Doping takes stage
NARBONNE, France – With the competition reduced to an afterthought, the Tour de France was rocked by another drug bust Thursday that left cycling’s showpiece event all but synonymous with doping.
This was the third time in this race that a rider has been caught, and it netted the biggest name yet: Italy’s Riccardo Ricco, a winner of two stages.
“You can’t believe that a wave of a magic wand can change the world of cycling,” Patrice Clerc, head of Tour organizer ASO, told a news conference. “It’s going to take time.”
Ricco was expelled from the race and detained by police to the boos of fans. His Saunier Duval-Scott team pulled out of the Tour and suspended all its activities. This is the third straight year the Tour has been undercut by doping.
The day’s 12th stage was won by Mark Cavendish of Britain while Cadel Evans of Australia retained the yellow jersey. But, as is often the case in cycling, drugs overshadowed all.
“May the cheaters get caught. May they go away,” Tour president Christian Prudhomme said. “I said to the riders before the race, behind closed doors, that you have the key. … Some didn’t get the message.”
Evans welcomed the drugs busts, and “that the sport is being cleaned up in serious, fair and transparent way. Our sport is being crucified for doing the right thing.”
As the stage got under way, Evans rode alongside the car of the Tour director, and said: “’Rest assured, we’re on the road toward a clean sport,”’ Prudhomme told the Associated Press.
All three riders were ousted for the performance enhancer EPO – cycling’s drug of choice. Ricco tested positive after the fourth stage.
“It’s just amazing. It’s irresponsible,” said David Millar, a British rider with the Garmin-Chipotle team. “This guy does not have any love or care for the sport.”
Millar, who rode with Saunier Duval-Scott last year, has become a leading critic of drug use after serving a two-year doping ban.
The Saunier Duval-Scott bus was later detained by gendarmes, and its contents were inspected, the state prosecutor for the Foix region, Antoine Leroy, said by phone.
Pierre Bordry, head of the French anti-doping agency, announced the positive result just before the stage. Some of Ricco’s teammates had already taken the starting line before returning to the team bus.
“It’s a team decision not to start the race,” Saunier Duval-Scott sporting director Matxin Fernandez said. “He’s our leader. We can’t act as if nothing happened.”
Ricco, the Giro d’Italia runner-up, won the sixth and ninth stages of this Tour and was ninth overall entering the day. He was 2 minutes, 29 seconds behind Evans.
“We are learning that things that look too good to be true are too good to be true,” Millar said.
The case was at least the ninth doping-related scandal at the last two Tours.