January 25, 2007 – Johan Museeuw (formerly with Quick Step), the retired Belgian cyclist who dominated pro road cycling events in the 1990s, admitted on Tuesday to doping, according to the Flemish Belgian daily Het Laatste Nieuws (The Latest News). Museeuw, 41, declared that towards the end of his pro-cycling career he did “not loyally play the sporting game.” Museeuw, reading from a prepared text, said that, “I wanted to end my cycling career on a high note and I did things that I shouldn’t have. Not all the stories (presently) circulating are correct, but Wouter Vandenhaute’s résumé (of the situation) in an email is (basically) correct.”

Vandenhaute, an occasional training partner of Museeuw, wrote an email in February 2005 that was supposed to be a public admission of Museeuw’s doping. The email was intended to be published then, but wasn’t, although Belgian politician, Jean-Marie Dedecker, apparently sent it to “a newspaper.” Shortly after that email was written, Museeuw resigned from his public relations job with Quick Step. Recently, the email has resurfaced.

On Wednesday, Het Laatste Nieuws printed Vandenhaute’s email. By coincidence, the same issue also contained a story claiming that doping is a common practice today at Quick Step, quoting an anonymous cyclist that is allegedly still with the team.

Museeuw won 11 World Cup road racing events. In 1996, he won the Road World Cycling Championships and the Road World Cup Series, becoming the only cyclist in history to have won both.