Published March 18, 2013 11:56PM
Copenhagen, March 18, 2013 (AFP) – Rolf Soerensen, one of Denmark’s most successful professional cyclists, admitted Monday to using blood-boosting EPO and cortisone in the 1990s, ending more than a year of denials.
“I used EPO periodically in the 90s,” Soerensen, now 47, said in a statement.
“I have also in some cases used the substance cortisone. There is no other excuse than that I did what I felt compelled to do to be an equal among peers,” he added.
Sorensen, who won two stages of the Tour de France in 1994 and 1996, refused to identify other riders who used performance-enhancing drugs.
“There will not be any names here. No allegations against other named individuals. It’s not my style,” he said.
“The only thing I will say is that I, as we all know today, was not alone in it.”
A professional rider from 1986 through 2002, Soerensen won the Liege-Bastogne-Liege race in 1993 and the Tour of Flanders in 1997.
He won a silver medal in the road race at the 1996 Olympic Games, the first year professionals were allowed to compete, and came close to winning the overall World Cup title on two occasions with a second place overall result in 1997 and third in both 1989 and 1991.
US cyclist Lance Armstrong, 41, admitted in January that he used performance-enhancing drugs during his record seven Tour de France victories from 1999-2005.
Armstrong was stripped of all seven Tour titles last year after a devastating report by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which accused him of taking part in one of the biggest cheating operations in sports history.