By Susan Westemeyer
"I haven't done anything illegal," Jörg Jaksche told Eurosport.de regarding his alleged involvement in Operación Puerto. "I knew Dr. Fuentes, but that had nothing to do with sport. That was purely a personal matter."
In order to demonstrate his innocence, Jaksche said that he had offered a DNA sample to the UCI, and gave them permission to re-test all his urine samples from the last five years, "also for substances that they weren't able to look for five years ago." But he has never received an answer from the UCI, he noted.
All the while Jaksche tried to keep himself fit. "But there have been times when it was mentally tough. I trained a lot in Italy with friends who are enthusiastic about cycling. I could talk a lot with them about the problem. That was very important, because it can just eat you up when you don't know what's going to happen."
The German, who lives in Austria, said that he has spoken with several teams, including Tinkoff Credit Systems. "But nothing that is ready for a signature has emerged."
