Australian cyclist Stuart O'Grady has admitted to using EPO prior to the 1998 Tour de France.
The 39-year-old, who announced his retirement last week, said that he used EPO in training for the race but was scared off when the Festina team were busted at the French border with an array of banned substances.
"The hardest part of all this is I did it for two weeks before the Tour de France," he told the Adelaide Advertiser. "I used extremely cautious amounts because I had heard a lot of horror stories and did the absolute minimum of what I hoped would get me through.
"When the Festina affair happened, I smashed it, got rid of it and that was the last I ever touched it. It was such a long time ago and one very bad judgement is going to taint a lot of things and people will have a lot of questions.
"Leading into the Tour I made a decision. I sourced it myself, there was no one else involved and didn't involve the team in any way. I just had to drive over the border and buy it at any pharmacy."
O'Grady - also a gold medallist on the track at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens - helped Orica-GreenEDGE to victory in stage four of this year's race.
Michael Penkman
