Former T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz who tested positive for testosterone at this year's Tour de France, is unlikely to pay back the equivalent of his annual salary as required by the UCI's 'Commitment to a new cycling', according to his attorney Michael Lehner.
Sinkewitz was reportedly paid 700,000 euro a year by T-Mobile, but Lehner told German press agency dpa that the UCI's document was questionably legal and "not worth the paper it is written on". He did not believe that T-Mobile would request the money back, saying "so far there is no sign of that".
T-Mobile did not seem alarmed by Thursday's statements from Sinkewitz, in which he reportedly told the German cycling federation about how certain team doctors organised and administered doping products during his career. "We have known ever since Jan Ullrich [that team riders doped in 2006]," said Christian Frommert, Head of Sponsoring Communication for T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom. "This just shows the brazenness of some riders and shows the need for our new concept, with which we also have to count on such blows."
Team manager Rolf Aldag added: "I don't know of any official Sinkewitz explanation of doping practices at T-Mobile in 2006. If that exists, then certainly we will react to it."
