Linus Gerdemann (T-Mobile) takes over yellow (Image credit: AFP Photo)
Tour de France stage winner and yellow jersey holder Linus Gerdemann came out with sharp criticism of his former team-mate Patrik Sinkewitz this week. 24 year-old Gerdemann gave the team it's best result of the Tour when he won stage seven and took the lead in the overall classification, but then days later the team was crushed by the news of Sinkewitz's positive drugs test. Sinkewitz later admitted to using testosterone at the team camp where the out of competition doping control was performed.
"I'll never forgive him for this mistake," Gerdemann said in an interview with the German tabloid Bild am Sonntag. "I simply can't get back to a normal relationship with him. It was just too big of a matter."
Gerdemann's victory in the Tour was seen as a boon for clean cycling, but since the multiple positive tests during and after the Tour he said that he has had "angst for the profession of cyclists. We have fallen into disregard because of the many doping cases. Everyone is right to be sceptical -- but I defend myself against the blanket statement that all riders use dope. That is definitely not so."
"I think that cycling is generally on the right way. There are a lot of measures being taken in the right direction," Gerdemann continued. While in the not so distant past, riders who spoke out against doping were shunned and even persecuted for their statements, things are quite different these days. "People like me, who actively fight doping, are not handled as outsiders. But of course that doesn't mean that the sport will become clean from one day to another. But in contrast to earlier, the cyclists are dealing with the problem --- at least most of them are."
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