Patrik Sinkewitz had previously said that he drove alone on the night of July 1, 2006, after the first stage of the Tour de France, from Strasbourg, France, to the University Clinic in Freiburg, Germany, for an illegal blood transfusion. But it must have been more of a convoy, as "at least" five T-Mobile riders went in that night for blood-doping, according to the Saturday edition of the Stuttgarter Zeitung. The paper claims to have seen documents from the University Clinic which shows that the riders received re-transfusion of their own blood on the evening of the Tour's prologue.
Deutsche Telekom spokesman Christian Frommert told the newspaper that he was not surprised by the claim, and that he had always known that Sinkewitz couldn't have been the only one on the team practicing blood doping. German anti-doping crusader Werner Franke said, "Everyone can look and see who was strong in the individual time trial", which was held one week later. T-Mobile placed six riders in the top 16, with Serguei Gonchar winning the time trial.
