Kloeden underwent blood doping in 2006

By Julien Pretot

PARIS (Reuters) - Former Tour de France runner-up Andreas Kloeden underwent an illegal blood transfusion during the 2006 race while riding for the T-Mobile team, an independent commission from the University of Freiburg ruled on Wednesday.

The commission's report also stated that doping with the banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO) was systematic in the team from 1995.

The two-year probe was commissioned by the Freiburg University, with a three-man panel concluding that two doctors, Lothar Heinrich and Andreas Schmid, implemented a blood-doping programme within Team Telekom and its successor T-Mobile without the knowledge of the university.

They had 58,800 blood samples re-tested and interviewed 77 witnesses, including German rider Patrik Sinkewitz who served a one-year ban for doping.

"The final report concludes that apart from the rider Patrik Sinkewitz, who has confessed (to blood doping), there were at least two more riders who committed blood doping (...): Matthias Kessler and Andreas Kloeden," a statement read on the University of Freiburg's website (www.uni.freiburg.de).

'RECEIVED TRANSFUSIONS'

The commission ruled in its final 63-page report available online [www.dopingkommission-freiburg.de/Abschlussbericht.pdf] that Kloeden, Sinkewitz and Kessler received transfusions from their own blood after the first stage of the 2006 Tour, travelling back and forth from Strasbourg to Freiburg.