Bernhard Kohl at the 2008 Tour de France (Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Bernhard Kohl's former colleagues and employees are surprised by admissions that he had doped for so long, saying there was never any reason to think that based on his behaviour or results.
"The problem reaches much further than just cycling," Rolf Aldag of Team Columbia-Highroad told dpa. He was Kohl's teammate at T-Mobile Team in 2005-2006.
He called for other sports and athletes to be named: "Let's just stop with this crap that 'cycling is bad and the other sports are good.'"
Kohl tested positive for blood booster EPO at the Tour de France. Tuesday, he admitted to drug use as early as the 2005 season.
Kohl's former team manager at Gerolsteiner, Hans-Michael Holczer, said that Kohl's admissions show "doping practices are not controllable." He told fr-online.de that since 2005, the team kept a close eye on the riders' movements during races, but "a blood transfusion can be done in twenty minutes."
Holczer said that since learning last October that Kohl had doped at the Tour, "I can hardly believe anything in sports. I hadn't expected the subject of blood transfusions to come up, but nothing shocks me any more."
Gerolsteiner had elected not to have an internal testing program. Holczer insisted that this was the right decision. (SW)
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