"What can I say? Maybe I'll invite all my critics for a coffee and explain to them how I do things," Riis told the internet portal Cyclingnews on the sidelines of the Tour Down Under in Australia, no longer wanting to talk about his dark past in cycling.
Riis had disappeared from the big stage for almost five years before he and his business partners bought into the South African World Tour team NTT Pro Cycling and immediately took on the most important position as team boss. Former doping witness Jörg Jaksche does not believe that the Dane has since been reformed. "I would be very, very surprised. He doesn't realise that what he did was shit," Jaksche told the German Press Agency.
Jaksche, who was exposed in 2006 in the course of the doping scandal surrounding Eufemiano Fuentes, had spent several years of his career with Team CSC under Riis. Doping was the order of the day back then. "You could just talk to Bjarne or the doctors. He knew what I was doing at all times. Falsified cortisone tests were also used within the team," Jaksche reported.
The Danish anti-doping agency ADD came to the same conclusion after a three-year investigation in 2015. Unfortunately, the statute of limitations had already expired. Riis was spared a ban, while old companions such as long-time Armstrong team boss Johan Bruyneel were banned for life.
Riis then publicly regretted his mistakes, but this did not really come across as remorseful. Just like his confession in the course of the Telekom scandal that he had doped during his Tour victory in 1996. His yellow jersey is in a cardboard box in the garage. The Dane, who once had the nickname "Monsieur 60 per cent" because of his high haematocrit level, said succinctly in 2007 that he could get it.
The fact that Riis is now returning is unacceptable for ADD Managing Director Michael Ask. "I still don't think he is morally or ethically capable of leading a professional cycling team," Ask told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
Riis was once declared persona non grata by the Tour organisers, but they had no case against him. In 2015, the spook seemed to be over when he was stripped of his power at the Tinkoff racing team (the successor to CSC). From then on, Riis worked at a lower level and founded the Virtu racing team with his business partner Lars Seier Christensen. Now the opportunity presented itself to join the South African team, which was the worst in the World Tour last year under the name Dimension Data.
Jaksche assumes that Riis has not changed. "I do believe that there will be doping under him. I don't know if he would initiate it," emphasised the 43-year-old, who also cannot see any change in cycling. "How bad is it for cycling to be financially dependent on people like Bjarne Riis? That's more a question of budget. When in need, the devil eats flies."
In 2021, the Tour de France will start in the Danish capital Copenhagen. With Riis in a leading position, it looks like. "I'm still the same. I still have the same philosophy and the same values," said Riis during his inaugural visit to Australia. Words that didn't exactly sound reassuring.
