Stefan Schumacher (born 21 July 1981) is a German former professional road racing cyclist. Schumacher won the bronze medal in the road race at the 2007 UCI Road World Championships, two stages in the 2006 Giro d'Italia and two stages in the 2008 Tour de France. After positive results on doping products in the 2008 Tour de France and the 2008 Summer Olympics, he received a suspension for two years, later reduced by some months. After his suspension, he came back as a professional cyclist before retiring in 2017.
Career
First professionally employed with Team Telekom in 2002, he was released the following year. In 2006, he made his UCI ProTour debut with Gerolsteiner after posting impressive continental circuits results on the UCI Europe Tour.
Schumacher has been involved in a series of controversial incidents during his career. He was implicated in a doping case in 2005 when he tested positive for an amphetamine. His mother, a doctor, had prescribed an asthma medication after failing to find it on the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of banned substances, and checking with the appropriate Dutch agency. He was cleared by the German Cycling Federation of a doping offence.
Gerolsteiner (2006–08)
In 2006 Schumacher, now riding for Gerolsteiner, won the Eneco Tour of Benelux by one second after colliding with his main rival George Hincapie in the closing metres of the final stage, when time bonuses were available for the leading finishers. Schumacher claimed he had collided first with a spectator and the race jury accepted his story.
Following his third place in the road race at the 2007 UCI Road World Championships in his home town of Stuttgart, Schumacher was arrested for drunken driving. Four months later he revealed that the blood test taken at the time of his arrest had shown traces of amphetamines, whilst denying that he had knowingly taken drugs or had any knowledge of how the positive test had come about. Following a rule change in 2004 amphetamines were no longer on WADA's out-of-competition banned list; as a result the German federation again exonerated him.
In the 2008 Tour de France, Schumacher, riding as leader of Gerolsteiner, won both time trials, beating Swiss favourite Fabian Cancellara, and took the yellow jersey of race leader after the first. After Gerolsteiner was announced to be folding, Schumacher signed a two-year contract with Quick-Step.[2]
Doping suspension
On 6 October 2008 the media reported that Schumacher had tested positive for the controlled substance continuous erythropoietin receptor activator (CERA), a new generation of erythropoietin (EPO), in a blood sample taken during the 2008 Tour de France.[3] CERA was also the drug for which Italian cyclists Riccardo Riccò and Leonardo Piepoli tested positive during the Tour de France. The German cycling federation was likely to take disciplinary action,[4] however Schumacher continued to assert his innocence and believed he was eligible to ride in the 2009 season and having a contract with Quick-Step. Quick-Step manager Patrick Lefevere stated that Schumacher's contract would not be honored.[5]
In April 2009 Schumacher's name was raised in connection with a positive test for performance-enhancing drugs at the 2008 Summer Olympics.[8] Both his "A" and "B" samples tested positive for CERA.[9] Schumacher was disqualified after these positive tests; he appealed against this to CAS, but dropped his appeal in April 2010.[10]
Post-suspension
Schumacher's ban ended in August 2010. He came back to ride for the Miche team, and joined Christina Watches–Onfone for the 2012 season.[11] In March 2013 Schumacher confessed to doping in an interview with the news magazine Der Spiegel. He stated he started doping in his mid-twenties and used "EPO, growth hormone and corticosteroids".[12] He also said that his former team Gerolsteiner tolerated doping and it became as banal as "having a plate of pasta after training".[13]
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