Spitz calls for more controls

Sabine Spitz

Sabine Spitz (Image credit: Tour of Japan)

By Susan Westemeyer

Sabine Spitz has called for further doping controls in cycling, saying that current controls don't go far enough. "If you don't have anything to hide, then you can face unlimited testing," she told Sport Bild magazine.

Spitz, 35, suggested that athletes could be located for doping controls by using their mobile phones. "That would finally clear up the problem of missed doping tests." She further criticized the fact that so many athletes have a medical certificate allowing them to use otherwise forbidden products. That 95 percent of athletes allegedly have attests for asthma, is "lies and deception," said Spitz, who finished as runner-up at the World Championships.

She also had harsh words for Rudolf Scharping, head of the German cycling federation, Bund Deutscher Radfahrer (BDR). "Sometimes I am ashamed to belong to his federation." She feels herself in the anti-doping fight "not properly represented by Mr. Scharping or the BDR leadership. I simply cannot see that they are systematically going a new way."

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