Tougher Measures

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble told the cabinet on Wednesday he was launching a "task force" to investigate the possible misuse of taxpayers' money in doping.


"Doping destroys the value of sport," Schäuble said. "Its credibility, its function as a provider of role models and its approval by the public are being put on the test."

Schäuble is meanwhile pressing for a rapid passage through parliament of a new anti-doping law, which among other things would permit lenient treatment for people who come forward to testify. The government is also examining proposals to ban imports of medicines intended for doping offences.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged cyclists who used performance-enhancing drugs to come clean and break a "cartel of silence."

"There has evidently been systematic and continued manipulation of unimaginable proportions in professional cycling," the chancellor said in a statement. "The confessions and investigations undertaken so far aren't sufficient to clean the sport up."

New confessions

The government's moves follow doping confessions from riders from the Telekom team, now known as T-Mobile.

On Friday, retired Danish cyclist Bjarne Riis admitted using doping during his 1996 Tour de France victory while riding for Telekom.

The admission came a day after former teammates Erik Zabel and Rolf Aldag confessed they used performance-enhancing drugs while riding for Telekom in the 1990s.

Four other riders from the team have also admitted doping, but Germany's 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich has remained silent.

No comment


Ullrich's manager Wolfgang Strohband has said his client would not speak about a claim made by former Telekom team masseur Jef D'Hont, who told the newspaper Bild this week he had injected the cyclist with the erythropoietin (EPO) blood booster on one occasion.

Freiburg University on Thursday dismissed its doctors Andreas Schmid and Lothar Heinrich after they admitted giving athletes doping substances.

The university promised a full investigation into the past 20 years of its sports medicine.

Nationwide scope


Public prosecutors in Freiburg meanwhile said they had handed an investigation into Schmid and Heinrich over to the Federal Criminal Police Department (BKA) in view of the nationwide scope of the probe.

Heinrich and Schmid admitted that as team doctors they were involved in EPO blood doping in the mid-1990s at the Telekom team.

The German cycling federation BDR on Saturday also suspended Olympics doctor Georg Huber after former cyclists Jörg Müller and Christian Henn claimed they were given doping substances in the 1980s.

However Huber will not face a criminal investigation because any alleged offences were now lapsed under German law, prosecutors said.

It's all history


Zabel, a six-time Tour de France sprint champion, on Wednesday started the Bavarian Tour race for the Milram team.

Milram said they were retaining the 36-year-old rider despite his admission he took EPO -- a synthetic hormone that stimulates the production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells -- in the 1990s.

Zabel was applauded by hundreds of spectators at the start of the first stage of the race in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Zabel, who has a three-year contract with Milram until the end of 2008, will be allowed to continue his contract for the rest of this year at least, the German-Italian team said on Tuesday.

Zabel has admitted using EPO before the Tour de France in 1996, saying he stopped after a week because of side-effects.

In another development, Germany's public broadcasters ARD and ZDF said they would not initially renew options to cover the Tour de France after next year.

ZDF chief editor Nikolaus Brender said the contract would not be renewed "until we can be sure that doping has no more chance at the Tour de France."