I rubbed the contents of one bag onto my upper arm on the evening of June 7, just before I went to bed. I thought: Well, it can't hurt. I flushed the packaging down the toilet.

Of course they were saying: No doping! But as a rider, it's difficult to believe that things can really change from one day to the next.

I wasn't in a position to defend myself. Sometimes it's a brutal profession. The first thing I thought of at the time was revenge. I have a more levelheaded take on the issue today.

The truth is that things were already going so poorly for me that nothing surprised me anymore. But then the BKA sent 20 agents to search my house.

It's possible that the name Bettini came up at some point during a conversation with the German Cycling Federation's anti-doping commission, but I certainly didn't claim that he gave me any drugs. They made that up. Bettini warned me: If you said that, then things could get dangerous for you.

The patient in the bed next to me told me that the newspapers were reporting on the test, and it was on television all day long.

Riders called me up afterwards to say that they had had no other choice. I couldn't understand the way they changed their tune.