SHAMED TOUR GETS TOUGH ON DRUGS

THE Tour de France tried to rise above the anger and recriminations of
a summer tainted by drugs scandals by announcing at the launch of the
1999 route in Paris a series of radical measures in the hope of a
dope-free future. In a dramatic presentation ceremony both Jean-Marie
Leblanc, the race director, and Jean-Claude Killy, president of the
Tour de France, called for a new scandal-free era after the
humiliation of a year when the race was nearly abandoned.

"The worst is behind us," insisted Leblanc, as he unveiled the Tour's
new ethical code of conduct, in a terse statement aimed principally at
professional riders, team managers and sports doctors, emphasising the
race's new commitment to "zero tolerance".

For the first time the 1999 Tour de France, the world's largest annual
sporting event, will open its doors to inspection by the French
authorities. France's ministry for health and sports will conduct
independent medical tests on the 20 teams of nine riders on the eve of
the race's opening stage.

In addition, the race organisation, desperate to avoid any repeats of
last summer's embarrassing and damaging revelations, announced a set
of new regulations, under which it can expel or withdraw invitations
to any team or rider caught up in doping investigations, either before
or during the race. There will also be more rest days to put an end to
the cheats' oft-used justification that the race is too gruelling to
complete without drugs.

"The Tour had to react quickly and strongly to what happened," said
Leblanc. "We have decided to install our own rules and, as a private
company, we are free to invite who we want to our race."

But Killy, a former Olympic skiing champion, emphasised that even
though he admitted the Tour had touched rock bottom during last July's
scandals, it was down to sport as a whole and particularly the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) to formulate new measures to
combat the rise of doping.

"We thought doping was simply the problem of one team," Killy said,
"and then only of cycling. But we quickly understood that it was the
problem of sport as a whole. We call for a clear and definitive
definition of doping and the creation of an irreproachable anti-doping
institute and of laws in sport, which are recognised as the law. Only
the IOC, international sport's most-recognised body, can make
individual federations respect this."

Yet recent developments, such as a wholesale clearout at the disgraced
Festina team and the abandonment of Richard Virenque, the French star,
indicate a sea change in attitude among riders and sponsors that may
have a greater effect than any new regulations.

Virenque, who has continued to profess his innocence despite the
damaging confessions of several of his Festina team mates, has been
dropped by the Spanish watchmakers, who have themselves announced
their alignment with cycling's new ethical intentions.

But while the prospect of rider or team eliminations from next year's
Tour failed to shake Leblanc's resolve, there remains an ambiguity
over the likelihood of sanctions against those who break the new code
on drugs. "There is no automatic elimination for teams or riders but
we reserve the right to withdraw a team's invitation," Leblanc said
defiantly, before going on to criticise the sport's world governing
body, the Union Cycliste International (UCI) and, by implication, its
president Heinz Verbruggen, for failing to react more swiftly to events.

"I don't know if they're being protectionist but there is a certain
hesitancy. The UCI are not in the same position as us: they are an
international body while we are a private company," Leblanc said.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry