Tour de France favorites barred in drug scandal
Ex-winner Ullrich, Basso, dozens of others are out of cycling?s premier race
The Associated Press
Updated: 9:03 a.m. ET June 30, 2006
STRASBOURG, France - Favorites Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and other cyclists were barred Friday from the Tour de France in the biggest doping scandal to hit cycling in years.
The decision to prevent Ullrich, Basso and others from racing threw the sport?s premier race into upheaval the day before it begins.
Tour director Christian Prudhomme said the organizers? determination to fight doping was ?total.?
?The enemy is not cycling, the enemy is doping,? he said.
Riders being excluded will not be replaced, meaning a smaller field than the 189 racers originally expected.
It?s the biggest doping crisis to the hit the sport since the Festina scandal in 1998 nearly derailed the Tour. The Festina team was ejected from the race after customs officers found a large stash of banned drugs in a team car.
Basso, winner of the Giro d?Italia, and Ullrich ? the 1997 Tour winner and a five-time runner-up ? were among more than 50 cyclists said to have been implicated in a Spanish doping probe that has rocked the sport for weeks.
Basso and Ullrich?s teams said Friday that because their names had come up in the probe they were being withdrawn from the Tour. Ullrich?s T-Mobile squad said it also suspended rider Oscar Sevilla and sporting director Rudi Pevenage because of their involvement.
Basso was returning to Italy, his team said.
Tour officials did not immediately say how many other riders were barred from the race.
The Spanish doping scandal erupted in May when police carried out arrests and raids, seizing drugs and frozen blood thought to have been prepared for banned, performance-enhancing transfusions.
Since then, the names of riders said to have had contacts with Eufemiano Fuentes, a doctor among those arrested, have leaked in Spanish media. Ullrich was among those named.
Then, after more leaks Thursday, Spanish authorities released details from the probe to Tour organizers and other cycling bodies, showing which riders were implicated in the investigation. It was on the basis of that official information that Tour teams decided to act.
T-Mobile received information implicating Ullrich, Sevilla and Pevenage from Tour organizers, including documents from the Spanish government, team spokesman Luuc Eisenga said.
?The only thing I can tell you is that the information is clear enough and didn?t leave any doubt,? he said.
Another T-Mobile spokesman, Stefan Wagner, told Germany?s n-tv television that the team was acting on information indicating ?that there was contact between the two riders and Rudi Pevenage and the Spanish doctor ... who is at the center of this doping story.?
Asked whether T-Mobile would consider cutting ties with Ullrich completely, he replied ?certainly ... we are now demanding evidence of his innocence.?
?If this evidence can be provided, then we have a completely new situation,? he said. ?If it cannot be provided, nothing will change about this situation.?
The extent of Basso?s implication was not immediately clear. But his team said the suspicion hanging over him would have made his participation in the Tour difficult.
?It would be big chaos if those riders remain in the race,? said the manager of Basso?s team, Bjarne Riis. ?We have to protect cycling.?
Spanish racers Francisco Mancebo and Joseba Beloki were also among those named in media reports as being linked to the scandal. It was not immediately clear whether their teams were also barring them from the Tour.
Two Spanish cycling teams ? Astana-Wurth and Comunidad Valenciana ? have also been implicated. Comunidad Valenciana had its invitation to compete in the Tour rescinded, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled Thursday that the Astana-Wurth team ? which includes favorite Alexandre Vinokourov ? could not be excluded from the race.
