Only three days after celebrations of the 100th Tour de France took over central Paris, the French institution endured further humiliation yesterday when a government commissioned senate report stated that Marco Pantani, the winner of the 1998 Tour de France, and his runner-up, Jan Ullrich of Germany, were doped on illegal red blood cell booster EPO.

At the time there was no test for EPO, and the report's findings are based on retrospective tests on samples taken during that year's Tour, which were stored for future use. The tests were run in 2004 by the French anti-doping agency, AFLD, but only now have rider numbers been matched to sample numbers and the results made public.

In addition to Pantani and Ullrich, some of the most famous riders from that era are also named as positive, including former world champions Mario Cipollini, Laurent Jalabert and Abraham Olano, multiple Tour stage winner Erik Zabel and Lance Armstrong's former team-mate, Kevin Livingston.

The results of samples from other riders were cited as "suspicious." Those named included Bobby Julich, who placed third overall that year and until last autumn was a sports director at Team Sky, as well as 1998 Tour stage winner and Olympic gold medalist, Stuart O'Grady, who announced his retirement on Monday after riding in the 2013 Tour, and Axel Merckx, son of former Tour champion, Eddy Merckx.

O'Grady last night admitted using EPO before the 1998 race. "Leading into the Tour I made a decision," said the 39-year-old who, that year, became only the second Australian to wear the race leader's famous yellow jersey.

"I sourced it [EPO] myself, there was no one else involved, it didn't involve the team in any way. I just had to drive over the border and buy it at any pharmacy. I used extremely cautious amounts because I'd heard a lot of horror stories and did the absolute minimum of what I hoped would get me through. When the Festina Affair happened, I smashed it, got rid of it and that was the last 
I ever touched it."

But Jean-Jacques Lozach, secretary of the Senate's commission said: "There are a lot of uncertainties. For some riders, there could be a debate [whether they used drugs or not]. It's not a list of positive tests. It's scientific data."

None of the riders are likely to be punished although some, like former French hero Jalabert, who has withdrawn from television work this summer, have suffered possibly irreparable damage to their reputations. "Nobody will face sanctions. We aren't policemen. 
We aren't magistrates," the Senate report said.

The 1998 Tour was a catastrophic event for cycling and kick-started the saga of doping scandals, denials and tearful admissions that have characterized the sport since that time. The exposure of cycling's ingrained culture of doping culminated in the Lance Armstrong scandal of last autumn, although ironically the American was not competing in the 1998 Tour.

The fallout from 1998 also initiated the development of the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA, in response to the scandal. WADA and cycling's governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI) have frequently been in conflict over the scale and management of cycling's doping problem since then.

Better known as the year of the Festina Affair, the 1998 Tour started in Dublin, but was soon mired in scandal after Willy Voet, a soigneur from the French team, Festina, was stopped by customs officials on the Franco-Belgian border, as he headed to Ireland.

The boot of Voet's team car was heavily loaded with EPO and other drugs. Initially he claimed ignorance, then, comically, that 
the products were for his own use, before finally admitting that he was effectively a drugs mule.

In subsequent days, as the Tour lurched onwards, riders and staff from the Festina team and other teams were arrested, searched and taken into custody.

There were rider protests, strikes and withdrawals, angry confrontations and increasingly, derision and rage from the spectators. Only 96 of the 189 starters reached Paris and all the Spanish-sponsored teams withdrew from the race in protest.

Coming within days of a French victory in the 1998 World Cup, it was a humiliating experience for France. On several occasions, the Tour was nearly called off and in the aftermath, the director of the race, Jean-Marie Leblanc, admitted that he had contemplated ending it all.

The class of '98 was filled with casualties. Marco Pantani, winner of that year's Tour, died of a cocaine overdose. Jose-Maria Jimenez, the Spanish star, also died of drug related problems, while Philippe Gaumont, at one time the partying and pharmaceutical king of the Cofidis team that David Millar joined as a teenager, died earlier this year after a heart attack.

Others suffered addiction problems or saw their careers crumble after they were exposed as cheats and liars in their own national press. However some who rode in 1998 still work in cycling now and were either racing, or acting as commentators, pundits and sports directors in this year's Tour de France.

The French Senate report 
began in February and heard testimonies from 83 sportsmen 
and officials. Speaking yesterday, the President of the Senate's commission said: "There is doping 
in all sports."

The commission also established sixty proposals to fight against doping, based on seven pillars of research, prevention, testing, analysis, sanctions, penalties and cooperation from all stakeholders.

Key to this was a structure of redemption, which would allow athletes to break the law of silence, or omerta, and come forward with information without the fear of it being a career-ending decision, as has been the case in the past.

Christophe Bassons, whose professional racing career was dealt a fatal blow after he was publicly blacklisted by Lance Armstrong for speaking out against doping while racing in the 1999 Tour, said: 
"This list doesn't surprise me. So that the new generation doesn't make the same mistakes, 
it's essential that those who have lived a lie for 15 years are not team directors, TV pundits or coaches. 
We need to do the laundry there also," Bassons said before adding, ominously, "some riders were doped in the 2013 Tour, obviously. That's my belief."

Jacky Durand, the former French national champion also named on the list, confessed to EPO use prior to the report's publication. "I admit my actions," Durand said.

"The next generation must not pay for our crap from the past. Our sport is much cleaner now."

But Lozach, secretary of the Senate's commission, said he trusted the current generation of riders. "We also know that suspicions over Froome's performances in the recent Tour de France are unfounded, not legitimate and not scientifically justified at the moment." 
Yet Lozach added that the Senate would seek to preserve the process of retrospective controls.