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How do I smuggle 50 rounds of ammunition, a shotgun and two loaves of raclette cheese into Ireland? And how do I drive on the left? That is my only concern in July 1998, a week before the start of the 85th Tour de France in Dublin.
René emigrated to Ireland in 1994. He needs the gun, the ammunition and the raclette cheese. I can’t refuse my Visper friend the delicate transport. “You can still handle this smuggling,” he encourages me on the phone.
Cycling journalists are all-rounders
After all, we don’t just do research and write – we cycling journalists can do (almost) everything. We are computer technicians and see ourselves as radio specialists. Can read maps like the best orienteers. We raced through the landscape by car like Walter Röhrl once did. We change flat tires in our sleep.
We are gourmets, we know the best restaurants everywhere. As the legendary Blick journalist Serge Lang (1920-1999) said when he had to get up from a white-covered lunch table: “Cycling races are sooo much fun, only the cyclists disturb.”
In France I am easily waved through customs. It is comfortable on the ferry from Roscoff to Cork. No trace of Irish customs officers, left-hand traffic (roundabout clockwise!) is no problem. The races of my 16th Tour de France, the 21 stages are far, far away.
Then the doping bomb bursts before the official start in Dublin. Festina masseur Willy Voet (turned 77 on 4 July) is less fortunate than me as a smuggler. At the green border, on the Rue du Dronckaert near Lille, he is searched. He always crossed the border here and was never checked. But the detectives have had him in their sights for a long time. In the car you will find 234 bottles of EPO, 60 capsules of Asaflow (blood thinner) and 80 ampoules of growth hormone and amphetamine.
Doping, lies, confessions and tears
It is the beginning of the Festina scandal, a sad story about Alex Zülle (55). A story that shakes the whole of Switzerland: doping, lies, confessions and tears.
Alex Zülle joined the Festina team in January 1998 together with Armin Meier. Laurent Dufaux from Vaud has also been involved since 1995. Spanish financier Miguel Rodriguez (manufacturer of Festina watches) has gently pressured Bruno Roussel, the French team manager, to sign two-time Vuelta winner Zülle.
“I finally want to win this Tour de France,” said the Spaniard. He knows that he will never succeed with Richard Virenque (Fr). Alex Zülle is moving – 150 jewelers in Switzerland are adding the Spanish chronometers to their range.
What many suspect, but no one knows for sure: the Festina team is systematically donated. Doping use is agreed between management, doctors and drivers. The money is used to improve performance. And administered in such a way that they do not get stuck in the controls. And the health of the drivers must not be endangered either.
But Zülle said at the time: “I’m clean!”
It’s a lie, which holds the stuff. On Friday (July 17) we expect tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc at the press conference. Around 10.30 pm I call Alex Zülle. He suspects the disaster, but knows nothing specific. At 11 p.m. it becomes official: the Festina team will be excluded from the tour. Zülle sticks to his statement, which he made on Monday: “I am clean.”
It’s a lie, Alex knows very well. ‘And I did it anyway. I know I hurt a lot of people. Many will never understand. But I had to!”
Lying or being silent is part of cycling. “I just didn’t want to be seen as a traitor. Only not that – I’ve always kept it that way. Even when I was a boy. Better to suffer than betray!”
Nobody is forcing Zülle to dope. He did it voluntarily, under the supervision of the team doctors. “They gave me the injections of EPO. Why did I get so doped in the Festina team? I couldn’t find a good reason. Why? Because it’s part of the business. I couldn’t think of a better answer.”
Zul is honest. Don’t blame the doctors. “If I hadn’t known what they were doing, I’d be stupid!”
The French examining magistrate Patrick Keil invited all nine professionals from the Festina team, which was excluded from the Tour de France, to Lyon on Thursday. By phone. For a roundtable discussion.
Zülle will also be joined by the Swiss Laurent Dufaux and Armin Meier, as well as Richard Virenque (F), second in the 1997 Tour, and world champion Laurent Brochard (F).
The court date clashes with Zülle’s planned trip to the Caribbean, which eastern Switzerland now has to postpone for a few days.
What awaits the Swiss in Lyon? “We were told that the investigative authorities would not treat us as serious criminals! They just want to hear our opinion and discuss it with us,” says Zülle. “It won’t be that bad!”
A day in jail
Then July 23 in Lyon prison, the worst day of Zülle’s life. “Undressing, bending over naked and checking the buttocks – I was embarrassed, I was angry.”
Zülle has to give up his necklace, earrings, belt and shoes. “I slept on a plank. It smelled of excrement. If animals were kept in such a cell, animal protection would have intervened long ago!» In an initial desperation, he even says he wants to stop cycling. “But Armin, who was next door in the cell, encouraged me. I will never forget him.”
In the morning, the police get tough. They throw the evidence on the table. And they hear what they want. “Yes, I doped with EPO!” Alex Zülle just wants out. “I wouldn’t have survived a second night!” He tells the truth. He is relieved – but without knowing what the future will bring him.
It is July 24, 1998 in Lyon. The police released Festina professional Armin Meier from prison a few hours ago. He’s in the posh Cour de Loges hotel in the old town. No reporter in the foyer. Just look. “It’s good to have you here. Let’s go, I need to talk!” He explains that he only did what the others do: he doped himself. Without ever getting stuck in a controller.
The practices of EPO (blood doping) are one of the best kept secrets. Until Meier sheds light on the dark chapter for the first time. “When I came to Festina, team boss Bruno Roussel told me that if I wanted to take EPO, I had to contact the two team doctors. At important races like the Giro or the Tour, I injected a dose of Eprex every third or fourth day, that’s what it’s called. Either in the upper arm or in the abdominal fold. »
Armin Meier is the first professional cyclist to openly admit that EPO has been abused. I can still hear him crushing the ice cubes from his Coke glass with his teeth. A terrible sound – but it couldn’t have accompanied the Festina scandal better.
By the way: in 1998, in addition to the three Festina pros, Beat Zberg and Roland Meier were also at the start. Both finish the race. The Tour is won by Marco Pantani (It). More than 25 years later, follow-up checks show that he too had been baptized. On February 14, 2004, Marco Pantani was found dead in a hotel room in Rimini. He died of a cocaine overdose.
Zülle second behind Armstrong in 1999
After a seven-month suspension, Zülle returned in the spring of 1999. Three months after his comeback, he again finished second overall in the Tour de France behind Lance Armstrong (USA), who has since been removed from the list of winners. His last major success was winning the Tour de Suisse in 2002. Alex Zülle resigned after the 2004 season.
Armin Meier left the racing saddle in 2001 and was director of the Tour de Suisse for six years from mid-2004. Laurent Dufaux retires at the end of 2004. Years later, after the scandal tour, a number of life lies – “I have never used doping” – come to light. 53 samples from 1998 are analyzed – 9 samples are clean, but 44 (73 percent) are positive.
Source : Blick
I’m Emma Jack, a news website author at 24 News Reporters. I have been in the industry for over five years and it has been an incredible journey so far. I specialize in sports reporting and am highly knowledgeable about the latest trends and developments in this field.
