Cycling News published an interview with Jorg Jaksche.
Jörg Jaksche thinks “a truthful Erik Zabel should be allowed to keep his job within professional cycling.
Zabel had originally confessed to taking EPO during the 1996 Tour de France in a tearful press conference back in 2007. However last month it was publicised that the German had also failed a test for the same substance during the 1998 Tour.”
He made further confessions bu then suspended by Katusha manger Ekimov.
“He deserves to work, Jaksche told Cyclingnews.
“There are many people who doped and who are still in the sport and have never confessed… Maybe for financial reasons Zabel chose to lie but others they didn’t say anything. I think if Zabel is getting honest with people then he deserves to work in the sport. The way things work though, it’s all about protecting yourself, protecting your bank account and then protecting the sport.
“For many years I’ve been saying that you need to be honest about the past and then you can have a better future.
“So we have problems from the 1998 Tour that could have been addressed by people like Erik Zabel in 2007. It always comes back. In my case, or in Landis’ or Hamilton’s there are no secrets anymore and it would have been good if that was the case all over the sport. We now find ourselves confronted with errors from the past that could have been avoided but because of a lot of selfishness and financial interest they decided to play with the public.
“I had a feeling that I was seen as the guy who needed to take drugs all during his career and that Zabel and Aldag were the guys who took it just one or two times and then didn’t want to take it anymore. It gave the perception that I had no talent and that I was a drug addict.”
Jaksche is now studying at a university but still keeps up with the sport. “He’s watched as a number of former colleagues have split between three paths: some telling nothing but the truth, some telling a portion of the truth and some telling nothing more than the same old lies. A case highlighted perhaps by Zabel’s treatment at the hands of the Katusha management.
“You always have to try and understand the other person’s situation,” Jaksche says, having been asked about the grandest confession of all within cycling.
“Perhaps Lance Armstrong could have helped a bit more, for himself and for cycling, by being a bit more honest. But things for him are a lot bigger as there could be more legal problems for him. I didn’t have to face legal problems so I can understand his behaviour.”
“We probably shouldn’t expect something from Lance what none of us would probably do.”
