Holm Still Respects Sùrensen After Doping Admission Former Danish professional road bicycle racer Rolf Sùrensen has admitted to using EPO as well as cortisone during his professional cycling career. But that has not brought him any lower in the eyes of Dane Brian Holm, now a director at Omega Pharma-QuickStep. Holm said Sùrensen was a superstar and we were a bit jealous because he won a lot and was simply a better cyclist and added that now that he has admitted to doping, it is a surprise to him. Holm added that he still has a lot of respect for Rolf as a cyclist and one should show to someone who won Flanders and Liège. In a statement, the most winning Danish bicycle racer ever, with his 53 victories over 17 seasons, Sùrensen remarked he used Erythropoietin periodically in the 90s and added that he also used the substance cortisone in some cases. He added that there is no other excuse than that he did what he felt compelled to do to be an equal among peers. In his statement, he added that he has been asked many times about doping over the last year and he should long ago have come clean and also said it is solely his responsibility and rendered his apology sincerely and with great humility for my tardiness. The Danish cyclist declined to name any other riders involved in doping. Sùrensen, Holm, and Jesper Skibby were household names during the 1990s. The Danish contingent was nicknamed the `Danish Coffee Club© and they used to ride together at the back of the bunch together and despite riding for different teams and had a great habit of celebrating each other©s wins as if they wore the same jerseys. The cyclist started his professional career with Fanini in 1986 and then moved to Ariostea from 1988 through 1992. Rolf Sùrensen remained on Italian teams, Carrera Jeans-Tassoni and GB- MG Maglificio from 1993 through 1995 and then moved to Rabobank in 1996. He won such classic one-day races as the Ronde van Vlaanderen, Liège±Bastogne±Liège, Paris±Brussels, Paris±Tours and Milan-Turin and led the UCI Road World Cup on several occasions, finishing third in 1989 and 1991 and second in 1997. Sùrensen also won individual stages in the 1994 and 1996 Tour de France, and wore the yellow jersey as the leader of the race after the team time trial in 1991. Sùrensen also won a stage of the Giro d©Italia, three stages in the Tour of the Basque Country, six stages plus two overall victories at Tirreno-Adriatico, two stages at the Tour of Romandie and two stages at the Tour de Suisse during the 1990s. He also won a silver medal in the road race at the 1996 Olympic Games, the first year where professionals were allowed to compete and came too close to win the overall World Cup title on two occasions with a second place overall result in 1997 and third in both 1989 and 1991. Sùrensen was a client of Francesco Conconi and Luigi Cecchini..