Bernhard Kohl's attorney said he was right to accept his two-year ban and to be satisfied with it. Siegfried Fröhlich, lawyer for the rider who won the Tour de France's mountains classification and took third overall before testing positive for a banned blood booster said, "From the beginning on, the plan was to hide nothing, but instead to confess to what happened."
Fröhlich noted the public appreciated Kohl's honesty, and opined that the fans are tired of "adventurous excuses" from riders caught doping. He said that the public do not want to hear "from medical experts ... who confirm that this athlete is the only person in the world who gets a higher haematocrit after eating streusel cake."
Kohl actually received only a 21 month ban, the lawyer said. The ban was dated as of the date of the first positive test on July 2, while Kohl continued to ride until the middle of September. This makes him "the first who will be able to start again of all the riders given a two-year ban for doping."
"You could say that Kohl won the sprint of those confessing. I am not aware of any other case, in which a top athlete confessed only two days after the announcement of a positive A sample."
In October it was announced that Kohl, who finished third overall in the Tour de France, had tested positive twice during that race for CERA, the new generation of EPO. The Gerolsteiner rider confessed to having used the illegal drug and was given a two-year ban, which ends July 2, 2010.
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