VIENNA, Oct 16, 2008 (AFP) – Austria’s Bernhard Kohl, the best climber at this year’s Tour de France and third overall, has been sacked by his Belgian team Silence after testing positive for CERA, the new generation of banned blood booster EPO.

Kohl admitted to using CERA on Wednesday, 48 hours after he failed a test for the drug in retroactive controls carried out by France’s national anti-doping agency.

Geert Coeman, general manager of Silence, confirmed Thursday that Kohl’s three-year contract with the team had been canceled.

“We were feeling good but now we’re disappointed. We feel cheated and for us it’s finished” with Kohl, Coeman told the APA news agency.

“Maybe he’ll find another team but it won’t be with us.”

The 26-year-old rider said he took the drug to help him speed up recovery after a heavy fall in June’s Dauphine Libere, a Tour de France warm-up race.

He was the fourth rider on this year’s Tour after Italian duo Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli and Germany’s Stefan Schumacher to have been caught out by the new tests for CERA (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator).