Austrian Bernhard Kohl on Wednesday admitted doping in the Tour de France in July when he finished as best climber and third overall in the race, and said he would work to help rid cycling of the scourge.
The results of a doping test he took "correspond to the facts. I succumbed to temptation", the 26-year-old told a hastily arranged news conference on his return to Vienna, two days after his team manager reported the failed test.
Team manager Hans-Michael Holczer told media then that Kohl had tested positive for EPO CERA, or Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator, the second Gerolsteiner rider found to have taken the substance to improve his performance.
"I have decided to renounce my right to a B test in order to clean my slate. A lot of people won't believe me. Who believes a doping sportsman who now admits it?", a sombre-looking Kohl told the news conference shown on Austrian ORF state television.
"I have only myself to blame for this mess," said the rider, who faces a two-year ban.
ORF said Kohl did not disclose where he obtained the CERA but that he had said he used it after crashing in the Dauphine Libere warm-up race in June because he felt weak.
Kohl buried his head in his hands and wept quietly at times.
"I had a bad feeling to have cheated so many fans and all of Austria, so many young people who became enthusiastic about the sport because of me. It was not a good feeling and that's why I'm relieved the truth is out," he told an ORF interviewer.
"As long as there are pharmaceutical products on the market that (supposedly) cannot be traced, the temptation will be relatively great to use them, if you're in a crisis situation and feeling weak, as I was," he said.
"I thought this medication could not be traced but it could be traced. I hope every medication can be traceable in future. I would like to play my part so the sport becomes cleaner."
The other Gerolsteiner rider to fail a dope test on the 2008 Tour was Germany's Stefan Schumacher, who won the two time trials.
Austrian Sports Secretary Reinhold Lopatka bemoaned Kohl's offence on Monday as a shock for all sports enthusiasts and said his country had lost a sporting idol.
But Lopatka said the incident showed the anti-doping system was working better than ever and could succeed in stamping out the scourge.
Kohl had become the first Austrian to win the Tour de France polka dot jersey for the best climber.
The positive tests of Kohl, Schumacher and Italy's Leonardo Piepoli this month were the result of the French Anti-Doping Agency retroactively testing blood samples for the new type of erythropoietin (EPO).
(Agencies via China Daily October 17, 2008)