Doping threatens to haunt Tour de France

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Doping threatens to haunt Tour de France

Paris, June 30 (DPA) The shadow of a doping trial will haunt the organisers of the Tour de France starting Saturday.

The world's most prestigious cycling race is being run this year amid the trial, continued reports that seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong used illegal substances and, most damaging, a broad and seemingly endless Spanish doping investigation.

The Spanish probe has already deprived the championship of one team, threatened the start of another team and implicated one of the favourites to win the race.

The Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS), based in Lausanne in Switzerland, is to decide if the Spanish Astana team of Kazakh star Alexandre Vinokourov will be allowed to line up in Strasbourg for Saturday's Tour prologue.

Earlier this week, the Tour organisers asked Astana to drop out of the race because of the implication of its former sports director Manolo Saiz in the Spanish doping affair, which centres on Madrid doctor Eufemiano Fuentes.

Saiz was arrested in May. The Spanish daily El Pais reported that 15 of the 58 riders implicated in the scandal were members of Vinokourov's team, although the probe has not tainted him.

According to the newspaper, court documents allegedly described a 'criminal 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.

If the CAS judges decide against Astana, it would become the second team to be kicked out of this year's Tour. In June race officials tossed out the Spanish Comunidad Valenciana team because of the implication of its former deputy team director in the same affair.

In addition, El Pais has named Tour top favourite Jan Ullrich in connection with the probe, reporting that labels on blood samples found with a Fuentes collaborator implicated the 1997 Tour champion and his long-time manager Rudy Pevenage.

The German rider vehemently denied any involvement. 'I have nothing to do with it,' Ullrich said through his T-Mobile team.

Tour organisers have backed the German rider, with race spokesman Philippe Sudres saying: 'For the moment, there is nothing that speaks against Ullrich participating in the Tour.'

But the allegations are likely to follow the 1997 Tour winner throughout the race.

The Spanish investigation is on and could produce more revelations and, in the worst-case scenario, a repeat of the 1998 Tour de France, when only 14 of 21 teams finished the race after the Festina team was expelled for doping and six others dropped out in protest of police tactics.

The news from Spain came as the French media reported that Armstrong had told doctors treating him for cancer that he had taken a variety of banned substances.

Citing sworn testimony given in a Texas court hearing by the wife of Armstrong's former best friend, cyclist Frankie Andreu, Le Monde said the retired Tour champion told doctors at Indiana Hospital in 1996 that he had taken 'EPO, growth hormones, cortisone, steroids and testosterone'.

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

However, since his retirement after last year's Tour victory, reports have repeatedly linked Armstrong with the use of illegal substances, including the alleged use of EPO during the 1999 Tour.

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.

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Doping threatens to haunt Tour de France