The caring German Cycling Federation (BDR) had declined interview requests out of "consideration", as they said. At his World Championship debut in Valkenburg last year, the now 19-year-old was still able to say frankly: "Dad is my role model". The first confession of his once highly respected father in May 2007 demanded "great respect" from him. Such assessments are probably now more difficult for the promising cycling talent, who has a professional contract for next year with the BMC team of former Tour winner Cadel Evens.
Nevertheless, the junior obviously continues to attach great importance to family support. "Yes, my father is here and so is my mum," said Rick Zabel after the world championship team time trial, which he finished in a respectable 19th place with the Dutch Rabobank junior team, just under four and a half minutes behind Tony Martin's world champion team.
However, Erik Zabel, who has been banned from all offices and disappeared since his second confession at the end of July, was not to be seen at the finish line at the Nelson Mandela Forum in Florence. On Friday, his son has his second World Championships appearance in the U23 road race. "I'm in good form and have a wild card role in the team. Let's see what I can make of it," added Rick Zabel, who finished 36th in his World Championship debut in the U23 class in the Netherlands last year.
The deployment plan at BMC will be discussed in October. In the long term, the 2012 German U23 champion wants to specialise in the classics. "I had several offers. But BMC seemed the most promising". The youngster is hoping for a careful build-up after his early switch to the professional camp: "At BMC, I'm three years younger than the second youngest in the team".
When his father tearfully confessed to short-term doping on TV in 2007, Rick was 13. Until then, he had experienced cycling more as a big show. It was one of his father's trademarks to take the little boy to the podium at the victory ceremonies on the Champs Elysées in Paris after the Tour - all dressed in green and even colouring his hair accordingly. Erik Zabel's record of having won the green jersey six times in a row still stands.
He had only tried EPO for a week in 1996, Zabel senior had revealed with a tear-choked voice in the course of the partially ordered confessions in the T-Mobile team. He could no longer lie to his son, he had explained. Six years later, the fatal half-truths caught up with Erik Zabel and exposed him as an actor. Confession number two followed at the end of July. He felt compelled to make the statement after investigations by the French Senate had exposed him as a liar.
Erik Zabel admitted to extensive doping use from 1996 to 2003 and lost his positions as team leader at Katusha and as sporting director of the races in Hamburg and Berlin. However, re-socialisation seems possible because, unlike Jan Ullrich, he cooperates with the National Anti-Doping Agency NADA, for example, and perhaps he cannot be denied belated remorse. The bosses of the Cyclassics in Hamburg and the ProRace in the capital have also signalled that the door is at least a little wider open.
