A Swiss cyclist riding for BMC Racing, a Swiss-American team recently invited to the 2010 Tour de France, has admitted he took an endurance-boosting drug.
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Thomas Frei, a 24-year-old racer from Olten, has now been fired from the team after being taken out of competition for testing positive for the drug EPO last week.
The cyclist admitted to the team management that he intentionally broke anti-doping rules, adding he had “acted alone” and the doping was in no way tied to his team.
“The BMC Racing Team regrets this situation for Thomas Frei and his career, and also for the team,” team president Jim Ochowicz said in a statement on Tuesday. “The BMC Racing Team will now separate from Thomas Frei but thanks Thomas Frei for his honesty to confess his failure.”
BMC management had already suspended Italian riders Alessandro Ballan and Mauro Santambrogio after learning of their roles in an ongoing investigation into an earlier doping case.
Unlike Ballan and Santambrogio, Frei has been with the team since last year. He had been in sixth place in the Tour du Trentin when he was caught.
The doping case is another bruise for BMC owner Andy Rihs, a Swiss entrepreneur whose previous team, Phonak, crumbled after several high-profile doping cases. Rihs has vowed to deal with cheats swiftly and harshly.
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Third BMC cyclist suspended for doping
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Thomas Frei, a 24-year-old racer from Olten, tested positive for the endurance-boosting drug EPO. He was currently in sixth place in the Tour du Trentin. Team manager and co-owner Jim Ochowicz said removing Frei from competition was not an admission of guilt. The results of a second test on the same blood sample were not…
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The co-owner of BMC Racing, which signed powerhouses like Cadel Evans and George Hincapie, tells swissinfo.ch there’s no bad blood between him and race organisers. Rihs was the man behind Swiss firm Phonak when American rider Floyd Landis tested positive for doping in 2006. Landis had mounted a dizzying comeback days earlier to win the…
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Zurich-based Phonak dismissed the United States rider on the grounds of “violating the team’s internal code of ethics” after laboratory tests on his B sample on Saturday backed up earlier findings. “Team owner Andy Rihs deeply regrets this development,” Phonak said in a statement. “Landis will continue to have legal options to contest the findings.…
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.