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After Rebellin speculation mounts about second Olympic cyclist

Second cyclist alleged to be amongst Beijing Olympic 6

In the light of yesterday's news that six competitors from last year's Beijing Olympics have retrospectively tested positive for CERA a form of EPO, including Olympic road race silver medallist Davide Rebellin, attention has now turned to the identities of the others involved, and in particular to the identity of the other cyclist.

According to sources within the IOC the six are made up of three track and field athletes, allegedly including a male gold medallist, two cyclists, and one weightlifter.

Rebellin is so far the only one of the six to be confirmed by their national Olympic association as having failed the retrospective tests. The form is that national Olympic associations of all the affected athletes will first be informed and they will then take the appropriate action. So far both the British and American Olympic associations say they have not been informed of any problems with their athletes “We're treating this as no news is good news”, said a US official.

Given the nature of the drug involved it is more likely that the second cyclist will have been competing in one of the endurance events – which again points more to the road race than the track, or a road rider competing on the track. That said, a weightlifter is also said to be among the Olympic six – a sport which is all about explosive power, rather than long-term endurance, so CERA it would seem also has benefits for such athletes, which might point to one of the track sprint competitors. Either way if a second cyclist is involved we will know his, or her, identity soon enough.

2008 Men's Olympic Road Race Top 10
1 Samuel Sánchez (Spain)      06:23:49

2 Davide Rebellin (Italy)                                  

3 Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland)                          

4 Alexandr Kolobnev (Russian Federation)                   

5 Andy Schleck (Luxembourg)                               

6 Michael Rogers (Australia)                              

7 Santiago Botero (Colombia)                           0.12

8 Mario Aerts (Belgium)                                   

9 Michael Barry (Canada)                               0.16

10 Robert Gesink (Netherlands)                         0.18

2008 Women's Olympic Road Race Top 10
1 Nicole Cooke (Great Britain)      03:32:24

2 Emma Johansson (Sweden)                                 

3 Tatiana Guderzo (Italy)                                

4 Christiane Soeder (Austria)                        0.04

5 Linda Villumsen Serup (Denmark)                    0.09

6 Marianne Vos (Netherlands)                         0.21

7 Priska Doppmann (Switzerland)                          

8 Paulina Brzezna (Poland)                               

9 Edita Pucinskaite (Lithuania)                          

10 Zulfiya Zabirova (Kazakhstan)           

road.cc's founder and first editor, nowadays to be found riding a spreadsheet. Tony's journey in cycling media started in 1997 as production editor and then deputy editor of Total Bike, acting editor of Total Mountain Bike and then seven years as editor of Cycling Plus. He launched his first cycling website - the Cycling Plus Forum at the turn of the century. In 2006 he left C+ to head up the launch team for Bike Radar which he edited until 2008, when he co-launched the multi-award winning road.cc - finally handing on the reins in 2021 to Jack Sexty. His favourite ride is his ‘commute’ - which he does most days inc weekends and he’s been cycle-commuting since 1994. His favourite bikes are titanium and have disc brakes, though he'd like to own a carbon bike one day.

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4 comments

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Jon Burrage | 14 years ago
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This is what winds me up about dopers more than the actual 'cheating' element. Finishing in the top 3 in any event and being a doper the rider/runner/racer has to stand their knowing that they are depriving clean athletes of the chance of a lifetime, standing on the podium in the olympics, getting that photo for the wall...this cant be repeated, yeah they will get the medal but its that moment that cant be returned to them.

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Tony Farrelly | 14 years ago
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Not sure how it works at Fleche, especially seeing as he didn't (well, so far) fail a test there, but I'm pretty sure that you do get retrospectively bumped up the order at the Olympics. After all, If you are not going to give clean athletes their due reward what's the point of catching the cheats.

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gandberg | 14 years ago
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Not really shocking, although it should be. Cycling will always be a tainted sport in the eye of the lay person, which is a terrible shame.

What can we do to eradicate cheats? Jail terms for the doctors and lifetime bans for riders. End of!

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miffed | 14 years ago
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If it is true then thats really bad news. I thought Gerosteiner were ruined by a couple of bad apples but looking worse now.

Also what do they do with the medals and other results post +ve if it is true. Does Fabien get a silver and Koblenev the bronze? And is andy Schlek awarded the win at Fleche?

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