This 39-year-old Belgian chip shop owner and former rider who once bad assaulted a rival claims the "doped bike" found at the World Cyclocross Championships is his.
Having protested her innocence in the World Cyclocross Championships bike doping case, 19-year-old Belgian rider Femke Van den Driessche has insisted the bike belonged to a friend.
And now the Belgian media has tracked down a man who has corroborated the claim of the under pressure Van den Driessche, saying the bike is his.
Nico Van Muylder has been filmed by Belgian TV cameras parking his car outside his home in Buggenhout and pausing to make a very brief statement to the cameras.
As reporters fired questions at him, the 39-year-old said: “The only thing I can say is that it's my bike".
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Van Muylder, a former elite rider who now runs a chip shop, said nothing else before turning and walking into his house just before 7pm local time on Monday.
He was once without a team for 18 months after assaulting another rider; apparently beating him in the face.
Van den Driessche, the U23 European and Belgian champion, has seen her reputation shredded - and with it the reputation of the sport of cycling - since a bike linked to her was found to contain a motor.
During the U23 women's race the 19-year-old was riding, UCI officials flagged the bike as suspicious after checks with new electronic handheld tablet devices designed especially for bike doping examinations.
The bike was taken away for further examination with the UCI issuing a statement on Saturday evening just hours after the seizure confirming there was a suspicion of technological fraud.
And when UCI president Brian Cookson addressed the media on Sunday morning at the Worlds in Zolder he confirmed a motor had been found.
The story has since gone global, and not just on the sports pages.
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Van den Driessche on top of the podium having won the recent U23 women's European Championships.
Van den Driessche now faces a maximum fine of up to about €170,000 and a ban of at least six months if found guilty of what would be the sport’s first known case of so-called bike doping.
She has insisted she would never cheat and claimed the bike was owned by a friend of hers who sometimes went training with her brother.
The 19-year-old said the bike was identical to hers and that the mechanics had mistaken it for hers when it was leaning against a truck near where the Belgian team had gathered for the Worlds.
What Femke Van den Driessche said
“I didn’t know anything about it. I don’t know how that bike got there,” she said in the Sporza interview.
“I was surprised to see that bike standing there. It’s not my bike. There’s been a mistake.
“If I would’ve been on a bike like that I would’ve been more consistent. I’ve always peaked towards those moments. I worked really hard for it.”
She said the bike was owned by a friend and that a mistake by the mechanics had seen it taken into the pits as one of her spares.
“I don’t know how it got there. I’m focused on myself on that day. I took care of myself. I was in front. At the back, the mechanics made a mistake.
“That bike belongs to a friend of mine,” she said. “He trains along with us. He joined my brothers and my father.
“That friend joined my brother at the reconnaissance and he placed the bike against the truck but it’s identical to mine.
“Last year he bought it from me. My mechanics have cleaned the bike and put it in the truck.
“They must’ve thought that it was my bike. I don’t know how it happened.”
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