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Spitz says doctor offered her EPO

published 7 November 2008

Olympic cross country mountain bike gold-medal winner Sabine Spitz said that she was offered EPO and...

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The German national anthem plays for Sabine Spitz (Image credit: Casey Gibson)

Olympic cross country mountain bike gold-medal winner Sabine Spitz said that she was offered EPO and other doping products by a sports doctor in 2003.

"I would rather ride behind the others" than dope, she told the German magazine Sport-Bild.

Shortly afterwards, she became the world mountain bike champion, "and that showed me: It is possible to win clean. I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror every morning."

Spitz, 36, clarified in a separate press release that it was not a doctor from the Bund Deutscher Radfahrer (BDR, German federation). She did not name the doctor.

As deterrent to doping, she suggested life-long bans or prison. "For me, doping is cheating and criminal. If there is a threat of imprisonment, then maybe people will think twice before they take some illegal product."

She also said that she did not think that Lance Armstrong's return would be beneficial to cycling. She said that there are test from the 1999 Tour de France which link him to EPO use, and "I absolutely do not understand, why he is welcomed back with open arms."