Doper Kohl says what they all say - it's not just me! It's everybody!

Of course you'd be thinking that - how else do you come to terms with the unethical practice of cheating? Especially so at a very public, very high-profile race like Le Tour? Whilst there's some merit in the argument that if I can only come 3rd, and everyone else in the Top 10 was keeping up pretty well, and I am taking CERA, then they must all be taking CERA too, it's flawed thinking. Who's to say that the rest of the Top 10 weren't clean but simply substantially better prepared, better supported or - quite likely - had bigger "engines" than yourself?

“At first, I once again tried to reassure myself: ‘OK, I was dead—but we were all dead,”’ Kohl said. “Many other riders had taken (banned substances).

Which isn't to say that some other riders weren't also taking advantage of some "help", either. Just that we can't actually know it.

Kohl admits to doping from 2005 onwards #cycling

What seemed to be a case of crash-and-recover-quicker-with-"insert drug here" has become more of a whole-of-pro-career effort. Full details here: Bernhard Kohl, winner of the mountains classification and third overall at the Tour de France, told investigators the names of all the people who helped him dope. The Austrian included the name of the person who provided him the blood booster CERA-EPO for which he tested positive for at the Tour de France, he said at a press conference Tuesday evening in Vienna, Austria.

It will be hard to come back from here, surely. Not hard to feel some sympathy though for someone who was clearly sucked into a toxic vortex of deceit at a young - but adult - age.

Kohl's confession buys no time

No discount for the confessor: Bernhard Kohl received a two-year suspension this afternoon in Vienna for having used EPO-CERA at the Tour de France. According to press reports, Austrian Kohl did not have any comment on the sentence.

That's it from him

What a way to go. One brief moment of glory, supported by a few doses of illicit drugs. Kill your career, and your team's. Disappoint sponsors and supporters. Drag everyone down. On the bright side, we are still catching the cheats.

Team Gerolsteiner's Bernhard Kohl has confirmed that he tested positive for CERA during the Tour de France to team manager Hans-Michael Holczer. "I had a call from Bernhard Kohl and he confirmed to me that he had been told of the positive test," Holczer said. "The substance is EPO CERA."

This isn't really working, is it? Should we legalise everything and monitor only for safety? Or perhaps Greg LeMond's sealed SRM power-output monitoring idea is the way to go, rather than play constant catch-up with new variations on a theme? Make more than an incremental gain in power, you get a please explain. Too big a jump, or into the realms of fantasy, you are out.