"It's true. I went to Ferrara and there I was looked after by a doctor from Professor Conconi's staff. To be fair, I never actually met with Conconi himself. I took EPO in the last year of my career, 1993. I had been going to Conconi since 1986 and I was looked after by a doctor from his staff, Ilario Casoni.
"People were always looking for something to make them go faster, and when, at the beginning of the '90s, riders got to hear about EPO and its effectiveness, I too began to use it."
The speaker is retired cyclist Gianluigi Barsotelli, a one-time anonymous figure in the peloton of professional cycling who rode for the Italian Galatron team.
His "confession" about using EPO (erythropoietin) in La Repubblica this week followed a report in that paper that an investigation into a biomedics research centre in Ferrara, run by Professor Francesco Conconi, had unveiled systematic and extensive use of EPO by a number of athletes under Conconi's care.
Among those whose names appeared on files found during a search of Conconi's office was not only Stephen Roche, but also Italian household names such as 1998 Tour de France and Giro d'Italia winner Marco Pantani, former cycling World Champions Gianni Bugno and Maurizio Fondriest and Olympic walker Maurizio Damilano.
While many of those named on the list, including Roche, Bugno and Fondriest, issued immediate denials about using EPO, this latest revelation in a series of investigations into doping practises in Italian sport leaves many uncomfortable questions unanswered.
In the last year, state investigators in Bologna, Ferrara, Trento, Rome, Turin and Venice have all uncovered disturbing evidence that doping is widespread from youth sport up to the highest levels of professional activity.
That the problem is not an exclusively Italian one is illustrated by the discovery made by the Turin prosecutor, Raffaello Guariniello, whose investigations led him to an Internet site, www.ultimatenutrition.com (Ultimate Nutrition) where a wide variety of substances, some legal for sportsmen and some not, can be ordered.
Magistrate Guariniello has also come up with disturbing statistics regarding the worldwide production of EPO, a product initially intended for treating kidney disorders.
He reckons that only 20 per cent of the production is required for medical purposes, and that only 50 per cent of the production is sold officially. So then, on what black market is the other 50 per cent being sold and who is using the 80 per cent of production not required by medicine?
Three years ago, former cross country skier Silvano Barco alleged he had been marginalised from the Italian team because he had refused to take EPO. This week, speaking from Finland where he now lives, Barco commented:
"I was kept out of the national team because I refused to undergo certain treatments. In that team, people paid little attention to technique and coaching, the only thing that counted was that you had a high haemoglobin count."
That "high haemoglobin" count, of course, is achieved by using EPO, which increases an athlete's red blood cell level, enabling the athlete to absorb and covert ever more oxygen into raw athletic power and energy.
Barco's comments were echoed by an Olympic team-mate of the early '90s, Giuseppe Pulie, who told the Corriere Delle Alpi:
"My first serious suspicions came in 1992 and were confirmed in '93. At first I didn't understand. According to the tests I underwent, I was going very well by comparison with my team-mates. Then, when it came to a race, the results did not add up. My best pace was around 20 (kilometres) per hour, sometimes it went up to 21, yet other guys who weren't any better than me suddenly were flying along at 30."
For the time being, none of the above inquiries has arrived in court. But the Bologna state prosecutor, Giovanni Spinosa, has called for 16 people, nearly all involved in cycling (including team doctors, pharmaceutical suppliers and team managers) to stand trial on charges of abuse of drugs and long-term health damage to athletes.
