Drug tests tarnish Tour's clean image
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Your support makes all the difference.New findings have contradicted the Tour de France boast of being drug-free, less than three weeks after cycling saluted the American Lance Armstrong's second triumph in Paris. It was announced yesterday that 45 per cent of the 96 tests carried out on 71 of the Tour riders showed traces of doping products.
New findings have contradicted the Tour de France boast of being drug-free, less than three weeks after cycling saluted the American Lance Armstrong's second triumph in Paris. It was announced yesterday that 45 per cent of the 96 tests carried out on 71 of the Tour riders showed traces of doping products.
"Twenty eight tests were positive for cortico-steroids which reduce fatigue and act as pain-killers," Michel Boyon, president of the Council for the Prevention of Drug Use, stated in a communique.
"Ten were positive for the stimulants salbutamol and terbutaline which aid breathing, and five showed the presence of both types of drug."
Four riders were tested for each of the first 15 days and 12 were made during the 16th to 20th stages of the Tour. Some riders may have medical reasons for using the drugs, and that could be proved only if the Union Cycliste Internationale has medical certificates from those riders.
In a statement issued a week ago the UCI said that the presence of glucocorticosteroids detected in some urine samples were "justified by medical prescription" in accordance with their anti-doping control regulations. It also announced that all anti-doping controls made on the Tour had proved negative for banned substances.
"That 45 per cent of those controlled had traces of corticosteroids or salbutamol in their systems poses a serious problem," Daniel Baal, president of the French Cycling Federation, said yesterday.
He also said that disciplinary proceedings had begun against an unnamed rider who would appear before a hearing in a month's time.
Three weeks ago the Tour director, Jean-Marie Leblanc, had spoken of a new beginning after suffering the ignominy of the 1998 Tour. Then the Festina team were expelled after a masseur, Willi Voet, confessed to carrying doping products after being caught by a customs search. French justice came down heavily on the Tour, with four Spanish teams pulling out in disgust at the police raids and searches.
The Council for the Prevention of Drug Use was set up in the wake of the revelations by the French government, and has the legal right to impose sanctions on any riders if it is not satisfied with the measures taken by sporting bodies.
The CPLD will continue to investigate each positive case found during the Tour and will make the results known before the end of the year.
Yesterday Tour officials were unable to be contacted for their reaction to the damning news.
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