May 24 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile cycling team, which fired 1997 Tour de France champion Jan Ullrich on doping allegations last July, was swamped by its sixth and seventh drug confessions in four days.

Sports director Rolf Aldag, who competed in the Tour de France 10 times as a rider for the team, today admitted to doping from 1995 to 2002. Erik Zabel, an active rider who won 12 stages of the Tour with the squad before joining Team Milram last year, said he used the performance-enhancing drug erythropoietin, or EPO, in 1996, when there wasn't a test for it.

``I tried doping because it was possible,'' Zabel, 36, told a televised news conference in Bonn. ``The controls were very loose.''

They're breaking what former riders call a code of silence within cycling as German state prosecutors delve into doping practices. The prosecutors opened a probe after Ullrich was linked to a blood-doping ring that Spanish police say involved 58 riders. Ullrich quit the sport Feb. 26, saying allegations against him were wrong.

Three former team riders and two team doctors earlier this week admitted to their part in doping in the 1990s, when the squad was known as Team Telekom. Bob Stapleton, the T-Mobile team's general manager, said at the news conference that doping in cycling ``is still widespread.''

The German government, which holds 32 percent of Deutsche Telekom, may put pressure on the phone company to withdraw its sponsorship of the team following the confessions, Handelsblatt reported today.

`Disaster'

``The public-relations damage is a `disaster,''' the newspaper quoted government officials as saying.

T-Mobile team spokesman Christian Frommert said Deutsche Telekom remains ``committed'' to its sponsorship contract with the team through 2010.

Zabel said he only took drugs in 1996. A test for EPO, which boosts the number of oxygen-rich red blood cells to lift stamina, was introduced in 2000. Aldag said he carried out blood transfusions to increase his red blood cell count and bought EPO on the Internet.

``In 1997, for the first time I began to have a guilty conscience,'' Aldag, 38, said. ``Of course I feared the side- effects but I never felt any.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Duff in Madrid at aduff4@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 24, 2007 07:37 EDT