UNITED KINGDOM: CYCLE RACING - Team managers and riders face questions about doping and fighting doping before start of Tour de France

Riders in the 2007 Tour de France turned up at the "permanence" or Tour headquarters in London's docklands on Thursday (July 5) for medical examinations and news conferences. Although they were eager to talk about training and their goals, the questions kept coming back to doping and measures to stop doping in the sport. First it was the hot favourites to win the Tour, Astana, the team sponsored by Kazakhstan with a Kazakh rider Alexandr Vinokourov as leader. Marc Biver, the team's general manager, defended the team after remarks by a Union Cycliste International (UCI) official about "Men in Black." The UCI made reference to riders who were suspected of training in secret, with no identifying team shirts, in what the organisation thought was an attempt to evade doping controls. The UCI said efforts were being made to find these riders and test them. Biver took exception to this talk: "I regret also certain information from the UCI regarding "Men in Black". That this talk of six "Men in Black" suspected cyclists is directed straight at us," he said, after distancing the new Astana team from the old, which had a number of riders fail tests. Then certain teams were taken to task for their riders' failure to sign up to the UCI's ethics code. This calls for a concerted campaign against doping, both with tests and by instituting fines on wrong-doers. Eight team managers said in a statement on Thursday (July 5) they would sign the UCI's anti-doping charter because they felt previous decisions over their own agreement were not being properly applied by all the teams. The professional riders have already been asked to sign the UCI's charter as the union and Tour organisers join forces in the battle against doping. The charter includes promises to submit DNA samples to Spanish authorities investigating the Puerto affair 15 months after a blood-doping scandal erupted in Spain. The document also asks cyclists to pledge a year's salary if they test positive for a banned substance. Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme has said that any rider who has not signed the charter by Saturday will be excluded from this year's race. The managers were from the five French teams starting the Tour de France in London on Saturday (AG2R, Francaise des Jeux, Cofidis, Bouygues Telecom and Credit Agricole) as well as T-Mobile, Gerolsteiner and Agritubel. The manager of one of the other teams, Johan Bruyneel of Discovery Channel, said he had come from the meeting of team managers which had resulted in the declaration. "Well in fact the meeting is not finished yet, I came here because I wanted to attend this press conference. I came here saying I would make no comment about what is happening there. It is for the president of the association to comment and react after the meeting," he said, later adding that managers should sit down and talk instead of leaving meetings abruptly. Those riders who have not yet signed the UCI anti-doping charter were still biding their time before doing so. Quick-Step's team leader Tom Boonen said he objected to the way that the charter had been forced on riders. "I don't like the way the charter has been presented to us, it hasn't been presented to us, it was just there and we had to sign it and a little bit more communication would have been welcome. But the things that are in the charter are good but we already signed a charter that was for the same goal so I think it is not so useful," he said. When discussions did centre on the racing, two Australians are joint-leaders of the Predictor-Lotto team, and say they can work together as their race objectives are different. Cadel Evans, a former mountain-biking champion, is an all-rounder while Robbie McEwen is the sprint finish specialist. Evans said that he would be happy to attack on the flat or on the mountains, which ever was possible. "In the Tour if you have got the legs to attack you do. If you don't you have to hang on until you do. It's, yeah, if I have got the legs to do it of course I will attack wherever I can," he said. McEwen said he was not interested in Saturday's prologue, but was concentrating instead on Sunday's first road stage from London to Canterbury in the country of Kent. "It should be one for the sprinters. Hopefully the peloton will come all together in Canterbury and that'll be my first chance to take a stage," he said.

ITN Source | July 7, 2007

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