Granada, Spain-- The final chapter in a months-long saga finally wrapped up here in Spain Wednesday evening, when mountain bike legend Thomas "Frischy" Frischknecht (SUI, Ritchey-Yahoo!) walked in the opening ceremonies of the 11th UCI World Championships as the official 1996 World Champion.

"It's been a long process, and actually began way before our press conference in Paris," said Frischknecht, referring to a memorable press conference last month where Jerome Chiotti presented Frischknecht with his rainbow jersey after admitting he used the performance-enhancing drug erythropoietin, EPO, to win the '96 Worlds in Cairns, Australia. Frischknecht was 2nd that day, as he had been three times prior.

"He stole perhaps the greatest day of my career, but I think he's realized that cheating only leads to bad things," he said as he stood on the balcony of this week's opening ceremonies, as a new member of the elite "Rainbow Club."

After 10 years of World Championships, the UCI brought all the winners of cross-country and downhill to Sierra Nevada's opening ceremonies, presenting them to an enthusiastic crowd.

Frischknecht received the gold medal as well, and will now replace Chiotti as the official World Champion for 1996. But the process was long an contentious, beginning with Chiotti's May admission that he not only used EPO to win in '96, but that he also worked with Miguel Martinez (FRA, Full Dynamix) to win the '99 French Championships unfairly. Chiotti has since ended his sponsorship with Team Giant and has pledged to work toward cleaning up the sport.

"Even if I am world champion now, I missed the emotion of getting the medal at the awards ceremony and hearing the national hymn," said Frischknecht. "I missed the year of being the world champion and I missed the feeling of taking the rainbow jersey out of the gearbag and putting on the race number before each race."

For his part, Frischknecht has pledged to work toward cleaning up drug use in mountain biking, and has offered a public service announcement to interested magazines as the first step.

—Ari Cheren, MountainZone.com Correspondent