As reported Jörg Jaksche will cooperate as a crown witness with the sports court and the state prosecution in their doping investigations.

Jaksche confessed to German weekly 'Der Spiegel' that he took performance enhancing drugs for many years during his career. Jaksche also admitted that he was a client of Spanish doctor Fuentes. The interview will be published on Monday's edition of 'Der Spiegel'. On Sunday Jaksche will speak with Spiegel TV at German tv station RTL.

About his motivation to confess Jaksche told 'Der Spiegel': "I believe that it is important for the future of this sport that somebody says, Okay this how the cat jumps." On the basis of his own career Jaksche describes in detail how comprehensive and systematic people in cycling are working with performance enhanching drugs.

In the teams Polti, Telekom, Once, CSC and Liberty Seguros perfomance enhanching drugs was partially organized by the team management. "Ofcourse nobody hold my arm for a syringe, but the team manager who use to enriche themselves from you, who delivered you the stuff, they of all people suddenly act as if they are the ones who all advocate clean cycling," Jaksche said.

Already in his first pro season, 1997, he was brought to performance enhanching drugs by Gianluigi Stanga, in that time Stanga was team manager of team Polti. Jaksche said: "Stanga said he wanted to start with the treatment. He wanted to find out what works for me." Stanga, nowadays team manager of Team Milram told 'Der Spiegel' that the allegation is "absurd".

Jaksche started taking epo before the 1997 Tour de Suisse. In his second year as a pro there was no more scrupel: "The logic is: You adapt your proficiency level to the rest, because everybody is doing it. In cycling you live in a parallel society." 

In 1999 Jaksche raced for the German Team Telekom. Jaksche says he was provided with drugs by the doctors of the university hospital of Freiburg (Cyclingheroes reported). According to Jaksche, team manager Walter Godefroot was informed about it. Jaksche told 'Der Spiegel': "The team management knew everything. It was a consistently built-in system." Jaksche added: "It wasn't an inssue for Godefroot to ban somebody because he doped, but rather because somebody dopes unintelligently." Or if somebody does not dope at all. Godefroot denied the allegations. After Jaksche  refused to take PED's at the 1999 Tour de France, Godefroot did not want to renew his contract for the year 2000.

Update: Jaksche about Jens Voigt and riding a Tour without doping

During the 1998 Tour de France the so-called Festina scandal broke out.  Willy Voet, soigneur of the Festina team was caught by French police with a car full of performance enhancing drugs. There were police raids at team hotels and the fear for the police caused bizarre situations inside the peloton. Jaksche told 'Der Spiegel': "I asked Jens Voigt, who was riding for the French GAN team at that time, what his team will do now. One of us proposed  to bury it all along the route to pick it up after the Tour. We behaved like little crooks at that time." Voigt denied to Spiegel that he had something to do with doping.

Before the 1999 Tour de France Jaksche stopped taking performance enhancing drugs. Jaksche feared police raids and doping controls. Jaksche was 80. overall at that years edition of La Grand Boucle. He was desperate. Jaksche said: "You are hoping day by day that the speed will slow down. You have to strain yourself more and you regenerate worse. I couldn't keep up anywhere and felt myself completely redundant. At the end I was affraid to get dropped on a railway bridge."

Detlef Hacke, editor at 'Der Spiegel' already contacted Jaksche in September 2006. Bit by bit Jaksche started to tell Hacke about performance enhancing drugs inside the peloton. Early May he spoke 5 hours with Hacke and his colleague Udo Ludwig (who is also an editor with 'Der Spiegel') . The journalists took a fax with them that the crown witness paragraph of WADA was made for athletes who confess like Jaksche did. Jaksche will be availble as a crown witness for sports- and state authorities. Jaksche can count on a reduced ban.