CYCLING: POLICE RELEASE TOUR DRUG 'CONFESSIONS'

Publication of transcripts of police interviews with the Festina riders
thrown out of this year's Tour de France after drug allegations have dashed
Spanish hopes that this year's Tour of Spain would avoid the doping
controversies which dogged the French race in July.

The Vuelta field includes six of the nine Festina riders expelled from the
Tour de France and questioned by police in July over the seizure of a team
car loaded with erythropoietin (EPO), a banned hormone which increases the
quantity of red blood cells.

They include the Swiss rider Alex Zulle, who is going for his third
consecutive win in the race, and France's most popular rider Richard
Virenque.

The team's doctor Erik Rijkaert remains in prison in Lille, and the manager
Bruno Roussel is out on bail under the same charge: supplying banned
substances for use at sporting events.

In press interviews after the Tour de France, Zulle confessed to using EPO
and so did his team-mate Laurent Dufaux. But the transcripts of the police
interviews reveal, for the first time, the details of how the hormone is
taken, and in what quantities, to build form for major events. A member of
the inquiry team has confirmed that the interviews are authentic.

"The biggest doses of EPO were taken closer and closer together just before
major races such as the Tour de France," Dufaux told police. "They were
taken after some stage finishes in hotel rooms. It was already made up in a
syringe brought to me usually by Dr Rijkaert. Afterwards a team helper would
collect the syringe and put it in a bin bag."

The presence of Zulle and Dufaux in the Vuelta in spite of such testimonies
emphasises the lack of effective action in the six weeks since the Swiss
riders first confessed. Admission of drug-taking has the same weight as a
positive test, but cycling's governing body, the Union Cycliste
Internationale, has devolved responsibility for taking action against the
riders on to their national federations, who stalled, requesting clear
guidelines from the UCI on how to proceed.

Yesterday the Swiss Cycling Federation said it had called in the two riders
for interview on September 30, three days after the Vuelta finishes and one
day before the UCI's deadline for a judgment on the affair.

The French federation, which has to deal with the case of the world champion
Laurent Brochard and two of his Festina colleagues, Christophe Moreau and
Didier Rous, has said it has been unable to do so because the police have
not made the transcripts available.

Virenque has maintained his innocence, claiming ignorance even though,
according to his colleagues, EPO was taken widely in the 23-strong team, and
in spite of the fact that his winnings from the Tour de France went into a
fund used in part to pay for the drugs. "I obviously cannot be certain that
Dr Rijkaert did not administer doping products to me without my knowledge,"
he told police.

The Vuelta has been rocked by Zulle's assertion in the transcripts that EPO
was also widely used at one of Spain's top teams, Once, for whom he used to
ride and who include the world No. 1 and Vuelta favourite Laurent Jalabert.

The team manager Manolo Saiz said yesterday: "Anyone who gets a finger stuck
up their arse at 5am in a police station will say anything. Zulle was not
doped at Once."

And Zulle said: "It was only because of police pressure that I said I had
taken EPO."

The Spanish regard the French police's investigations into drug-taking on
the Tour as an unwarranted intrusion and see the publication of the
transcripts as the French mounting an attack on their national institution.

"Why September 7? Why in the middle of the Tour of Spain?" said an editorial
yesterday in the sports daily Marca. "Someone in France has it in for
Festina and the Vuelta, and because Once have given them a hand they have it
in for them, too."

The controversy has spread to the Commonwealth Games, where members of the
Australian camp expressed concern over the inclusion of one of the Festina
cyclists, Neil Stephens, in their team for the road races this weekend.
Stephens, a stage winner in the 1997 Tour, has admitted he may have been
given EPO without his knowledge, thinking it was a vitamin injection.

"I question whether the other cyclists will be comfortable racing against
him. And I also question the wisdom of the Commonwealth Games allowing him
to race," said Australia's International Olympic Committee member Phil
Coles.

Don Stockins, the Australian chef de mission at the Games, admitted that
there was "a certain amount of discomfort" at Stephens's inclusion. "Certain
members of the team felt uncomfortable."

Stephens was defended by Cycling Australia's president Ray Godkin. "The
matter is out of Neil's hands. It is between the Australian federation and
the world governing body what happens, and it will be clarified on October
1."

* The French government has set up a working group of leading figures from
sports medicine, law and sociology to help clamp down on the use of illegal
substances in sport. The group will make a preliminary report in
mid-October.

* The Italian Fabrizio Guidi won the 173.5km fourth stage of the Tour of
Spain, from Malaga to Granada, taking over the race lead from the Frenchman
Laurent Jalabert.

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst