Doping Scandal Rocks Tour

The second-, third- and fourth-place finishers behind Lance Armstrong in the 2005 Tour de France were removed from this year’s competition on Friday as a drug scandal that began last month in Madrid threatened to destroy the world’s most famous cycling race.

When the 2,273-mile race begins today in Strasbourg with a 4.4-mile prologue, it will be missing Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, Francesco Mancebo and six other riders who were suspended after Tour organizers and leaders of the 21 participating teams agreed that any competitor under investigation for blood doping would be deemed ineligible.

The action was taken hours after Tour officials received a 40-page summary from Spanish police authorities who have been investigating a group that allegedly supplied cyclists from several teams with banned drugs and equipment to aid in blood transfusions. Included were the names of 58 cyclists, including nine who were scheduled to race in the Tour.

Friday’s developments are the latest punch to the jaw of a sport long mired in allegations of cheating.

“Cycling is at the point of death,” Eusebio Unzue, the director of the Spanish team Caisse d’Epargne, told cycling publication VeloNews. “The image of elite cycling isn’t one of health but of a sport that exists on the limits of legality.”

Basso, who rides for a team sponsored by El Segundo’s Computer Sciences Corp., or CSC, was the favorite to win the Tour de France. He was second last year as Armstrong, now retired but still fighting doping allegations, won the race for the seventh consecutive time.

Basso, a 28-year-old Italian, could not be reached for comment. He was headed to Italy by Friday afternoon. CSC team leader Bjarne Riis, a Tour winner in 1996, said: “We had a meeting with all the teams this morning. In that meeting we made a decision, I made a decision, that Ivan would not participate in the Tour.”

Riis said Basso told him he was innocent and added, “We have never had any indication that he was involved in anything.” He also said, “We believe it’s not possible for one rider to focus on the Tour and, at the same time, defend himself. So we believe it’s best for Basso, for everybody, that he’s not going to do the Tour.”

The T-Mobile team lost two riders, Ullrich, a German who won the 1997 Tour and is a five-time runner-up, and Spaniard Oscar Sevilla. Also suspended was its team director and longtime advisor, Rudy Pevenage.

Spokesman Luuc Eisenga said the evidence T-Mobile officials were presented at the meeting of teams Thursday night was “clear. It left little room for doubt.”

Ullrich, 32, was informed of the suspension while on his way to a news conference. He told German television reporters, “I could cry going home in such good shape. I need a few days, and then I’ll try and prove my innocence with the help of a lawyer. I will go on fighting.”

He also said he told his teammates to ride hard in the Tour. “They should fight for me,” he said.

Mancebo, another Spaniard, races for AG2R. The other five suspended riders are all members of the Astana-Wurth team: Joseba Beloki, Isidro Nozal and Alberto Contador from Spain, Allan Davis from Australia and Sergio Paulinho from Portugal.

Astana-Wurth was known until recently as Liberty Seguros -- its sponsor a Spanish unit of U.S. insurer Liberty Mutual Group -- before its director, Manolo Saiz, was arrested after the police raid in Madrid. Liberty Mutual quickly withdrew, but top rider Alexandre Vinokourov, from Kazakhstan, found a consortium of oil companies from his country to fund the team.

Vinokourov is reportedly not on the Spanish list, but he still won’t be able to ride in the Tour, leaving the race void of yet another top competitor. A team must have at least six riders to begin the race and Astana-Wurth, with five suspended cyclists, doesn’t meet the minimum. Vinokourov finished fifth last year.

In the Madrid raid, police reportedly found illegal performance-enhancing drugs and 200 bags of frozen blood from athletes. Endurance athletes have used blood transfusions to increase their supply of red corpuscles that help carry oxygen to muscles, a practice known as blood doping.

Cycling’s ruling body, Union Cycliste Internationale, said in a statement that it had not been established that any of the nine suspended riders had broken anti-doping rules.

However, last year all teams agreed to a professional tour code of ethics that says, in part: “No team will allow a rider to compete while under investigation in any doping affair.”

Tour director Christian Prudhomme said the suspensions marked “an unfortunate situation for all of professional cycling, not just those teams and riders involved.”

This is not the first drug scandal to tarnish the Tour. Three days before the 1998 race began, Willy Voet, a masseur for the French Festina team, was stopped at the French-Belgian border, where police found a trunk full of doping products.

In the third week of that Tour, French police searched hotel rooms used by Festina and a day later riders stopped a stage of the race twice in protest. Three teams dropped out of the race.

A year later, Armstrong, newly recovered from cancer, won the first of his record-setting string of championships and was hailed by some cycling experts as a savior of the Tour.

Since then, though, the American has been dogged by rumor and innuendo that he was cheating. He has vigorously denied allegations made by the wife of a former teammate that he admitted using the banned substance erythropoietin, or EPO, before his first Tour victory.

In the last five years the sport has taken several direct hits:

* At the 2001 Tour of Italy, 40 riders were charged with drug possession.

* In February, Roberto Heras was suspended for two years and stripped of his record fourth Tour of Spain championship for taking EPO.

* Two days after the Heras decision, Olympic champion Tyler Hamilton lost an appeal on his two-year ban from the sport.

* David Millar was suspended for two years for EPO use. He will be riding in his first Tour since then after being reinstated this month.

“The Tour survived a bad scandal in 1998,” Tour director Prudhomme said. “It will survive again and be stronger because of this.”

With so many of the favorites out, three Americans are now considered strong contenders: Phonak’s Floyd Landis, Discovery Channel’s George Hincapie and Gerolsteiner’s Levi Leipheimer.

During last year’s Tour, Armstrong said 26-year-old Spaniard Alejandro Valverde was the most exciting young rider he’d seen and predicted he would soon challenge for the championship.

In an interview on OLN, Johan Bruyneel, director of the Discovery Channel team, recalled that in 1999 there were worries the Tour de France appeared on shaky ground. Favorites Ullrich and Marco Pantani missed the start, Ullrich because of an injury and Pantani because of a drug suspension, and critics worried that the race lacked star power.

“There were people saying that, yes, Armstrong won but the favorites were not there,” Bruyneel said. “Still, Lance had a huge performance and it got big attention. In three weeks, it’s going to be about the yellow jersey.”

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History of scandal

Professional cycling has long been mired in allegations of cheating. Some image-tarnishing moments:

2006: Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, Francesco Mancebo, Oscar Sevilla and five other riders are withdrawn from the Tour de France after they are named in a doping investigation in Spain.

* 2005: Spaniard Roberto Heras is banned for two years for testing positive for EPO in the Tour of Spain, which he won.

* 2004: Three riders are prevented from starting the Tour de France. Two others are kicked out the race after doping investigations. Britain’s David Millar later admits to taking the blood booster erythropoietin.

* 1998: Festina cycling team is expelled in the first week of the Tour de France after a team car was found loaded with performance-enhancing drugs. Festina rider Richard Virenque of France is later banned for six months after admitting doping.

* 1982: Winner of the Tour of Spain, Spanish rider Angel Arroyo, is disqualified after testing positive for amphetamines.

* 1967: Briton Tommy Simpson dies on a hill climb during the Tour de France. A vial containing an amphetamine was found.

Source: Reuters

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They’re out

The nine riders removed from the 2006 Tour de France:

Ivan Basso...Italy

* Jan Ullrich...Germany

* Francesco Mancebo...Spain

* Oscar Sevilla...Spain

* Joseba Beloki...Spain

* Isidro Nozal...Spain

* Alberto Contador...Spain

* Allan Davis...Australia

* Sergio Paulinho...Portugal