(Sarcastic) TRANSLATION:
"Nothing has really changed (in pro cycling): I finally accepted the suspension because I realized that it would take two years - plus a dollar amount 4x that of which I could have hoped to have earned by racing in the PT for two years - to mount a tainted supplement/procedural error defense (aka "The Jacobs Defense"), so I'm instead going to spend a much smaller amount of money and
continue to have testing done to try and figure out how my doping program derailed and how I got caught in the first place..."
Surprised no one's parsing the gain credibility with USADA statement. If, after a period of denying that you doped, you then accept a sanction to gain credibility with the anti-doping agency that is prosecuting your case, it can only mean that by having rejected the sanction previously, you'd assumed an incredible position based on the evidence at hand and were clearly calling into question your own moral compass by denying something that your accusers clearly could prove, based on the facts they'd assembled (reminds me of Hamilton after the "Haven" fax was released). I mean, if you didn't dope, why would you ever accept anything other than a provisional suspension if you had funds at hand to at least complete the formalities of defending yourself such that you forced a judgment on your guilt/innocence by others - rather than admitting your guilt but then trying to float the tainted supplement defense after-the-fact. Procedurally, Zirbel could have accepted a provisional suspension to start the clock on his ban ASAP, while at least putting up the bare minimum fight to ensure that in the public record he does not accept the charges of having doped (but avoids spending $2millionUSD on a frivolous defense). Instead, he cops to the charges (admitting his guilt) but then tries to imply he's not really guilty (even though he admitted his guilt by accepting the sanction).
The TZ Fan Club will be disbanding soon, too - by accepting the sanction, he cuts the legs off of those supporters who would have believed him innocent even if Graham Watson had taken a photo from a grassy knoll at World's TT championships showing TZ racing along with a powerbar stuck to the top tube of his Pinarello w/ DHEA tabs stuck into it, arranged in the shape of a smiley face. How can you defend TZ when he admitted his guilt by accepting the sanction?
TZ, why agree with the charges against you by accepting the sanction without seeing it through to arbitration (which does not cost a whole whole lot) if you're really not guilty? There is a mechanism to allow you to register, at all official points along the way, official protestations of your innocence so you could have gone to the paredón with your convictions (no pun intended) intact...
The only thing I can think is that because 1) you're guilty as charged and 2) you hope for some future in some capacity in some USOC-affiliated sport and don't want to earn the ire of the anti-doping agency prosecuting your case by pulling a Landis...