Former cyclists settling doping lawsuit

09/14/06

DENVER Two former members of the U.S. junior national cycling team are settling federal lawsuits after contending their coaches injected them with steroids without their knowledge.

Gregory Strock and Erich Kaiter were completing a settlement agreement with USA Cycling and former coach Rene Wenzel, a lawyer for the riders said in a court filing late Wednesday. U.S. District Judge John Kane on Thursday gave both sides until Sept. 27 to file papers dismissing the case.

Attorney William Senter, who represents the defendants, confirmed the settlement but said terms were confidential. John Pineau, an attorney for the cyclists, did not immediately return a call.

Strock and Kaiter had said they were given steroid injections while on the team in 1990 but were told they were receiving vitamins and cortisone.

The settlement comes about four months after Kane rejected a defense motion to dismiss the case. USA Cycling and Wenzel had argued the cyclists waited too long to file the suit and failed to present enough evidence to show they had been harmed by the injections.

Kane, who consolidated the two lawsuits into a single case, said a jury should decide whether Strock and Kaiter had waited too long.

Kane's said Strock's evidence posed problems but was sufficient to send the case to a jury. He also said Kaiter had failed to show the injections caused his Crohn's disease, a digestive disorder, but that a jury should determine whether they caused a lung infection. The parties have been wrangling since over qualifications of expert witnesses on both sides.

Strock and Kaiter contended they had received up to three injections a day at the 1990 world championships in England, were told they were getting a safe and legal mixture of cortisone and vitamins and that they shouldn't question their coaches.

Their lawsuits alleged they were given injections and pills at other competitions that year, and that health problems related to the injections ended their elite cycling careers.

Strock claimed he began to suspect he had been injected with steroids while in medical school in 1998. Kaiter said he began to suspect he had been given steroids after he saw Strock discussing his suspicions in a September 2000 television interview.