5 Cyclists Admit to Using Drugs
The Tour de France drug scandal widened Monday, with five cyclists admitting they took banned substances and two leaders of a Dutch team facing legal questioning.
Officials remained steadfast in rejecting calls for canceling the event. “There is no question of stopping the Tour,” Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc told the French newspaper Liberation.
Among the cyclists who have admitted taking EPO--a hormone that increases the supply of red blood cells--are Swiss riders Laurent Dufaux, Alex Zuelle and Armin Meier, and Frenchmen Laurent Brochard and Christophe Moreau.
“Yes I took EPO,” Dufaux was quoted Monday as saying in the Swiss newspaper Le Matin. “Caught up in the whole business, I took it for three years under strict medical supervision. But I never abused it.”
By the end of Monday’s stage, in Les deux Alpes, France, the race had a new leader: Marco Pantani of Italy. He gained nearly nine minutes in the overall standings on defending champion Jan Ullrich of Germany, who dropped to fourth.
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