FRANCE: CYCLING - Court rules on Cofidis cycling team physiotherapist and seven others, some of them riders, implicated in doping case

Former Cofidis cycling team physiotherapist Bogdan Madejak was sentenced to 12 months in prison, nine of them suspended, for his implication in a doping case, a French court ruled on Friday (January 19). "When I hear a physiotherapist who has exploited young Polish men that were ambitious and that lends himself to this. Obviously, he didn't learn the lesson," said Paul Mauriac, lawyer of the French Cycling Federation. "We are pleased that the court instead of giving us a symbolic Euro payment, like it is usual, which would be ridiculous, the court ruled the federation needed to be paid back 10,000 Euros. It is the bad point for the cyclists, even if they will never pay it but at least they are under threat," Mauriac added. Madejak's lawyer, Pierre Mairat, criticised Cofidis' system saying he believes the pressures of it lead to these type of cases. "Of course justice condemns those who have been broken the law, but I think that the point of this decision is that they were dismissed in the right to damages. The justice considered that the system in which Cofidis operates was a system that tends to lead to breaking the law." While Cofidis attorney Raymond Dehors did not deny allegations that there may be problems with the system, he pointed out that the organisation has been doing its part to fight against illegal practices. "It is a general matter. It exists everywhere, but what's most important for us is to be recognised as the victim. The health of the cyclist? It is the only thing I have to shame because nobody insisted on the fact that Cofidis was one of the first teams to fight against this kind of illegal practice." Seven other accused, some of them riders, have been given suspended sentences of three to six months, the court added. Briton David Millar and Italian Massimiliano Lelli have been discharged as the offences they were accused of were not perpetrated on French soil and as they are not French. Most of the accused were charged with acquiring and possessing banned performance-enhancing drugs. Millar's lawyer said in 2004 that his client had told police during questioning he took the blood-boosting substance erythropoietin (EPO) in 2001 and 2003. Millar, who won the Tour de France prologue in 2000, was banned for two years from the sport and made his return in last year's Tour.

ITN Source | January 20, 2007

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