Lance Armstrong's former team-mates have revealed the pressure they faced to take performance-enhancing drugs.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency praised their "courage" in coming forward and several have now released mea culpa statements of their own.
Michael Barry, who since 2010 has ridden for Team Sky and will retire at the end of the 2012 season, competed for the USPS team from 2002 to 2006.
The 36-year-old Canadian said on his website: "After being encouraged by the team, pressured to perform and pushed to my physical limits I crossed a line I promised myself and others I would not: I doped.
"It was a decision I deeply regret. It caused me sleepless nights, took the fun out of cycling and racing, and tainted the success I achieved at the time. This was not how I wanted to live or race."
Barry said he never doped again from the summer of 2006 and, although he did not confess to his past, became an advocate of clean cycling and the need for change.
He added: "I apologise to those I deceived. I will accept my suspension and any other consequences. I will work hard to regain people's trust."
American George Hincapie, 39, was at the USPS team for 10 years from 1997 to 2007. He retired in August.
He said on georgehincapie.com. "Early in my professional career, it became clear to me that, given the widespread use of performance enhancing drugs by cyclists at the top of the profession, it was not possible to compete at the highest level without them. I deeply regret that choice and sincerely apologise to my family, team-mates and fans."
Hincapie said he had competed clean for the past six years and during that time had worked hard to rid the sport of drugs.
"During this time, I continued to successfully compete at the highest level of cycling while mentoring young professional riders on the right choices to make to ensure that the culture of cycling had changed," he said.
"About two years ago, I was approached by US Federal investigators, and more recently by USADA, and asked to tell of my personal experience in these matters. I would have been much more comfortable talking only about myself, but understood that I was obligated to tell the truth about everything I knew. So that is what I did."
Christian Vande Velde, who was at the USPS team from 1998 to 2003 and now rides for Slipstream-Chipotle, described Wednesday as the "most humbling moment" of his life.
The 36-year-old American said: "As a young pro rider I competed drug free, not winning, but holding my own and achieving decent results.
"Then, one day, I was presented with a choice that to me, at the time, seemed like the only way to continue to follow my dream at the highest level of the sport.
"I gave in and crossed the line, a decision that I deeply regret. I was wrong to think I didn't have a choice - the fact is that I did, and I chose wrong. I won races before doping and after doping.
"Ironically, I never won while doping, I was more or less just treading water. This does not make it okay. I saw the line and I crossed it, myself.
"I am deeply sorry for the decisions I made in the past - to my family, my fans, my peers, to the sport that I love and those in and out of it - I'm sorry. I always will be."
Armstrong has repeatedly denied accusations of doping. But in August he announced he would not fight the doping charges filed against him by USADA, saying in a statement he was "finished with this nonsense" and insisting he was innocent.
