By Susan Westemeyer
Jörg Jaksche claimed that Bjarne Riis threatened him if he spoke out on doping, he said at the "Play the Game" antidoping conference in Iceland this weekend. "If you talk, you will never come back in cycling, Riis told me. And stated that he would organize that I could never come back," Jaksche was quoted on the conference's website, thepulse2007.org.
In response, Riis said that he talked to Jaksche but denied threatening him. "I advised him not to involve others because nothing good could come of it. Maybe I told him that it would be hard for him to return to cycling after accusing others within the sport. But it is rubbish if he has said that it was a threat," Riis said.
This summer Jaksche gave an interview in the German news magazine Spiegel, in which he detailed his doping use during his career. The German, who rode for Riis' CSC Team in 2004, was given a one-year suspension by the Austrian cycling federation.
