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Adidas410s
06-30-2006, 10:31 AM
Paris - Officials of the Tour de France were working hard on Friday to protect the credibility of the race as a doping scandal has cast a deep shadow over the event just one day before it begins.

Asked if the race would begin as scheduled on Saturday, Tour co-director Jean-Marie Leblanc said, 'Why not? If Spanish investigators had told us, Wait, 150 of your 200 riders are on our lists, then we would be asking ourselves the same question. But only 5 or 6 riders are concerned.'

But two of the riders, Italian Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich of Germany, just happened to be the two top favourites to win the race.

Basso and Ullrich were suspended by their teams and dropped from the Tour after their names appeared on a list of cyclists who Spanish investigators say had ties with Madrid doctor Eufemiano Fuentes.

Fuentes is accused of running a network that sold EPO, human growth hormone and anabolic steroids and operated a blood-doping operation in which riders were transfused with their own blood to increase its oxygen-carrying capacity.

Spanish rider Francisco Mancebo, another title contender, was also kicked out of the race, as was Ullrich teammate Oscar Sevilla. The scandal could also lead Kazakh star Alexandre Vinokourov to drop out since several riders from his Astana team were said to be on the list provided by the Spanish Civil Guard.

Earlier this month, Tour organizers kicked out the Spanish Comunidad Valenciana team because of the implication of its former deputy team director in the same affair.

Five-time Tour champion Bernard Hinault and Scottish rider David Millar, who is returning to the race after a two-year suspension for doping, both said that the purge of riders will be good for the sport and the race.

'If these people are no longer there, it will be beneficial for cycling in general, for the Tour de France and I think the public will be grateful to us in the end,' Hinault told RTL radio.

Millar, who was banned in 2004 after admitting he had used EPO, told the Paris-based International Herald Tribune, 'This is a fabulous chance for the sport to get rid of organized rings and the doctors that help them. Cycling has the responsibility to take this thing by the scruff of the neck.'

Repentant as he is, Millar's return to the Tour comes at a bad time, and will no doubt raise eyebrows if he wins Saturday's prologue and dons the race leader's yellow jersey.

The current scandal recalls the infamous Festina affair, when three days before the 1998 Tour was set to begin a masseur for the Festina team was stopped at the France-Belgium border and found to be carrying more than 400 doping products, including EPO, in his car.

An investigation was carried out as the Tour was run, and the Festina team was dropped from the race. Ultimately, other riders were suspended and six teams dropped out in protest over the treatment of cyclists by police. When the Tour entered Paris on the final day, fewer than 100 of the original 198 riders were left in the race.

The subsequent trial provoked a tearful admission by French star Richard Virenque that he had doped and testimony that suggested that doping was not only a key to success in the sport but also to acceptance on the circuit.

While the Festina affair did have one positive effect -- it generated so much publicity for the team's sponsor, a watch manufacturer, that business jumped 25 percent -- it left a stain on the cycling and is flagship race that was not effectively erased.

If anything, Lance Armstrong's seven-year supremacy invariably raised questions about his possible use of illegal substances that were never laid to rest, despite his repeated claims that he was clean.

Even as the news from Spain came in, a French newspaper reported that Armstrong had told doctors treating him for cancer that he had taken a variety of banned substances, including 'EPO, growth hormones, cortisone, steroids and testosterone.'

Armstrong immediately rejected the claims, calling them 'stale, unfounded and untrue.'

These media stories are certainly one reason Armstrong will not be in France to accompany the Tour, an absence that is certain to provoke much commentary.

At the time of the Festina affair, British rider Chris Boardman, who crashed out of the Tour, remarked, 'The Tour is big enough to handle one scandal like this, but maybe not another.'

That question may be answered in the coming three weeks.


© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Phil C
06-30-2006, 11:19 AM
Sounds like conviction before trial. The solution would be to drug test them right now and if they pass they ride and if not they don't. Sounds like it's politically motivated. They tried to do the same thing with Lance - always testing him and he always came out negative. A real shame to happen to the race this year. But it does increase an American's chances of winning the race thogh.

Phil C
06-30-2006, 11:20 AM
:( :confused: :mad:

DaHop72
06-30-2006, 11:29 AM
Originally posted by Phil C
Sounds like conviction before trial. The solution would be to drug test them right now and if they pass they ride and if not they don't. Sounds like it's politically motivated. They tried to do the same thing with Lance - always testing him and he always came out negative. A real shame to happen to the race this year. But it does increase an American's chances of winning the race thogh. This was their team that did this. The race officials were going to let them race but their team felt there was clear cut enough evidence to suspend them.