Without much difficulty Team CSC defended its position as the best team in the Protour. The main opposition didn’t come from the other teams, but from behind the green table. In a long line of confessions team manager Bjarne Riis cleared his conscience by admitting that his Tour victory in 1996 wasn’t obtained in a purely natural way. The Dane, who was suspected by many followers anyway with his nickname ‘Monsieur 60%’, confessed to what everyone already knew.


Nonetheless this was used against him. A team manager of the best team in the world didn’t have a clean past, so in the renewed hu...