeatedly questioned the riders and the sporting director. “At first we had no reason to doubt the riders’ statements. Therefore, we couldn’t make any decision merely based on speculations, rumours and guesses“, says Frommert. This situation has now changed profoundly. “Accordingly, we will now live up to our responsibility towards making cycling a clean sport.”
