Both of Danish cycling star’s wives knew of Riis’s doping – that’s all
Bjarne Riis’s new autobiography, Riis, which will be released this Tuesday, tells an intriguing story of just how quiet and secretive the world of doping was for Riis, and presumably, everyone else in the professional peloton.
Danish website, BT, quotes a few passages in the book related to Riis’s two wives and their knowledge of his practices in the Nineties.
“Certainly, Mette [Riis’s first wife] knew it at the time. She was forced to, because I would have my preparations at home in the refrigerator. Otherwise, no one in my circle of friends, family, and so on knew,” said the manager of the Saxo Bank/SunGard team in his new book.
After Riis separated from Mette and wed former handball player, Anne Dorthe Tanderup, he told her the whole story of his racing career. Tanderup was not excited to hear the news of Riis’s practices while racing, but understood.
“I was obviously not terribly pleased, but I accepted that it was part of his sport. It was a choice he made before he met me. It was a part of him, just as he was married and had two children,” says Tanderup in the BT Sunday paper.
The statements from both are unsurprising, but interesting glimpses nonetheless into the doping culture of the Nineties, and how possible it was to keep such a big part of a rider’s life completely quiet. It’s also a further step forward from the silence that still permeates from that generation of riders as a whole, even those that have admitted to doping.
Along with the release of the autobiography, the Riis family celebrated the birth of a baby boy this week – 51 centimeters long and 3.44 kg. The boy is the couple’s fourth and Riis’s sixth son in total.
“It all went fine, there were no complications. Both Anne Dorthe and the little one are doing well. They come home on Saturday,” said Riis to the BT Sunday paper from his home in Switzerland along Lake Lugano. “He is just so lovely and so little.”